Features of Australian English

    We continue our series of materials about dialects and accents of the English language. And this time let's talk about Australia.

    In a linguistic context, the development of English in Australia is attracting attention. After all, the first settlers on the mainland, not counting the natives, were exiled convicts, who were convicted in Britain for serious crimes. And naturally, the vast majority of them knew the language very mediocre. Many did not know how to write, but talked with wild accents or multiple grammatical errors.

    So the conditions for the development of the language are very, very strange. What came of it - let's find out.

    History of Australian English


    Colonization of Australia by Great Britain began in 1788, when the British founded the colony of New South Wales on the territory of the mainland.

    At that time in Britain were not the best of times. The prisons were crowded due to the increased crime rate. And for the construction of new correctional colonies, considerable investments were required.

    Therefore, the authorities decided to send convicts for serious crimes to another continent - to Australia. Initially, they planned to make New Wales a free colony, but there was an extremely acute shortage of workers. And there were not many who wanted to move so far.

    Thus began the history of the development of Australia, is directly related to British criminals of all stripes.

    The forced labor exile to Australia lasted as long as 80 years. Only in 1868 was a decree issued to stop sending criminals to the mainland.

    Interestingly, the researcher Peter Miller Cunningham already in 1820 wrote in his works that Australian English is very different from British.

    In his book Two Years in New South Wales, he noted: “Australian English can be seen as a kind of petrified cockney from the Dickens era .

    In the 1850s, gold reserves were suddenly discovered in Australia. And then a stream from the British, who were looking for a better life, literally surged into the mainland. Over the next 50 years, approximately 2% of the total population of Britain moved to Australia.

    Here began the second wave of the development of English in Australia. Illiterate English convicts began to acquire structure. However, the language at that time was changing quite actively.

    Well-known linguist Bruce Moore argued: "Migrants from southeast England made a big contribution to the development of Australian English during the gold rush . "

    Australian English: features and nuances


    In Australian English, there are many borrowings from different languages: German, Polish, Belgian and other European, which became popular during the gold rush. People preferred to live their own national groups, because of which the internal words and phrases of individual peoples often took root in specific locations. Especially a lot of borrowings and unique names in the field of culinary and geographical names.

    For example, boiled-smoked pork sausage in different Australian states has different names:

    • in the state of South Australia - “fritz”;
    • in New South Wales - “devon”;
    • on the island of Tasmania - "Belgium sausage";
    • in the city of Newcastle - "Empire sausage";
    • in the state of Western Australia - “polony”;
    • Queensland - Windsor sausage
    • in Victoria, Strasburg or German sausage.

    Some linguistic scholars compare Australian English with a museum that has preserved the regionalisms of the 18th and 19th centuries, which have long been forgotten in British English.

    It is noteworthy that Australian English uses words from all regions of Britain without exception, which indicates a significant mixture of cultures and languages. For example, words from:

    • Ireland:

    dust up - fight;
    tootsie - leg (diminutive “foot” form);
    corker - a terrific instance (about a person or thing).

    • Scotland: billy - a bucket for milk;
    • Workshire: larrikin - bully;
    • Cornwall: to fossick - dig, look for gold;
    • Central counties of England: to stonker - to torment.
    • Suffolk: cobber - friend, buddy;
    • Kent: clobber - dressed up, "peacock".

    Nevertheless, many phrases authentic and interestingly reflect the realities of Australian life:

    • Shark biscuits - literally: "cookies for sharks." So-called newcomers-surfers.
    • Wouldn't shout if a shark bit him - verbatim: “He won’t scream, even if a shark bites him.” So they call a person stingy and greedy. This phrase has a curious pun, because “shout” means not only “screaming”, but also “treating someone”.
    • Boomerang is a boomerang. It means not only the famous Aboriginal weapons, but also any thing that you took to use and it must be returned.
    • Down Under - "under the equator." So called New Zealand and Australia.

    More Australians are very fond of contractions. After all, why say a long word, if you can pick up a short equivalent to it?

    • Document - doco;
    • Smoking - smoko;
    • Football - footie.

    Even the self-name of the Australians went from contraction. Indigenous people call themselves "aussie", short for "australians."
    The British and Americans have won the Australians their own playfully mocking names.

    Americans are often called "Seppos." The etymology of the word is very interesting - it comes from the rhyming Cockney dialect. It is formed by the chain "Yanks" - "Septic tanks" - "Seppos". And although it was the rhymed cockney in Australia that practically did not take root, there is a memory of it.

    The British in Australia are called pommie or pom. What it is connected with is not entirely clear, but linguists have several versions. The first is the color of the uniform of British soldiers. Pom is one of the designations of red color. For example, in the word pomegranate. The second popular version says that pome is an abbreviation for prisoners who came from Britain. "Prisoner of mother England." The second version sounds more interesting, but personally, we are inclined to the first.
    In general, Australian English is not a problem. British spelling, vocabulary mostly - too. There are a small number of American words and a small percentage of native Australian from Aboriginal languages.

    It is interesting that the more important and relevant for the Australians is the field of activity, the more unique words and designations are in it. The largest number of authentic words are in the areas of flora and fauna, landscape, livestock, mining, including gold. In general areas of knowledge, Australians use generally accepted vocabulary.

    Britons visiting Australia note that Australian English is more informal than British and even American. In the order of things, turn to a stranger “Hi, mate” - this will not be considered rude. Of course, if every second animal on the continent is trying to kill you and bite you, then certainly “all people are brothers”.

    Spoken Australian English uses unusual phrases for the British. For example:

    • Good on yer! - Good afternoon!
    • How're you going? - How are you?

    There are not too many similar differences, but they need to be learned.

    The pronunciation of Australians as a whole is quite understandable, but Australians often resort to abbreviations and omissions.



    Most often, unaccented vowels and muffled consonants are skipped. In a quick conversation, it sounds as if some of the sounds are simply swallowed.

    But if you understand fluent British English, then there will be no problem understanding Australian English. Unless it takes a little time to get used to the style of speech.

    There is a big differentiation in terms of emphasis, depending on the location. In large cities, pronunciation is closer to British English, but the farther from them, the stronger the emphasis is felt.

    conclusions


    Australian English is a real vinaigrette, which combines the features of different variants of English, the Aboriginal language, as well as a separate vocabulary from many European languages.

    If we take into account Australia’s long-standing isolation from the “Big World” due to remoteness, then in fact linguists got a large-scale experiment in which one can trace how languages ​​mix and create a dialect with their own peculiarities and interests.

    We recommend Australian English to be studied separately only for those who plan to move to Australia or will conduct business with Australian companies. The rest will be interested to get acquainted with it for general development, but it is better to study the classic options: British or American English.

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