Australian English is relatively homogeneous when compared withBritish andAmerican English. The major varieties of Australian English are sociocultural rather than regional. They are divided into 3 main categories: general, broad and cultivated.
There are a number of AustralianEnglish-based creole languages. Differing significantly from English, these are not considered dialects of English; rather, they are considered separate languages. Notable examples areTorres Strait Creole, spoken on theTorres Strait Islands, Northern Cape York and South-Western Coastal Papua; theNorfuk language, spoken by some inhabitants ofNorfolk Island, andAustralian Kriol, which developed in and around the Sydney region in the days of early settlement, and now exists only in rural areas of theNorthern Territory.
| Phoneme | Lexical set | Phonetic realization | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cultivated | General | Broad | ||
| /iː/ | FLEECE | [ɪi] | [ɪ̈i] | [əːɪ] |
| /ʉː/ | GOOSE | [ʊu] | [ɪ̈ɯ,ʊʉ] | [əːʉ] |
| /æɪ/ | FACE | [ɛɪ] | [æ̠ɪ] | [æ̠ːɪ,a̠ːɪ] |
| /əʉ/ | GOAT | [ö̞ʊ] | [æ̠ʉ] | [æ̠ːʉ,a̠ːʉ] |
| /ɑɪ/ | PRICE | [a̠e] | [ɒe] | [ɒːe] |
| /æɔ/ | MOUTH | [a̠ʊ] | [æo] | [ɛːo,ɛ̃ːɤ] |
Three main varieties of Australian English are spoken according to linguists:broad,general andcultivated.[2] They are part of a continuum, reflecting variations in accent. They can, but do not always, reflect the social class, education and urban or rural background of the speaker.[3]
Broad Australian English is recognisable and familiar to English speakers around the world. It is prevalent nationwide but is especially common in rural areas. Examples of people with this accent includeSteve Irwin,Paul Hogan and former prime ministersJulia Gillard,[4][5]Bob Hawke andJohn Howard.[6]In Australia, this dialect is sometimes calledStrine/ˈstɹɑɪn/ (or "Strayan"/ˈstɹæɪən/, a shortening of the wordAustralian), and a speaker of the dialect may be referred to as anOcker.[7] Tests indicated[citation needed] that the Broad speakers demonstrated a greater tendency forsyllable assimilation and consonantelision, were more likely to use weak consonants or restricted intonation (narrowpitch range), were more likely to speak slowly (drawl), and further, showed a greater tendency to exhibit pervasive nasality. Diphthongs are usually pronounced longer as well.[8] Along the East Coast, there is an approximate correlation between latitude and accent, being the further north one is, the more nasal/broad the accent. Nasality is already evident at theNew South Wales/Queensland border.
General Australian English is the most common of Australian accents.[9][10] It is especially prominent in urban Australia and is used as astandard language for Australian films, television programs and advertising. It is used byHugh Jackman,Rose Byrne,Rebel Wilson,Chris Hemsworth andEric Bana.
Cultivated Australian English has in the past been perceived as indicating high social class or education. Additionally, a study in 1989 reported that Cultivated Australian English speakers were being rated higher than Broad Australian English speakers in intelligence, competence, reliability, honesty, and status.[11] In comparison, Broad Australian English speakers are rated higher in terms of humorousness and talkativity, similar to what was found in a study in 1975 comparing regional British accents to RP (Received Pronunciation).[11] Cultivated Australian English also has some similarities toReceived Pronunciation and the learned "Transatlantic" accents andNortheastern elite accents of the United States as well. In recent generations, it has fallen sharply in usage.[9][10] However, the cultivated usages of[ɛɪ] in "face" and[aɪ] "price" have been integrated into the speech of some of the speakers of General Australian.[ɪi] forFLEECE is also within the General Australian range, as the ongliding of/iː/ is variable. Speakers with a Cultivated Australian accent includeCate Blanchett,Lisa Gerrard,Geoffrey Rush and former prime ministerMalcolm Fraser.
