89-493: Hard left or hard-left is a term that is used particularly in Australian and British English to describe the most radical members of a left-wing political party or political group . The term is also a noun and modifier taken to mean the far-left and the left-wing political movements and ideas outside the mainstream centre-left . The term has been used to describe wings and factions of several political parties across
178-512: A stroller is usually called a pram in Victoria, Western Australia, South Australia, New South Wales, and Tasmania. Preference for some synonymous words also differ between states. Garbage (i.e., garbage bin, garbage truck) dominates over rubbish in New South Wales and Queensland, while rubbish is more popular in Victoria, Tasmania, Western Australia and South Australia. Additionally,
267-406: A "dinky-di Aussie" is a "true Australian". Australian poetry , such as " The Man from Snowy River ", as well as folk songs such as " Waltzing Matilda ", contain many historical Australian words and phrases that are understood by Australians even though some are not in common usage today. Australian English, in common with British English , uses the word mate to mean friend , as well as
356-586: A distinct people of Melanesian ancestry, indigenous to the Torres Strait Islands, which are at the northernmost tip of Queensland near Papua New Guinea , and some nearby settlements on the mainland. The term "Aboriginal" is traditionally applied to only the indigenous inhabitants of mainland Australia and Tasmania , along with some of the adjacent islands. Indigenous Australians is an inclusive term used when referring to both Aboriginal and Torres Strait islanders (the "first peoples"). Dispersing across
445-565: A full vowel ( /ˈnesəseɹiː, ˈmalbeɹiː, ˈmætɹəməʉniː/ ) or a schwa ( /ˈnesəsəɹiː, ˈmalbəɹiː, ˈmætɹəməniː/ ). Although some words like necessary are almost universally pronounced with the full vowel, older generations of Australians are relatively likely to pronounce these affixes with a schwa as is typical in British English. Meanwhile, younger generations are relatively likely to use a full vowel. Words ending in unstressed -ile derived from Latin adjectives ending in -ilis are pronounced with
534-415: A full vowel, so that fertile /ˈfɜːtɑɪl/ sounds like fur tile rather than rhyming with turtle /ˈtɜːtəl/ . In addition, miscellaneous pronunciation differences exist when compared with other varieties of English in relation to various isolated words, with some of those pronunciations being unique to Australian English. For example: Relative to many other national dialect groupings, Australian English
623-477: A fully backed allophone of /ʉː/ , transcribed [ʊː] , is common before /l/ . As a result, the pairs full/fool and pull/pool differ phonetically only in vowel length for those speakers. The usual allophone for /ʉː/ is further forward in Queensland and New South Wales than Victoria. The General Australian accent serves as the standard variety of English across the country. According to linguists, it emerged during
712-477: A proportion of the total population was as follows: 57.2% European (including 46% North-West European and 11.2% Southern and Eastern European ), 33.8% (including 29.9% Australian) Oceanian , 17.4% Asian (including 6.5% Southern and Central Asian , 6.4% North-East Asian , and 4.5% South-East Asian ), 3.2% North African and Middle Eastern , 1.4% Peoples of the Americas , and 1.3% Sub-Saharan African . At
801-556: A range of forms which developed differently in different parts of Australia, and are said to vary along a continuum, from forms close to Standard Australian English to more non-standard forms. There are distinctive features of accent, grammar, words and meanings, as well as language use. Academics have noted the emergence of numerous ethnocultural dialects of Australian English that are spoken by people from some minority non-English speaking backgrounds. These ethnocultural varieties contain features of General Australian English as adopted by
890-403: A result of changes in the demographic makeup of immigrants and as there has been increased economic and cultural intercourse with Asian nations, Australia has observed the gradual emergence of a "Eurasian society" within its major urban hubs, blending both European and Asian material and popular culture within a distinctly Australian context. Other influences include Australian Aboriginal culture ,
979-493: A result of many shared linguistic, historical, cultural and geographic characteristics, Australians have often identified closely with New Zealanders in particular. Australian citizenship prior to 1949 was a social, moral, and political concept. Prior to the introduction of Australian citizenship , Australians had the status of " British subjects ". The High Court of Australia in Potter v Minahan (1908) stated that "Although there
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#17328450839111068-601: A series of gold rushes in the 1850s and after the First and Second World Wars, with many post-World War II migrants coming from Southern Europe , Eastern Europe and The Middle East . Since the end of the White Australia policy in 1973, immigrants to Australia have come from around the world, and from Asia in particular. The predominance of the English language , the existence of a parliamentary system of government drawing upon
