Australian English by KIWI

English is a very creative language. This means that people who speak English sometimes change words or add them together so that they can get a new word. This article is about one famous variety of English, the Australian English. The information text will offer you a few interesting differences between British English, American English and Australian English.

Firstly, let´s talk about the pronunciation. In my opinion the pronunciation is the biggest and most important Difference of the three styles of English. Australian and British English are non-rhotic languages. This means that even though there´s an “r” in the spelling of a word, it´s not always pronounced. For example, the endings –ure, -er, -or, -ar, -our, -a, -re are in Australian pronounced /a/. Alternatively they are pronounced /ə/ in British English.

In the other hand there are rhotic languages, like the American English. The Americans mostly pronounce the /r/. The rhocity can be fantastically practiced with the words “water” and “neighbour”.

Then, another point, is the t-flapping. An intervocalic (= between vocals) /t/ is usually pronounced like a “t-flap” in Australian English. When you pronounce this sound, for example in “difficulty”, your tongue touches the roof of your mouth only for a short time. The tongue also moves back to the back of your mouth after touching its roof. In the IPA

(= International Phonetic Alphabet) it looks like a cute candy cane: /ɾ/.

The Australian English shares t-flapping with many other varieties of English. In this regard, Australian English is more similar to American English than to British English. However some British dialects use a “glottal stop” /ʔ/. In that case they just leave a blank instead of a /t/. Especially in the IPA you see the different pronunciation. For instance, “better” sounds in Australian English like /bəɾa/ and in American English like /bəɾər/.

Secondly the Australian English has many “hypocoristics”. “Hypocoristics” is a very difficult word, but the word formation process behind it is quite simple. A hypocoristic form is similar to a clipping. In some of these forms, speakers take away the final part (or syllable) of a word. Then, they add another ending (we also say suffix), e. g. –o, -a, or –it/-y. Sometimes, they also just add a suffix without leaving anything out.

Here is a good example, to receive a better explanation: Let`s start with the word “biting insect”. First it is clipped to “bit”. After this, the suffix “-ie” is added and finaly the new shortened form is “bitie”. If the final hypocoristic form contains a /s/ sound, it´ll change the pronunciation to /z/. The shortened form of “mosquito” would be “mozzie”, for instance.

To conclude you can say, that whether you want to sound like an Australian Aboriginal, you should definitely learn about the pronunciation. When you`re thinking about a “Work & Travel” to Australia and you want some more information. You can look up the youtube channel “Aussie English”. The guy, called Pete, is really friendly and he can give you more excellent information about Australian English.