There eventually emerged a more common agreement on Australian English, sometimes known as General Australian.Īustralianisms such as dialect words and local slang is now much more acceptable in mainstream use, including at parliamentary level. READ MORE: Challenging Classism in Languagesīy the 1950’s, people tended to aspire less to sounding British and it became more socially acceptable to sound Australian. There was something of a class divide between those who spoke ‘Cultivated Australian’, a form of received pronunciation based on the variety of British English valued at the time, and those who spoke the common version of Australian English including all its vernaculars and unique pronunciations. For the first half of the 1900’s the population seemed to identify strongly with Britain and British values including class snobbery.Įlocution lessons were popular, as Australians tried to change their speech to sound more British and less Australian. In the 20th-century Australian society wrestled with its identity. These include words such as ‘battler’, used to describe a person that manages to support themselves in a challenging situation, or ‘bludger’, used to describe someone that lives off the efforts of others. Egalitarianism, and valuing people for the work they can do and their efforts to survive in a tough environment, emerged strongly as values.ĭialect words that the settlers brought with them from places such as the Midlands seem to have been retained in Australian English though they have largely disappeared from native Britain. Co-operation and communication were essential to survival, which may explain how the early language habits were established and promulgated in an independent and co-dependent society.įrom this isolated and challenging period emerged some of the characteristics that may have laid the cultural foundations for the modern Aust ralian character. Since the first 11 boats brought convicts and naval officers from Britain in 1788, the early colony faced many travails and already established relations with the native Aboriginal population by this date.Įarly trading partners came from both southern Africa and Indonesia but the colony was essentially very isolated in the early 1800’s. It’s now thought that the foundation of the Australian language character was already established as early as 1830. All these factors have influenced modern Australian English and helped craft its unique vocabulary and accent. In the last century, Australia has wrestled with questions about its own character and independence. Australians have also had a variety of language influences including Aboriginal and surrounding Asian contribution. Since the influx of British settlers began in around 1788, European Australians have dealt with relative isolation and the need to describe a very different world to their original homeland. It’s no wonder that Australian English has its own character.
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