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0:00
When you think of Australia, you might think of kangaroos, koalas, or premium Australian beer like Fosters Logger. Sorry, Aussies. But another thing you might think of is the distinct Australian way or ways of speaking English. The story of Australian English begins with the arrival of European settlers in Australia in 1788. Convicts from Britain and Ireland were exiled to New South Wales, which was founded as an overseas penal colony. They weren't all ruthless criminals, mind you. Many of
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them were only guilty of theft and some of them were children. Over 160,000 convicts were sent there over the next 80 years, mainly workingclass people from the major cities of England as well as Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. There were also many free settlers who joined them. The significance of this is that people speaking different English dialects from all over Britain and Ireland were essentially thrown together in the same place where they had to learn to understand one another.
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Remember, back then there was no radio or television to familiarize people with different accents. In order to understand each other well, they had to learn to speak in a way that was less regional. This resulted in dialect leveling. Dialectal variations were removed from their speech. You could say that the core of Australian English is a compromise between the various regional dialects of Britain and Ireland. And since then, Australian English has developed its own features, words, and
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expressions. It has also been influenced by additional waves of immigration since the days of the penal colony ended. There are basically three varieties of Australian English. Broad, general, and cultivated Australian English. They essentially form an accent continuum with the speaker's accent depending mostly on whether they grew up in a rural area or an urban area, their socioeconomic background, and perhaps the kind of subculture they identify with. Broad Australian English has the
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features that people outside of Australia tend to associate with Australian English. You know, when they think of Steve Irwin, the crocodile hunter or maybe Paul Hogan and Crocodile Dundee. And just a word of warning, Australians never say this. Throw another shrimp on the barbie unless they're taking the piss out of you. Taking the piss is an expression used in Britain and Australia that means to make fun of someone or mess with them. It's not used in North American English. I'm Canadian
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and I sometimes use it, but that's because I've picked it up from some Aussie friends of mine. Here are a few examples of broad Australian English that you'll probably only hear in rural areas or maybe amongst older people or amongst um Is it politically correct to say oers and boans? Yeah. No. Does that mean no? No. Yeah. Women are sometimes referred to as Sheila's. Somehow that one particular name Sheila came to represent women in general. For example, if I say, "Hey
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man, where's Liam?" In theory, I might get this reply. He's over there having a chat with some Sheila. Truth. She's a bit of a looker. Streth is used as an interjection to show surprise. It actually originated in the UK and is a contraction of God's truth, but now it's used much more in Australia. Streth, well, at least in broad Australian English. A similar word is karaki. This is also used as an interjection to show surprise, but again, this is limited to broad
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Australian English, unless someone's taken the piss. Taken the piss. Cultivated Australian English is spoken by less than 10% of Aussies. Non Aussies might mistake it for British received pronunciation. It has many fewer obviously Australian features. General Australian English is spoken by the majority of Aussies and is somewhere between the two. These different varieties of Australian English are not regional. For the most part, it's hard to tell the difference between people
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from Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, and other cities based on their accents. Some people also argue that there's a fourth accent, the accent of the outer suburbs of major cities, which developed among communities that have immigrated to Australia since the Second World War. This kind of accent is often perceived as an immigrant accent, though it's spoken among the children and grandchildren of immigrants and crosses ethnic boundaries in those neighborhoods. Most of the examples after this point in
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the video will be more or less general Australian English spelling. Australian English normally follows British spelling conventions rather than American. That means in words like organize and authorize, the is spelling is normally preferred to the I spelling. Words like color and flavor are spelled with o r rather than o r. Words like center and liter are spelled with r e rather than e r and so on. The reason why American English uses different spellings from British English is
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because of Noah Webster, whose dictionary published in 1828 chose certain variant spellings to be the American ones in order to make American English distinct. This was specific to the US, so it didn't affect Australia. Pronunciation. Australian accents are Rless accents or non-rotic accents, meaning that the R sound is not pronounced at the end of a syllable or word unless there's a word beginning with a vowel after it. This is the same as in most accents of England. For example, care.
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Compare that to my rodic Canadian accent. Care care. I don't care. I don't care. Different accents of English are mainly distinguished by differences in vowels, and that's the case with Australian English. For instance, Aussie English basically has two a and a. Some words are pronounced with a in both Australian and North American English. For example, cat. Cat. Nap. nap. But other words that I would pronounce with an a sound are often pronounced differently with a long ah in Australian
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English. For example, bath. Bath. Laugh. Laugh. This is because of a split that occurred in the early modern English vowel a. In southern England, the sound began to change to a long a sound as in father before certain sounds. This is referred to as broad a. This change made its way to Australia, but the vowel became a central vowel. rather than a back vowel ah bath rather than the British word bath. This distinction is not used across the board in Australian English though it has the
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most influence in South Australia. The most noticeable feature of Australian English pronunciation is probably its diff thongs. An Australian greeting I'm sure you've heard is good or good mate. It's really only Aussies who use this as a greeting, but if I tried to say it, it would sound like good day mate. Listen to the difference in the diff thongs, the vowel sounds. Good day. Good day. Mate, mate. The word day is not to be confused with the word die. Die.
