Australian English

Comparison with other varieties

Where British and American vocabulary differs, Australians sometimes favour a usage different from both varieties, as with footpath (for US sidewalk, UK pavement) or capsicum (for US bell pepper, UK green/red pepper). In other instances, it either shares a term with American English, as with truck (UK: lorry) or eggplant (UK: aubergine), or with British English, as with mobile phone (US: cell phone) or bonnet (US: hood).

A non-exhaustive selection of common British English terms not commonly used in Australian English include (Australian usage in brackets):

artic/articulated lorry (semi-trailer);

aubergine (eggplant);

bank holiday (public holiday);

bedsit (one-bedroom apartment);

bespoke (custom);

black pudding (blood sausage);

cagoule (raincoat);

candy floss (fairy floss);

cash machine (automatic teller machine/ATM);

child-minder (babysitter);

clingfilm (glad wrap/cling-wrap);

courgette (zucchini);

crisps (chips/potato chips);

doddle (bludge);

dungarees (overalls);

dustbin (garbage/rubbish bin);

dustcart (garbage/rubbish truck);

duvet (doona);

elastoplast/plaster (band-aid);

estate car (station wagon);

fairy cake (cupcake/patty cake);

flannel ((face) washer/wash cloth);

free phone (toll-free);

football (soccer);

high street (main street);

hoover (vacuum cleaner);

ice lolly (ice block/icy pole);

kitchen roll (paper towel);

lavatory (toilet);

lorry (truck);

off-licence (bottle shop);

pavement (footpath);

red/green pepper (capsicum);

pillar box (mail box);

plimsoll (sandshoe);

pushchair (pram/stroller);

saloon (sedan);

sweets (lollies);

utility room (laundry);

Wellington boots (gumboots).

A non-exhaustive list of American English terms not commonly found in Australian English include:

acclimate (acclimatise);

aluminum (aluminium);

bangs (fringe);

bell pepper (capsicum);

bellhop (hotel porter);

broil (grill);

burglarize (rob);

busboy (included under the broader term of waiter/waitress; rarely, table clearer);

candy (lolly);

cell phone (mobile phone);

cilantro (coriander);

cookie (biscuit);

counter-clockwise (anticlockwise);

diaper (nappy);

emergency brake (handbrake);

faucet (tap);

flashlight (torch);

gasoline (petrol);

hood (bonnet);

jell-o (jelly);

jelly (jam);

math (maths);

pacifier (dummy);

parking lot (car park);

popsicle (ice block/icy pole);

railway ties (sleepers);

row house (terrace house);

scallion (spring onion);

stickshift (manual transmission);

streetcar (tram);

takeout (takeaway);

trash can (garbage/rubbish bin);

trunk (boot);

turn signal (indicator/blinker);

vacation (holiday).

Terms shared by British and American English but not so commonly found in Australian English include:

abroad (overseas);

cooler/ice box (esky);

pickup truck (ute);

wildfire (bushfire).

In addition, a number of words in Australian English have different meanings to those ascribed in other varieties of English. Clothing-related examples are notable. Pants in Australian English refer to British English trousers but in British English refer to Australian English underpants; vest in Australian English refers to British English waistcoat but in British English refers to Australian English singlet; thong in both American and British English refers to underwear otherwise known as a G-string while in Australian English it refers to British and American English flip-flop.



2.3 Grammar of Australian English

As with American English, but unlike British English, collective nouns are almost always singular in construction, e.g. the government was unable to decide as opposed to the government were unable to decide.

In common with British English, the past tense and past participles of the verbs learn, spell and smell are often irregular (learnt, spelt, smelt).

Shan't and the use of should as in I should be happy if…, common in upper-register British English, are almost never encountered in Australian (or North American) English.

While prepositions before days may be omitted in American English, i.e. She resigned Thursday, they must be retained in Australian English, as in British English: She resigned on Thursday. Ranges of dates use to, i.e. Monday to Friday, as with British English, rather than Monday through Friday in American English.

River generally follows the name of the river in question as in North America, i.e. Darling River, rather than the British convention of coming before the name, e.g. River Thames. Note in South Australia however, the British convention applies-for example, the River Murray or the River Torrens.

When saying or writing out numbers, and is inserted before the tens and units, i.e. one hundred and sixty-two, as with British practice. However Australians, like Americans, are more likely to pronounce numbers such as 1200 as twelve hundred, rather than one thousand two hundred.

As with American English, on the weekend and studied medicine are used rather than the British at the weekend and read medicine.