Australian Aboriginal English refers to a dialect of Australian English used by a large proportion of Indigenous Australians. It is made up of a range of forms which developed differently in different parts of Australia, and are said to vary along a continuum, from forms close to Standard Australian English to more non-standard forms. There are distinctive features of accent, grammar, words and meanings, as well as language use. The dialect is not to be confused withAustralian Kriol language, which is not mutually intelligible with Australian English but in fact a separate language spoken by over 30,000 people. On theTorres Strait Islands, a distinctive dialect known asTorres Strait English, the furthest extent of which isTorres Strait Creole, is spoken.[12]
The ethnocultural dialects are diverse accents in Australian English that are spoken by theminority groups, which are of non-English speaking background.[13] A massive immigration from Asia has made a large increase in diversity and the will for people to show their cultural identity within the Australian context.[14] These ethnocultural varieties contain features of General Australian English as adopted by the children of immigrants blended with some non-English language features, such as theAfro-Asiatic andAsian languages.[12]
From the 1960s and 1970s, major cities such as Sydney and Melbourne received large numbers of immigrants from Southern Europe and the Middle East (Italians, Greeks, Lebanese, Maltese, Croats, Macedonians, Turks etc.); the second generation of these immigrants can also have a distinct accent, in a similar fashion to the east coast of the United States with descendants of European migrants having the "Jersey accent".[citation needed]
Chinese-Australian English has the all-purpose exclamation "aiyah!"/"aiyoh!" (what a shame! – fromMandarin/Cantonese) and sometimes will end sentences with "lah" (fromSinglish).[15]
Lebanese Australian English (LAusE) has been prescribed as a new dialect of Australian English.[16] It is generally spoken by Australian speakers ofLebanese descent. Closely resembling the general Australian accent, the variety was based on the acoustic phonetic characteristics in the speech of young, Lebanese Australian male university students in Sydney, who speak English as their first language and also use vernacular Arabic. Compared to the standard Australian English, the students had minor vowel motion differences with striking voicing and related timing effects.[16][17]
Other Middle Eastern Australians too, particularly in the Sydney area (in the 2006 census, 72.8% of Lebanese-Australians lived in Sydney) have a similar dialect. AmongArab Australians, words such as "shoo" (what's up) and "yallah" (let's go/goodbye). "Habib" has a use similar to mate (meaning friend), but can also be a pejorative word for males who assert themselves aggressively – a type of person obsessed with grabbing girls' attention, "hotted-up" (meaning modified or hot-rodded) cars and loud music.[15]wallah is also used, meaning "I swear to God" or "Really!"
Although relatively homogeneous, some regional variations in Australian English are notable. The dialects of English spoken in the eastern states, where the majority of the population lives, differ somewhat to those spoken inSouth Australia,Tasmania andWestern Australia.[18][19] Another notable dialect isTorres Strait English, spoken by the inhabitants of the Torres Strait Islands. Torres Strait English, as distinct from Torres Strait Creole, developed separately to, but has been significantly influenced by, General Australian English.
The regional varieties of English can be distinguished in terms of vocabulary and phonology. With each local dialect taking words from various sources such as British, Irish and American English as well as localAboriginal languages, it is in vocabulary where regional varieties are most distinct from each other. Regional phonological features may be inherited due to differing settlement patterns or may have developed locally.
There are differences in thenames of beer glasses from one area to another. In the 2000s, however, the range of glass sizes in actual use has been greatly reduced. In New South Wales,swimwear is known asswimmers orcossie and, in Queensland, it istogs. In border areas such as theTweed Heads-Gold Coast area this can vary. In most other areas, the termbathers dominates. What is referred to by schoolchildren as a bag in most parts of Australia is known as a "port" by some Queenslanders. Further, the processed meat known as "devon" on the East Coast is known as "polony" on the West Coast, while in Central Australia (South Australia and the Northern Territory), the term "fritz" is used.[citation needed]
Tasmanian English features numerous deviations from mainland vocabulary, including "cordial" to refer to carbonated soft drink.[20][21] Tasmanian vocabulary also retains words from historic English dialects that have otherwise gone extinct – such asJerry (fog), nointer (a mischievous child), and yaffler (a loud mouthed, obnoxious person), derived from an archaic word for theGreen woodpecker. The Norfolk dialect word "rummum" (strange, odd person) has become "rum'un" (a scallywag, eccentric character).[22]
Many regional variations are due to Australians' passion for sport and the differences in non-linguistic traditions from one state to another: the wordfootball refers to the most popular code of football in different States or regions, or even ethnic groups within them.Victorians start a game ofAustralian rules football with aball up, Western Australians with abounce down; New South Wales people and Queenslanders start a game ofrugby league football orrugby union football with akick off, as do soccer players across Australia.[citation needed]
From 2004, the national governing body for Association football, (theFootball Federation Australia), has promoted the use of "football" in place of "soccer". Several media outlets have adopted this use,[23][24] while others have stuck with "soccer".[25][26][27][28][29] However, use ofthe word "football" to mean eitherAustralian football orrugby league, depending on the major code of the state, remains the standard usage in Australia. In all places, the specific name or nickname of the code ("soccer", "league", "union" or "Aussie rules") can often be heard used for disambiguation.