1157-1024: A stream or small river, whereas in the UK it is typically a watercourse in a marshy area; paddock in Australia means field, whereas in the UK it means a small enclosure for livestock; bush or scrub in Australia, as in North America, means a natural, uncultivated area of vegetation or flora, whereas in England they are commonly used only in proper names (such as Shepherd's Bush and Wormwood Scrubs ). Some elements of Aboriginal languages have been adopted by Australian English —mainly as names for places, flora and fauna (for example dingo ) and local culture. Many such are localised, and do not form part of general Australian use, while others, such as kangaroo , boomerang , budgerigar , wallaby and so on have become international. Other examples are cooee and hard yakka . The former
1246-402: Is found across the continent and is relatively more prominent in rural and outer-suburban areas. A largely historical Cultivated sociocultural variant, which adopted features of British Received Pronunciation and which was commonplace in official media during the early 20th century, had become largely extinct by the onset of the 21st century. Australian Aboriginal English is made up of
1335-683: Is generally retained in other consonant clusters . In common with most varieties of Scottish English and American English , the phoneme /l/ is pronounced by Australians as a "dark" (velarised) l ( [ɫ] ) in almost all positions, unlike other dialects such as Received Pronunciation , Hiberno (Irish) English , etc. Differences in stress, weak forms and standard pronunciation of isolated words occur between Australian English and other forms of English, which while noticeable do not impair intelligibility. The affixes -ary , -ery , -ory , -bury , -berry and -mony (seen in words such as necessary, mulberry and matrimony ) can be pronounced either with
1424-493: Is home to a diversity of cultures , a result of its history of immigration . Since 1788, Australian culture has primarily been a Western culture strongly influenced by early Anglo-Celtic settlers. The cultural divergence and evolution that has occurred over the centuries since European settlement has resulted in a distinctive Australian culture. As the Asian Australian population continues to expand and flourish as
1513-516: Is mostly evident in phonology. Although Australian English is relatively homogeneous, there are some regional variations. The dialects of English spoken in the various states and territories of Australia differ slightly in vocabulary and phonology. Most regional differences are in word usage. Swimming clothes are known as cossies , /ˈkɔziːz/ togs or swimmers in New South Wales, togs in Queensland, and bathers in Victoria, Tasmania, Western Australia and South Australia. What Queensland calls
1602-455: Is no Australian nationality as distinguished from British nationality, there is an Australian species of British nationality." The Australian Bureau of Statistics does not collect data on race , but asks each Australian resident to nominate up to two ancestries each census . These ancestry responses are classified into broad standardised ancestry groups. At the 2021 census, the number of ancestry responses within each standardised group as
1691-454: Is no exception. Australian English is uniformly non-rhotic ; that is, the /ɹ/ sound does not appear at the end of a syllable or immediately before a consonant. As with many non-rhotic dialects, linking /ɹ/ can occur when a word that has a final ⟨r⟩ in the spelling comes before another word that starts with a vowel. An intrusive /ɹ/ may similarly be inserted before a vowel in words that do not have ⟨r⟩ in
1780-479: Is relatively consistent across the continent, although it encompasses numerous regional and sociocultural varieties . "General Australian" describes the de facto standard dialect , which is perceived to be free of pronounced regional or sociocultural markers and is often used in the media. The earliest Australian English was spoken by the first generation of native-born colonists in the Colony of New South Wales from
1869-697: Is relatively homogeneous across the country. Some relatively minor regional differences in pronunciation exist. A limited range of word choices is strongly regional in nature. Consequently, the geographical background of individuals may be inferred if they use words that are peculiar to particular Australian states or territories and, in some cases, even smaller regions. In addition, some Australians speak creole languages derived from Australian English, such as Australian Kriol , Torres Strait Creole and Norfuk . Academic research has also identified notable sociocultural variation within Australian English, which