Spelling, style and keyboards

As in most English-speaking countries, there is no official governmental regulator or overseer of correct spelling and grammar. The Macquarie Dictionary is used by universities and other organisations as a standard for Australian English spelling. The Style Manual: For Authors, Editors and Printers, the Cambridge Guide to Australian English Usage and the Australian Guide to Legal Citation are prominent style guides.

Australian spelling is closer to British than American spelling. As with British spelling, the u is retained in words such as colour, honour, labour and favour. While the Macquarie Dictionary lists the - our ending and follows it with the - or ending as an acceptable variant, the latter is rarely found in usage today. Australian print media, including digital media, today strongly favour - our endings. A notable exception to this rule is the Australian Labor Party, which adopted the American spelling in 1912 as a result of - or spellings' comparative popularity at that time. Consistent with British spellings, - re, rather than - er, is the only listed variant in Australian dictionaries in words such as theatre, centre and manoeuvre. Unlike British English, which is split between - ise and - ize in words such as organise and realise, with - ize favoured by the Oxford English Dictionary and - ise listed as a variant, - ize is rare in Australian English and designated as a variant by the Macquarie Dictionary. Ae and oe are often maintained in words such as manoeuvre, paedophilia and foetus (excepting those listed below), however the Macquarie dictionary lists forms with e (e.g. pedophilia, fetus) as acceptable variants and notes a tendency within Australian English towards using only e. Individual words spelt differently from British spelling, according to the Macquarie Dictionary, include «program» (in all contexts) as opposed to «programme», «inquire» (for all meanings) and derivatives «inquired», «inquiring», «inquiry», «inquirer», etc. as opposed to «enquire» and derivatives, «analog» as opposed to «analogue» (as with American English, «analog» is used in the context of information transmission and «analogue» in the sense of «something analogous to»), «livable» as opposed to «liveable», «guerilla» as opposed to «guerrilla», «yoghurt» as opposed to «yogurt», «verandah» as opposed to «veranda», «sulfur» and derivatives «sulfide», «sulfidic» and «sulfuric» as opposed to «sulphur» and derivatives, «burqa» as opposed to «burka», «pastie» (food) as opposed to «pasty», «onto» or «on to» as opposed to «on to», «anytime» as opposed to «any time», «alright» or «all right» as opposed to «all right», and «anymore» as opposed to «any more». Both «acknowledgement» and «acknowledgment», as well as «abridgement» and «abridgment» are used, with the shorter forms being endorsed by Australian governments. «Okay», rather than «OK», is listed as the preferred variant.

Different spellings have existed throughout Australia's history. A pamphlet entitled The So-Called «American Spelling», published in Sydney some time in the 19th century, argued that «there is no valid etymological reason for the preservation of the u in such words as honor, labor, etc.» The pamphlet also claimed that «the tendency of people in Australasia is to excise the u, and one of the Sydney morning papers habitually does this, while the other generally follows the older form.» What are today regarded as American spellings were popular in Australia throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with the Victorian Department of Education endorsing them into the 1970s and The Age newspaper until the 1990s. This influence can be seen in the spelling of the Australian Labor Party and also in some place names such as Victor Harbor. The Concise Oxford English Dictionary has been attributed with re-establishing the dominance of the British spellings in the 1920s and 1930s. For a short time during the late 20th century, Harry Lindgren's 1969 spelling reform proposal (Spelling Reform 1 or SR1) was popular in Australia and was adopted by the Australian government. SR1 calls for the short /e/ sound (as in bet) to be spelt with E (for example friend>frend, head>hed). Many general interest paperbacks were printed in SR1

Both single and double quotation marks are in use (with double quotation marks being far more common in print media), with logical (as opposed to typesetter's) punctuation. Spaced and unspaced em-dashes remain in mainstream use, as with American and Canadian English. The DD/MM/YYYY date format is used with Monday as the first day of the week (as with British practice), however the 12-hour clock is used almost universally (as in the United States).

There are two major English language keyboard layouts, the United States layout and the United Kingdom layout. Australia universally uses the United States keyboard. As such, Pound Sterling and Euro currency symbols do not appear on Australian keyboards, which also lack negation symbols and have punctuation symbols placed differently from the way they are placed on British keyboards.

The article is devoted to the Australian English. It is considered as a variant of the English language and shown in the process of historical development. The first settlers in Australia were exiled convicts, the representatives of the low social classes, the exiled people, who arrived from Great Britain. They introduced city vernacular, northern accents, cockney and dialects. The settlers extended the simplified variant of the English 1anguage, as they were not educated.

