Australian English

Australia gets its name because it is the southern continent. The classical world was vaguely aware that there might be such a continent—there were trade connections that stretched surprisingly far east and south. The Latin term was terra australis incognita ‘unknown southern land’. Once the continent was discovered by Europeans it was known as New Holland until 1824 when it was officially named Australia. Australia had, of course, been settled tens of thousands of years before the Europeans arrived. Over the years hundreds of different Aboriginal languages developed, and it is this variety of languages that has led to the confusion about the origin of the word kangaroo, which has now finally been settled. The folk etymology that the word means ‘I don’t know what you mean’ can be dismissed out of hand. In 1770 when Captain Cook found his ship was damaged on a coral reef, he landed by what is now known as Cooktown in north Queensland to make repairs. There the English saw their first kangaroos. They learnt that the local name was gaŋurru in the Guugu Yimidhirr language. What they did not realize was that that was their word for a certain type of kangaroo rather than a generic term, which was why other Europeans recorded other terms in the area. Things became even more confused when the First Fleet arrived at Botany Bay in 1788. The English assumed that the same language would be spoken there, and when they used the term kangaroo the local indigenous people assumed that it was a European word.

 Although many Australian plants and animals take their names from languages spoken by Aboriginal peoples (Aboriginal is now preferred to Aborigine, both first recorded in 1829 in Australia, based on the Latin ab origine ‘from the beginning’ recorded from 1537), only a few are well known outside the country. These include the koala [L18th], budgerigar [M19th], and kookaburra [M19th]. Even that strange creature the duck-billed platypus [L18th] bears a European name from Greek playt ‘flat’ and pous ‘foot’ from its webbed feet. Other well-known indigenous words are cooee [L18th] from Dharuk guwi, originally a call used to communicate with someone at a distance and later adopted by settlers; boomerang [L18th] from Dharuk bumariny; and billabong [M19th], originally a place name in New South Wales meaning a creek that only has water in it after rain, later applied generally to similar sites. This is known thanks to Banjo Paterson’s 1895 song ‘Waltzing Matilda’. Matilda was an affectionate name for the swag (see swagger) that the swagman [M19th] or itinerant worker carried his belongings in.

 In the centuries since English was introduced to the Australian continent it has developed a number of features that distinguish it from other Englishes. Sometimes this is because words, particularly from dialects, have survived after they have died out in Britain. Examples are dunny [M20th], a shortening of dialect dunniken, recorded in 1843 in Australia, from ‘dung’ and ken or ‘house’, or larrikin [M19th] for a hooligan, which was an English dialect word of unknown provenance. Cobber [L19th] for a friend is probably from dialect cob ‘to take a liking to’. Digger [M19th] on the other hand is simply a term for a miner, found earlier in the US, which was transferred to Anzac (see acronyms) private soldiers and then became a general term for ‘Australian’. Two other features of Australian English are the love of diminutives and of elaborately vivid turns of phrase. Examples of the first are Aussie [E20th], barbie [L20th] for *barbecue, tinny [M20th] for a can of beer or amber liquid (1943 in this form but 1906 as ‘amber fluid’), or stubby [1960s] for a small bottle of beer. Bluey is used for various things: a nickname for a red-headed man [E20th], a swagman’s blue blanket and the swag that it wrapped around [L19th], and other things.

 The distinctive turns of phrase are too many to list extensively, but here are a few examples. If you are very busy or travelling at top speed you can be flat out like a lizard drinking [M20th]. If you want to accuse someone of being mad you can say they have kangaroos in their top paddock [E20th]. If someone gets a raw deal, they get the rough end of the pineapple [1960s]. Prawn has been used for a fool since the 1980s and raw prawn [1940s] to mean an act of deception. To come the raw prawn means ‘to try to deceive’. If you want to doubt the word of the speaker you can say I didn’t come down in the last shower [L19th], or ask for a fair suck of the sauce bottle or of the saveloy [1970s] to express doubt or for them to be reasonable.

 See also acronyms, apple, ash, banger, bloomer, botany, chop, chuck, clock, crook, dinkum, drum, duff, floozy, grape, happy, jammy, lairy, lolly, melba, mocker, monitor, monkey, muck, muster, nark, nick, pat, pike, plonk, possum, rubbish, sledge, smoke, stump, sun, swagger, sweet, tall, tea, telegraph, test, walkabout, yahoo.