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  • 6 - ENGLISH IN AUSTRALIA

  • from PART II - English overseas
  • Edited by Robert Burchfield, University of Oxford
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of the English Language
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    17 November 1994, pp 275-327

  • Summary

    Australian English had its beginnings in the late eighteenth century in a convict settlement where people of diverse speech were brought together. The mechanism of linguistic borrowing between languages may be examined in the early history of the word kangaroo. It is first mentioned by Banks in 1770 as a native word. Samuel McBurney, a school principal in Victoria, travelled widely in Australia and New Zealand in the 1880s examining large classes of tonic sol-fa singers in schools. Though in general Australian English and RP, or the variants of Australian English within Australia, agree phonemically if not phonetically, there is not always correspondence in particular words. This chapter discusses the phonology, morphology and syntax of the Australian English. The most striking differences in the lexical distribution of phonemes in RP and Australian English are found in unstressed or weakly stressed syllables.