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The equivalent of American and British I is I. For example, price. Price. Hide. Hide. There's also a different Australian pronunciation of the diff thong that I would pronounce as Australians say something like a how how downtown. downtown. There's also a diff thong that I pronounce as oi. Australians say something more like oi. Boy, boy. The Aussie sound is less open. Another is the defthong O as in boat. Australians say boat. There are some characteristic features
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of inonation in Australian English. One such feature is called high-rising terminal. This means that Australians often say clauses within a statement with inonation that rises at the end, like a yes or no question in North American or British English. In the following example, you can hear it at the end of the first clause. Uh, met Robo down the park. Um, then we met up with a couple of mates and, uh, played a bit of footie. This kind of inonation is standard in
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Australia. These days, you might hear it sometimes in North America and the UK as well, though a lot of people find it annoying. You might hear it referred to as uptalk. Vocabulary. While the vast vast majority of Australian English vocabulary is the same as in other varieties, it does have its own word preferences as well as words and expressions that are uniquely Aussie. The most famous Aussie phrase just might be did I mate? As we heard before, just like in the UK,
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Aussies often refer to friends as mates. As in the UK, the word mate is used in contexts where North Americans would say friend or maybe man when addressing someone casually. But unlike in the UK, in Australia, mate is not limited to casual situations or to your peers. You can use it with older people or people with a higher rank or position than you. This reflects the overwhelmingly casual nature of Aussies and the way they communicate. To inquire about someone's
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well-being, you might hear them ask, "Hey, you going?" As a North American, this sounds strange to my ears. We ask, "How's it going?" rather than, "How are you going?" Similarly, when you apologize, an Aussie might say, "You're all right." rather than, "That's all right." Which is what I would say. The first time I heard this, I was confused. Like, why are you telling me I'm all right? Another expression that's likely to confuse us North Americans is sh. Who's she referring to? Well, no one.
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It's referring to the situation. I would say it'll be all right or it'll be fine. When Aussies want to get someone's attention, you might hear them say, "Oi." I would say, "Hey," instead, "Oi, mate." Hey man. Fair income. Or just in. This expression means genuine, honest, or true. It can also be used as a question. Fair income for real. And it can be used as an adjective to describe someone. He's a fair income. This is like saying he's a true Aussie. I've come across a
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couple of possible etmologies of this expression. One of them states that it comes from a dialectal word of England. Dinkham meaning hard work. Another etmology states that it comes from Cantonese which was spoken by prospectors in the early gold mines. Dingum meaning real gold. Though I tend to think the first etmology is the correct one. Remember that sentence from a moment ago. He's a fading Aussie. Well, we could expand that a little. He's a fair dinkham true blue Aussie mate.
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I might say he's a real genuine Aussie. True blue. This phrase is kind of like fair dinkham meaning true as in genuine but also has the meaning of loyal. And to all the people with that positive personality trait, I say good. Good is what Aussies say when they want to show they're impressed or they respect something good you've done. I would probably say nice work or good job. From what I understand, good on you comes from hiberno English, that is Irish English. Note that good on you can
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be used both sincerely and sarcastically. For example, let's say I'm bragging about how much of a pimp I am and how I scored last night. Yeah, right, mate. Good on you. When you say thanks, an Aussie might reply with no worries. Which is like saying no problem or don't worry about it. No worries can also be used in response to an apology. No worries is a way of life in Australia and something of a national motto. Aussies tend to be light-hearted and not take things too seriously. But if you're
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one of those people who tends to complain or sulk or if you're easily offended, you might be called a s or as an adjective si. Aussies love to use dimminative words, special forms of words that show endearment. This is usually done through shortening a word and adding a special suffix to it. Afternoon becomes alo. This afternoon becomes thiso or savo. Barbecue becomes barbie. Mosquito becomes mozzy. Football becomes footy. Cigarette becomes siggy. Sandwich becomes sanger. Postman becomes posty.
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Garbage man becomes garbo. Christmas becomes Chrissy. Chocolate biscuit. Chalky bicky. Service station becomes servo. And that's for a service station, meaning a gas station or petrol station. McDonald's becomes Mackers. And this is ubiquitous throughout Australia. Isolation becomes ISO as in quarantine due to 19. How'd you go during ISO? There are also some words in Aussie English that originate in Aboriginal languages of Australia. One example you might hear, in particular in broad
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Australian English, is harder, which means hard work. Yaka is a word from the Yagura language which used to be spoken in the Brisbane region. This word made its way into Australian English through the English-based pigeon language that was originally used between European settlers and Aboriginals. That pigeon later developed into Australian Creole, which is still spoken by around 20,000 people today in the Northern Territory. There are some other well-known nouns that represent
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specific things in the Australian environment like dingo or boomerang which come from the extinct dar language which used to be spoken in the Sydney area. Australian English is largely the same as other varieties of English but with their own accents, vocabulary and attitude that reflect the laid-back nature of Aussies. Endearing and friendly are two words that come to mind when I think of Aussies and their way of speaking English. Oh, one final feature of Australian English that we can get
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into is their extremely liberal use of the word though YouTube might ban me if I talk about that. So maybe I should just move on to the question of the day for speakers of Aussie English. I'm sure there are heaps of Aussie words and expressions that I didn't have time to mention in the video. So what other ones would you like to add? Write them in the comments down below. And this is the part of the video when I say thanks to my Patreon patrons, especially my top
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tier patrons whose names appear on the screen. Becoming a member on Patreon gives you various benefits like early releases, ad free and promotionfree videos, and access to a patrononly online community. Check out patreon.com/langfocus for more information. And to everyone, thank you for watching and have a good one.
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