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#17328450839111958-511: Is sometimes omitted in broader Australian English. For instance, "really good" can become "real good". Australia's switch to the metric system in the 1970s changed most of the country's vocabulary of measurement from imperial to metric measures. Since the switch to metric, heights of individuals are listed in centimetres on official documents and distances by road on signs are listed in terms of kilometres and metres . Australians Australians , colloquially known as Aussies , are
2047-429: Is the first language of the majority of the population , and has been entrenched as the de facto national language since British settlement , being the only language spoken in the home for 72% of Australians . It is also the main language used in compulsory education, as well as federal, state and territorial legislatures and courts. Australian English began to diverge from British and Hiberno-English after
2136-509: Is thought to be higher than the numbers captured in the census as those nominating their ancestry as "Australian" are classified within the Oceanian group, and the Australian Bureau of Statistics has stated that most who nominate "Australian" as their ancestry are Anglo-Celtic Australians . Since soon after the beginning of British settlement in 1788, people of European descent have formed
2225-502: Is used as a high-pitched call, for attracting attention, (pronounced /ˈkʉːiː/ ) which travels long distances. Cooee is also a notional distance: "if he's within cooee , we'll spot him". Hard yakka means "hard work" and is derived from yakka , from the Jagera /Yagara language once spoken in the Brisbane region. The word bung , meaning "dead" was originally a Yagara word which was used in
2314-585: The de facto national language. Australian English is a major variety of the language with a distinctive accent and lexicon, and differs slightly from other varieties of English in grammar and spelling. General Australian serves as the standard dialect. At the 2021 census, English was the only language spoken in the home for 72% of the population. The next most common languages spoken at home are Mandarin (2.7%), Arabic (1.4%), Vietnamese (1.3%), Cantonese (1.2%) and Punjabi (0.9%). Over 250 Indigenous Australian languages are thought to have existed at
2403-524: The Australian colonies . From the mid-19th century, Chinese dubbed Australia the New Gold Mountain after the Gold Mountain of California in North America. They typically sent money to their families in the villages, regularly visited their families, and retired to their home villages after many years working as market gardeners , shopkeepers or cabinet-makers . As with many overseas Chinese groups
2492-575: The Conservative Party 's election campaigns of the early 1990s, and by the media. It has continued to be used pejoratively for the left-wing of the Labour Party. Australian English Australian English ( AusE , AusEng , AuE , AuEng , en-AU ) is the set of varieties of the English language native to Australia . It is the country's common language and de facto national language ; while Australia has no official language , English
2581-705: The First Fleet established the Colony of New South Wales in 1788. Australian English arose from a dialectal melting pot created by the intermingling of early settlers who were from a variety of dialectal regions of Great Britain and Ireland , though its most significant influences were the dialects of South East England . By the 1820s, the native-born colonists' speech was recognisably distinct from speakers in Britain and Ireland. Australian English differs from other varieties in its phonology , pronunciation , lexicon , idiom , grammar and spelling . Australian English
2670-657: The Philippines , while many are descendants of such immigrants. The very early history of Chinese Australians involved significant immigration from villages of the Pearl River Delta in Southern China. More recent Chinese migrants include those from Mandarin and other Chinese dialects or forms. Less well-known are the kinds of society Chinese Australians came from, the families they left behind and what their intentions were in migrating. Gold rushes lured many Chinese to
2759-651: The Roman Catholic Church (20% of the population) and the Anglican Church of Australia (9.8%). Multicultural immigration since the Second World War has led to the growth of non-Christian religions, the largest of which are Islam (3.2%), Hinduism (2.7%), Buddhism (2.4%), Sikhism (0.8%), and Judaism (0.4%). In 2021, just under 8,000 people declared an affiliation with traditional Aboriginal religions. According to Australian Aboriginal mythology and
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2848-465: The Second World War , the vast majority of settlers and immigrants came from the British Isles (principally England , Ireland , Wales and Scotland ), although there was significant immigration from China and Germany during the 19th century. Many early settlements were initially penal colonies to house transported convicts . Immigration increased steadily, with an explosion of population in
2937-453: The Westminster system , constitutional monarchy , American constitutionalist and federalist traditions, Christianity as the dominant religion, and the popularity of sports including cricket , rugby football and tennis are evidence of a significant Anglo-Celtic heritage derived from the descendants of early settlers who form an ancestral group known as Anglo-Celtic Australians . As