But from the other side the Australian variant was developing under the influence of the native people - aboriginals. In the end a separate variant of the English language appeared with its variant of pronunciation, unusual for the English language lexics and some violations in grammar structures. There are examples of Australian lexics use in the speech of native people in the article

These words of Australian Aboriginal origin include some that are almost universal in the English-speaking world, such as kangaroo and boomerang. Many such words have also become loan words in other languages beyond English, while some are restricted to Australian English.

Flora and fauna

· ballart

· barramundi

· bilby

· Bindii-eye

· bogong

· boobook

· brigalow

· brolga

· budgerigar

· bunyip

· burdardu

· coolibah

· cunjevoi

· curara

· currawong

· dingo

· drongo

· galah

· gang-gang

· geebung

· gidgee

· gilgie

· gymea

· jarrah

· joogee (yabee)

· kangaroo

· koala

· kookaburra

· kurrajong

· kutjera

· mallee

· marri

· mihirung

· mulga

· myall

· numbat

· pademelon

· potoroo

· quandong

· quokka

· quoll

· taipan

· wallaby

· wallaroo

· waratah

· warrigal

· witchetty

· wobbegong

· wombat

· wonga

· wonga-wonga

yabbyEnvironment

· billabong

· bombora (rapids-often used to describe offshore reef breaks)

· boondie (hardened clump of sand; Noongar, W.A.^[1])

· gibber (a boulder)

· gilgai

· min-min lights (ground-level lights of uncertain origin sometimes seen in remote rural Australia)

· pindari (high ground)

· willy willy (dust devil)

Aboriginal culture

· alcheringa

· bogey (a bath)

· boomerang

· bunyip

· coolamon (wooden curved bowl used to carry food or baby)

· corroboree

· djanga

· gunyah

· humpy (a hut)

· kurdaitcha

· lubra (an offensive word for woman, from a Tasmanian language)

· marn grook

· mia-mia (a hut)

· nulla-nulla

· turndun

· waddy (a wooden club)

· woggabaliri

· woomera

· wurlie - a hut

· Yara-ma-yha-who

Describing words

· Koori - Aboriginal people from Victoria and New South Wales

· cooee

· Murri - Aboriginal people from Queensland

· Nungga - Aboriginal people from South Australia

· Noongar - Aboriginal people from southern Western Australia

· yabber - to talk

· yakka - work

· yarndi - marijuana



Conclusion

In this research distinctions between Australian and British English options on an example were considered. Then the analysis of the studied literature which allows to track development of all these options of English was made.

Thus, in this work the following is proved:

1. These options of English is only local option, but not independent language. As it was shown in work, these options of English has neither the special dictionary structure, nor the special grammatical system.

2. In general, for these options of English the simplified writing is characteristic (for example, elimination of excess signs, an example of elimination of exceptions to the rules, the use of less widespread graphic versions of words more widespread). But at the same time, all these processes are carried out on English material.

In this work the research objective was achieved, namely: distinctions in lexicon of the British and Australian options of English are revealed.

Research problems were solved:

1) The condition of a problem in scientific and methodical literature is studied.

2) Distinctions of options of English on an example are provided.



References

1 Egorova O.A. Riddle of Australian accent // World. Language. Human: Internatoinal scientific and practical conference proceedings, 2008, pp. 207-209.

2 Murphy Raymond. English Grammar in Use. - Cambridge University Press, 1997

3 Available at: http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/AustralianEnglish (accessed 28 January 2014).

4 Burgess Anthony. A Mouthful of Air, 1992. Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Mouthful_of_Air (accessed 28 January 2014).

5 Hornby A.S. Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English: In 2 vol. Moscow; Oxford, 1998

6 Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macquarie_Dictionary (accessed 29 January 2014).

7 Moore, Bruce. Speaking our language: the story of Australian English. - South Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2008.

8 Available at: http://delo.ua/education/chem-otlichaetsja-avstralijskij-anglijskij-jazyk-ot-britanskogo-167725/ (accessed 30 January 2014)

9 Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia [site]. Available at: http://ru.wikipedia.org.

10 Available at: http://englcount.com/ /avstraliya/avstraliyskiy-angliyskiy-ili-vy-ne-mogli/ (accessed 30 January 2014).

11 Belyayeva M.A. English Grammar. - М, 1984.

12 Avis. Toronto A Dictionary of Americanisms of Historical principles, 1951. 41. W.S., 1997

13 Mencken H.L. The American Language. An inquiry into the development of English in the United States. New York, 1987.

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