Australian English

to the group of dialects spoken in Australia that form

a major variety of the English language

foundation of the Colony of New South Wales in 1788.

the first Australian gold rushes, in the 1850s, also had a significant

influence on Australian English, including large numbers of people who spoke English as a second language.

of words, spellings, terms, and usages from North American English —

began during the goldrushes, and was accelerated by a massive influx of United States military personnel during World War II. The large-scale importation of television programs and other mass media content from the US, from the 1950s onwards, including more recently US computer software, especially Microsoft's spellchecker, has also had a significant effect

similar to that of New Zealand and is also similar to accents

from the South-East of Britain, particularly those of Cockney and Received Pronunciation. As with most dialects of English, it is distinguished primarily by its vowelphonology.
Australian English vowels are divided into two categories: long, which includes long monophthongs and diphthongs, and short, all of which are monophthongs

main varieties of Australian English. These are Broad, General and

Cultivated Australian English.

is familiar to English speakers around the world because of

its use in identifying Australian characters in non-Australian films and television programs. Examples include television personalities Steve Irwin and Dame Edna Everage, Pauline Hanson

is the variety of English used by the majority of

Australians and it dominates the accents found in contemporary Australian-made films and television programs. Examples include actors Russell Crowe, Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman.

often mistaken for it. Cultivated Australian English is now spoken

by less than 10% of the population. Examples include actors Judy Davis, Robert Hughes, Geoffrey Rush.

of Australian English, included billabong (a waterhole), jumbuck (a sheep), corroboree (an assembly), boomerang (a curved throwing stick),

and budgerigar (from budgeree, “good” and gar, “parrot”).

small and is confined to the namings of plants (like bindieye and calombo, trees (like boree, banksia, quandong and mallee),

birds (like currawong, galah and kookaburra), animals (like wallaby and wombat) and fish (like barramindi).

used familiar pidgin English variants like talcum and catchum. The most famous example is gammon, an

eighteenth-century Cockney word meaning “a lie”.

and East of England, London, Scotland and Ireland. To take just a

few examples, words like corker, dust-up, purler and tootsy all came Australia from Ireland; billy comes from the Scottish bally, meaning “a milk pail”. A typical Australianism like fossick, meaning “to search unsystematically”, is a Cornish word. Cobber came from the Suffolk verb to cob, “to take a liking to someone”. Tucker is widely used for “food”. Clobber has Romany roots and is originally recorded in Kent as clubbered up, meaning “dressed up”.

aggro (aggressive), ambo (ambulance office), arvo (afternoon), avo (avocado), bizzo (business), bottleo (bottle shop/liquor store), compo (compensation),

dero (homeless person – from derelict), devo (deviant/pervert), doco (documentary), evo (evening), fisho (fishmonger), fruito (fruiterer), garbo (garbage collector), gyno (gynaecologist), journo (journalist), kero (kerosene), metho (methylated spirits), milko (milkman), Nasho (National Service – compulsory military service), reffo (refugee), rego (vehicle registration), Salvo (member of the Salvation Army), servo (service station/gas station), smoko (smoke or coffee/tea break), thingo (thing, whadjamacallit), vejjo (vegetarian),etc.

Aussie (Australian), barbie (barbeque), beautie (beautiful, stereotypically pronounced and even written bewdy), bikkie (biscuit), bitie (biting

insect), blowie (blowfly), bookie (bookmaker), brekkie (breakfast), brickie (bricklayer), Brizzie (Brisbane – state capital of Queensland), Bushie (someone who lives in the bush), chewie (chewing gum), chokkie (chocolate), Chrissie (Christmas), exy (expensive),lippy (lipstick), oldies (parents), postie (postman), sunnies (sunglasses), surfy (surfing fanatic), swaggie (swagman), truckie (truck driver), vedgie (vegetable) etc.

Karen becomes Kazza and Sharon becomes Shazza.
There are also a lot of abbreviations in

Australian English without any suffixes. Examples of these are the words
beaut (great, beautiful), deli (delicatessen), nana (banana), roo (kangaroo), uni (university),etc.