3026-563: The animist framework developed in Aboriginal Australia, the Dreaming is a sacred era in which ancestral totemic spirit beings formed The Creation . The Dreaming established the laws and structures of society and the ceremonies performed to ensure continuity of life and land. The current Australian resident population is estimated at 27,837,000 (28 November 2024). This does not include Australians living overseas . In 2015, 2.15% of
3115-406: The citizens , nationals and individuals associated with the country of Australia . This connection may be residential, legal, historical or ethno-cultural. For most Australians, these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being Australian. Australian law does not provide for a racial or ethnic component of nationality, instead relying on citizenship as a legal status, though
3204-811: The pidgin widely spoken across Australia. Many towns or suburbs of Australia have also been influenced or named after Aboriginal words. The best-known example is the capital, Canberra , named after a local Ngunnawal language word thought to mean "women's breasts" or "meeting place". Litotes , such as "not bad", "not much" and "you're not wrong", are also used. Diminutives and hypocorisms are common and are often used to indicate familiarity. Some common examples are arvo (afternoon), barbie (barbecue), smoko (cigarette break), Aussie (Australian) and Straya (Australia). This may also be done with people's names to create nicknames (other English speaking countries create similar diminutives ). For example, "Gazza" from Gary, or "Smitty" from John Smith. The use of
3293-471: The tense vowels used in analyses of Received Pronunciation (RP) as well as its centring diphthongs. The short vowels, consisting only of monophthongs, correspond to the RP lax vowels. There exist pairs of long and short vowels with overlapping vowel quality giving Australian English phonemic length distinction , which is also present in some regional south-eastern dialects of the UK and eastern seaboard dialects in
3382-487: The 1850s following a series of gold rushes . In the decades immediately following the Second World War, Australia received a large wave of immigration from across Europe , with many more immigrants arriving from Southern and Eastern Europe than in previous decades. Since the late 1970s, following the end of the White Australia policy in 1973, a large and continuing wave of immigration to Australia from around
3471-515: The 19th century. General Australian is the dominant variety across the continent, and is particularly so in urban areas. The increasing dominance of General Australian reflects its prominence on radio and television since the latter half of the 20th century. Recent generations have seen a comparatively smaller proportion of the population speaking with the Broad sociocultural variant, which differs from General Australian in its phonology. The Broad variant
3560-475: The 2016 census. Australia has no official religion; its Constitution prohibits the Commonwealth government, but not the states, from establishing one, or interfering with the freedom of religion . At the 2021 Census, 38.9% of the population identified as having "no religion" , up from 15.5% in 2001. The largest religion is Christianity (43.9% of the population). The largest Christian denominations are
3649-516: The 2021 Census. Germans formed the largest non-English-speaking group in Australia up to the 20th century. Although a few individuals had emigrated earlier, the first large group of Germans arrived in South Australia 1838, not long after the British colonisation of South Australia . Asian Australians are Australians with ancestry wholly or partially from the continent of Asia. At the 2021 census,
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3738-536: The 2021 census finding 4.4% of the population claiming ancestry from Italy be they migrants to Australia or their descendants born in Australia of Italian heritage. Australia's long-history of Italian immigration has given rise to an Italo-Australian dialect of the Italian language. German Australians are Australians of German ancestry . The German community constitutes the second largest non-Anglo Celtic European ethnic group in Australia, amounting to 4% of respondents in
3827-569: The 2021 census, 3.2% of the Australian population identified as being Indigenous — Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders . Indigenous Australians experience higher than average rates of imprisonment and unemployment, lower levels of education, and life expectancies for males and females that are, respectively, 11 and 17 years lower than those of non-indigenous Australians. Some remote Indigenous communities have been described as having " failed state "-like conditions. In 2019, 30% of
3916-593: The 2021 census, the most commonly nominated individual ancestries as a proportion of the total population were: European Australians are Australians of whose descent is wholly or partially European. Australians of European descent are the majority in Australia, with the number of ancestry responses categorised within the European groups as a proportion of the total population amounting to 57.2% (including 46% North-West European and 11.2% Southern and Eastern European ). The proportion of Australians with European ancestry