The slang wordfooty has been traditionally associated with either Australian rules football (Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania, Northern Territory) or rugby league football (New South Wales, Queensland). Prominent examples in popular culture areThe Footy Shows; also FootyTAB, a betting wing of the NSWTAB.
For many Australians, the verbbarrack (or the accompanying noun formbarracker), is used to denote following a team or club. Barrack has its origins in British English, although in the UK it now usually means to jeer or denigrate an opposing team or players. The expression "root (or rooting) for a team", as used in the United States, is not generally used in Australia (root is slang forsexual intercourse in Australia).[30]
There are many regional variations for describing social classes orsubcultures. Abogan is also referred to as abevan in Queensland. These variations, however, have almost completely been replaced by the termbogan. Tasmania sometime uses the terms Chigger and Ravo, derived from the low-socioeconomic suburbs ofChigwell andRavenswood, though bogan is also understood.[20]
Australian English has adopted and adapted words from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages, often forplace names (eg:Canberra,Wollongong,Geelong) or the names of animals (eg:kangaroo,kookaburra,barramundi) and plants (eg:waratah,kurrajong). A notable borrowing is "hard yakka" meaning hard work (fromYagara "yaga" meaning work).
There exists significant regional variation in terms of the extent to which thetrap–bath split has taken hold particularly before/nd/ (especially the suffix-mand),/ns/,/nt/,/ntʃ/ and/mpəl/. In words likechance,plant,branch,sample anddemand, the majority of Australians use/æː/ (as inhand). Some, however, use/ɐː/ (as incart) in these words, particularly in South Australia, which had adifferent settlement chronology and type from other parts of the country. In parts of Victoria and South Australia,castle rhymes withhassle rather thanparcel. Also, some may use/æː/ ingrasp,gasp,plaque andrasp.[31] The table below shows the percentage of speakers from different capital cities who pronounce words with/ɐː/ as opposed to/æ/.[32]
| Word | Hobart | Melbourne | Brisbane | Sydney | Adelaide | Ave. over all five cities |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| graph | 0% | 30% | 56% | 70% | 86% | 48% |
| chance | 0% | 60% | 25% | 80% | 86% | 50% |
| demand | 10% | 78% | 78% | 90% | 100% | 71% |
| dance | 10% | 35% | 11% | 30% | 86% | 34% |
| castle | 60% | 30% | 33% | 100% | 86% | 62% |
| grasp | 90% | 89% | 89% | 95% | 100% | 93% |
| to contrast | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 71% | 94% |
| Ave. over all seven words | 39% | 60% | 56% | 81% | 88% | 65% |
InWestern Australian English, the centring diphthong vowels innear andsquare are typically realised as full diphthongs,[iə] or[ia] and[eə] or[ea] respectively, whereas in the eastern states they may also be realised as monophthongs (without jaw movement),[iː] and[eː] respectively.[33]
When/l/ occurs at the ends of words before pauses and before consonants it sometimes sounds like a vowel sound rather than a consonant. This is because/l/ is made with two differentarticulations. One of the articulations is like a vowel articulation and the other is more like a typical consonant articulation. When/l/ occurs at the ends of words before pauses and before other consonants, the consonantal articulation can be obscured by the vowel articulation. This makes the/l/ sound like/ʊ/.[34]
The tendency for some/l/ sounds tobecome vowels is more common inSouth Australian English than that of other states.Milk, for example, in South Australia has a vocalised/l/, leading to the pronunciation[mɪʊ̯k], whereas in other states the/l/ is pronounced as a consonant.[35]
In Victoria, many speakers pronounce/æ/ and/e/ in a way that is distinct from speakers in other states. Many younger speakers from Victoria pronounce the first vowel in"celery" and "salary" the same, so that both words sound like "salary". These speakers will also tend to say "halicopter" instead of "helicopter", and pronounce their capital city (Melbourne) as[ˈmæɫbən]ⓘ. For some older Victorian speakers, the words "celery" and "salary" also sound the same but instead both sound like "celery". These speakers will also pronounce words such as "alps" as "elps".[36][37]
The vowel in words like "pool", "school" and "fool" varies regionally.[35]
'Perhaps I should start by saying that with my broad Australian accent, even the English speakers in the room may want to access the translation to make sure they're understanding my words,' [Gillard] joked.
Gillard had her broad Australian accent — something that served former prime ministers like Bob Hawke and John Howard particularly well