4005-473: The 20th century which resulted in Australian English becoming established as an endonormative variety with its own internal norms and standards. This culminated in publications such as the 1981 first edition of the Macquarie Dictionary , a major English language dictionary based on Australian usage, and the 1988 first edition of The Australian National Dictionary , a historical dictionary documenting
4094-468: The 20th century's hostile policies to the new generation of skilled professional migrants of the 21st century... India became the largest source of skilled migrants in the 21st century." Indigenous Australians are descendants of the original inhabitants of the Australian continent . Their ancestors are believed to have migrated from Africa to Asia around 70,000 years ago and arrived in Australia around 50,000 years ago. The Torres Strait Islanders are
4183-410: The Australian continent over time, the population expanded and differentiated into hundreds of distinct groups, each with its own language and culture. More than 400 distinct Australian Aboriginal peoples have been identified across the continent, distinguished by unique names designating their ancestral languages, dialects, or distinctive speech patterns. In 1770, fearing he had been pre-empted by
4272-738: The Australian population lived overseas, one of the lowest proportions worldwide. This ratio is much lower than many other countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (an intergovernmental organisation with 38 member developed countries ). The data in the table is sourced from the Australian Bureau of Statistics . The population estimates do not include the Aboriginal population before 1961. Estimates of Aboriginal population prior to European settlement range from 300,000 to one million, with archaeological finds indicating
4361-510: The Australian resident population, or 7,529,570 people, were born overseas. The following table shows Australia's population by country of birth as estimated by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 2021. It shows only countries or regions or birth with a population of over 100,000 residing in Australia (for more information about immigration see Immigration to Australia and Foreign-born population of Australia ): Although Australia has no official language, English has always been entrenched as
4450-478: The Constitutional framers considered the Commonwealth to be "a home for Australians and the British race alone", as well as a "Christian Commonwealth". Since the postwar period, Australia has pursued an official policy of multiculturalism and has the world's eighth-largest immigrant population, with immigrants accounting for 30 percent of the population in 2019. Between European colonisation in 1788 and
4539-503: The French, James Cook changed a hilltop signal-drill on Possession Island in Torres Strait , into a possession ceremony, fabricating Britain's claim of Australia's east coast. Eighteen years later, the east coast was occupied by Britain and later the west coast was also settled by Britain. At that time, the indigenous population was estimated to have been between 315,000 and 750,000. At
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#17328450839114628-692: The Labour left or "hard left", represented by the Campaign Group , subscribed to more strongly socialist views while the " soft left ", associated for example with the Tribune Group , embraced more moderate social democratic ideas. Politicians commonly described as being on the hard left of the Labour Party at the time included Tony Benn , Derek Hatton , Ken Livingstone , Dennis Skinner , and Eric Heffer . The term has since then often been used pejoratively by Labour's political opponents, for example, during
4717-674: The US. An example of this feature is the distinction between ferry /ˈfeɹiː/ and fairy /ˈfeːɹiː/ . As with New Zealand English and General American English, the weak-vowel merger is complete in Australian English: unstressed /ɪ/ is merged into /ə/ ( schwa ), unless it is followed by a velar consonant. Examples of this feature are the following pairings, which are pronounced identically in Australian English: Rosa's and roses , as well as Lennon and Lenin . Other examples are
4806-502: The both prominent codes, rugby league and Australian rules football, interchangeably, depending on context of usage outside of regional perrameters. In some pockets of Melbourne & Western Sydney "football" and more rarely "footy" will refer to Association football although unlike more common international terminology, Australian English uses the term soccer and not football or footy. Beer glasses are also named differently in different states. Distinctive grammatical patterns exist such as
4895-603: The children of immigrants blended with some non-English language features, such as Afro-Asiatic languages and languages of Asia . Samoan English is also influencing Australian English. Other ethnolects include those of Lebanese and Vietnamese Australians. A high rising terminal in Australian English was noted and studied earlier than in other varieties of English. The feature is sometimes called Australian questioning intonation . Research published in 1986, regarding vernacular speech in Sydney , suggested that high rising terminal
4984-425: The colonies of New South Wales and Victoria . The Gold Rushes brought immigrants and linguistic influences from many parts of the world. An example was the introduction of vocabulary from American English , including some terms later considered to be typically Australian, such as bushwhacker and squatter . This American influence was continued with the popularity of American films from the early 20th century and
5073-423: The dialect. Internationally well-known examples of Australian terminology include outback , meaning a remote, sparsely populated area, the bush , meaning either a native forest or a country area in general, and g'day , a greeting. Dinkum , or fair dinkum means "true", "legitimate" or "is that true?", among other things, depending on context and inflection. The derivative dinky-di means "true" or devoted:
5162-427: The distinctive accent and vocabulary that had developed among the native-born colonists. The dialects of South East England , including most notably the traditional Cockney dialect of London, were particularly influential on the development of the new variety and constituted "the major input of the various sounds that went into constructing" Australian English. All the other regions of England were represented among
5251-460: The early colonists. A large proportion of early convicts and colonists were from Ireland, and spoke Irish as a sole or first language . They were joined by other non-native speakers of English from Scotland and Wales . The first of the Australian gold rushes in the 1850s began a large wave of immigration , during which about two percent of the population of the United Kingdom emigrated to
5340-609: The end of a word or morpheme before any vowel in the same breath group. Examples of this feature are that the following pairs are pronounced similarly or identically: latter and ladder , as well as rated and raided . Yod -dropping generally occurs after /s/ , /l/ , /z/ , /θ/ but not after /t/ , /d/ and /n/ . Accordingly, suit is pronounced as /sʉːt/ , lute as /lʉːt/ , Zeus as /zʉːs/ and enthusiasm as /enˈθʉːziːæzəm/ . Other cases of /sj/ and /zj/ , as well as /tj/ and /dj/ , have coalesced to /ʃ/ , /ʒ/ , /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ respectively for many speakers. /j/
5429-407: The end of the 18th century. These native-born children were exposed to a wide range of dialects from across the British Isles . Similar to early American English , the process of dialect levelling and koineisation which ensued produced a relatively homogeneous new variety of English which was easily understood by all. Peter Miller Cunningham 's 1827 book Two Years in New South Wales described
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#17328450839115518-616: The first Australian settlers came from London, the Midlands and the North of England , and Ireland. Settlers that arrived throughout the 19th century were from all parts of the United Kingdom and Ireland, a significant proportion of settlers came from the Southwest and Southeast of England, from Ireland and from Scotland. In 1888, 60 percent of the Australian population had been born in Australia, and almost all had British ancestral origins. Out of
5607-400: The following pairs, which rhyme in Australian English: abbott with rabbit , and dig it with bigot . Most varieties of Australian English exhibit only a partial trap-bath split . The words bath , grass and can't are always pronounced with the "long" /aː/ of father . Throughout the majority of the country, the "flat" /æ/ of man is the dominant pronunciation for the a vowel in
5696-447: The following words: dance , advance , plant , example and answer . The exception is the state of South Australia , where a more advanced trap-bath split is found, and where the dominant pronunciation of all the preceding words incorporates the "long" /aː/ of father . There is little variation in the sets of consonants used in different English dialects but there are variations in how these consonants are used. Australian English
5785-502: The history of Australian English vocabulary and idiom. The most obvious way in which Australian English is distinctive from other varieties of English is through its unique pronunciation. It shares most similarity with New Zealand English . Like most dialects of English, it is distinguished primarily by the phonetic quality of its vowels. The vowels of Australian English can be divided according to length. The long vowels, which include monophthongs and diphthongs , mostly correspond to
5874-405: The influx of American military personnel during World War II ; seen in the enduring persistence of such universally-accepted terms as okay and guys . The publication of Edward Ellis Morris 's Austral English: A Dictionary Of Australasian Words, Phrases And Usages in 1898, which extensively catalogued Australian English vocabulary, started a wave of academic interest and codification during
5963-503: The largest immigrant groups during the post-war era. During the 1950s, Australia was the destination of 30 per cent of Dutch emigrants and the Netherlands-born became numerically the second largest non-British group in Australia. In 1971, 70 percent of the foreign born were of European origin. Italian Australians are Australians of Italian ancestry, and comprise the largest non Anglo-Celtic European ethnic group in Australia, with
6052-448: The largest non-British Isles ancestry for most of the 19th century. Between 1901 and 1940, 140,000 non-British European immigrants arrived in Australia (about 16 percent of the total intake). Before World War II, 13.6 percent were born overseas, and 80 percent of those were British. Following the Second World War , large numbers of continental Europeans immigrated to Australia, with Italian Australians and Greek Australians being among
6141-417: The majority of the population in Australia. The largest statistical grouping of European Australians are Anglo-Celtic Australians , Australians whose ancestors originate wholly or partially in the British Isles . This includes English Australians , Irish Australians , Scottish Australians and Welsh Australians . Anglo-Celtic Australians have been highly influential in shaping the nation's character. By
6230-427: The mid-1840s, the numbers of freeborn settlers had overtaken the convict population. Although some observers stress Australia's convict history, the vast majority of early settlers came of their own free will. Far more Australians are descended from assisted immigrants than from convicts, the majority of Colonial Era settlers being British and Irish. About 20 percent of Australians are descendants of convicts. Most of
6319-548: The number of ancestry responses categorised within the Asian groups as a proportion of the total population amounted to 17.4% (including 6.5% Southern and Central Asian , 6.4% North-East Asian , and 4.5% South-East Asian ). This figure excludes Australians of Middle Eastern ancestry, who are separately categorised within the North African and Middle Eastern group. Chinese Australians are Australians of Chinese ancestry, forming
6408-503: The other states they may also be realised as monophthongs: [nɪː, skweː] . A feature common in Victorian English is salary–celery merger , whereby a Victorian pronunciation of Ellen may sound like Alan and Victoria's capital city Melbourne may sound like Malbourne to speakers from other states. There is also regional variation in /ʉː/ before /l/ (as in school and pool ). In some parts of Australia, notably Victoria,
6497-544: The other states. Accordingly, words such as dance , advance , plant , example and answer are pronounced with /aː/ (as in father ) far more frequently in South Australia while the older /æ/ (as in mad ) is dominant elsewhere in Australia. L -vocalisation is also more common in South Australia than other states. In Western Australian and Queensland English, the vowels in near and square are typically realised as centring diphthongs ( [nɪə, skweə] ), whereas in
6586-424: The remaining 40 percent, 34 percent had been born in the British Isles , and 6 percent were of European origin, mainly from Germany and Scandinavia . The census of 1901 showed that 98 percent of Australians had Anglo-Celtic ancestral origins. In 1939 and 1945, still 98 percent of Australians had Anglo-Celtic ancestral origins. Until 1947, the vast majority of the population were of British origin. Germans formed
6675-558: The second-largest Asian Australian ancestry, comprising 3.1% of the total population. Indian Australians are one of the largest groups within the Indian diaspora. Indians are the youngest average age (34 years) and the fastest growing community both in terms of absolute numbers and percentages in Australia. Migration of Indians to Australia followed the pattern of "from 18th-century sepoys and lascars (soldiers and sailors) aboard visiting European ships, through 19th-century migrant labourers and
6764-616: The single largest non Anglo-Celtic ancestry in the country, constituting 5.5% of those nominating their ancestry at the 2021 census. Chinese Australians are one of the largest groups of Overseas Chinese people, forming the largest Overseas Chinese community in Oceania , and are the largest Asian-Australian community. Per capita , Australia has more people of Chinese ancestry than any country outside Asia. Many Chinese Australians have immigrated from Mainland China, Hong Kong , Macau , and Taiwan as well as Indonesia , Malaysia , Singapore and
6853-475: The so-called "hard" left and "soft" left . The hard left was historically focused on the trade union movement and international issues, and organised around figures like Frank Walker , Arthur Gietzelt , and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese . The soft left presented a "more pragmatic" vision of the left and used rank-and-file members to gain power through branch stacking, and organised around politicians Peter Baldwin and Jack Ferguson . In Victoria ,
6942-460: The spelling in certain environments, namely after the long vowel /oː/ and after word final /ə/ . This can be heard in "law-r-and order", where an intrusive R is voiced between the AW and the A. As with North American English, intervocalic alveolar flapping is a feature of Australian English: prevocalic /t/ and /d/ surface as the alveolar tap [ɾ] after sonorants other than /m, ŋ/ as well as at
7031-568: The suffix -o originates in Irish : ó , which is both a postclitic and a suffix with much the same meaning as in Australian English. In informal speech, incomplete comparisons are sometimes used, such as "sweet as" (as in "That car is sweet as."). "Full", "fully" or "heaps" may precede a word to act as an intensifier (as in "The waves at the beach were heaps good."). This was more common in regional Australia and South Australia but has been in common usage in urban Australia for decades. The suffix "-ly"
7120-506: The term "hard left" historically referred to the far-left "Tomato Left" faction, which included Bill Hartley , George Crawford , and Joan Coxsedge . The term was first used in the context of debates within both the Labour Party and the broader left in the 1980s to describe Trotskyist groups such as the Militant tendency , Socialist Organiser and Socialist Action . Within the party,
7209-546: The time of first European contact, of which fewer than twenty are still in daily use by all age groups. About 110 others are spoken exclusively by older people. At the time of the 2006 census, 52,000 Indigenous Australians, representing 12% of the Indigenous population, reported that they spoke an Indigenous language at home. Australia has a sign language known as Auslan , which is the main language of about 10,112 deaf people who reported that they use Auslan language at home in
7298-521: The traditions brought to the country by waves of immigration from around the world, and the culture of the United States . The Colony of New South Wales was established by the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1788, with the arrival of the First Fleet , and five other colonies were established in the 19th century, now forming the six present-day Australian states . Large-scale immigration occurred following
7387-412: The use of the interrogative eh (also spelled ay or aye ), which is particularly associated with Queensland. Secret Santa ( ) and Kris Kringle are used in all states, with the former being more common in Queensland. The most pronounced variation in phonology is between South Australia and the other states and territories. The trap–bath split is more complete in South Australia, in contrast to
7476-417: The word bloody as a mild expletive or intensifier . "Mate" is also used in multiple ways including to indicate "mateship" or formally call out the target of a threat or insult, depending on internation and context. Several words used by Australians were at one time used in the UK but have since fallen out of usage or changed in meaning there. For example, creek in Australia, as in North America, means
7565-403: The word footy generally refers to the most popular football code in an area; that is, rugby league or rugby union depending on the local area, in most of New South Wales and Queensland. More commonly "rugby" is used to distinguish rugby union from "footy" which refers to the more popular rugby league. Footy commonly is used for Australian rules football elsewhere however the term refers to
7654-407: The world has continued into the 21st century, with Asia now being the largest source of immigrants. A smaller proportion of Australians are descended from indigenous people , comprising Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders . The development of a distinctive Australian identity and national character began in the 19th century. The primary language is Australian English . Australia
7743-436: The world over, early Chinese immigrants to Australia established several Chinatowns in major cities, such as Sydney ( Chinatown, Sydney ), Melbourne ( Chinatown, Melbourne , since the 1850s) and Brisbane ( Chinatown, Brisbane ), Perth ( Chinatown, Perth ), as well as in regional towns associated with the goldfields such as Cairns ( Cairns Chinatown ). Indian Australians are Australians of Indian ancestry, and are
7832-655: The world, such as the left-wing of the Labour Party in the United Kingdom and left-wing factions of the Australian Labor Party . As with the Labor Right faction, the Labor Left faction of the Australian Labor Party is split between multiple competing sub-factions, called "fractions". These vary between state branches and in union support and affiliation. In New South Wales , the left is split mainly between
7921-512: Was initially spread by young people in the 1960s. It found that the high rising terminal was used more than twice as often by young people than older people, and is more common among women than men. In the United Kingdom , it has occasionally been considered one of the variety's stereotypical features, and its spread there is attributed to the popularity of Australian soap operas . Australian English has many words and idioms which are unique to
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