The traditional Aboriginal languages have no 'h' sound. Over the generations, Aboriginal speakers have learnt English with an Aboriginal accent. So when they have learnt standard English words which start with an 'h' sound, the Aboriginal accent has produced such words without this 'h' sound.
Aboriginal English often sounds very similar to Australian English, but there may be miscommunication because of semantic or pragmatic difference. Sometimes words have a different meaning in Aboriginal English from their meaning in Australian English and different social contexts may also have an effect.
More traditional languages are being replaced by new Aboriginal languages; Aboriginal English, Pidgin, and Kriol. Aboriginal English is a form of English that reflects Aboriginal languages. It contains some speech patterns of standard English as well as characteristics and words originating from Aboriginal languages.
The beginnings of the Australian accent
"It emerged from a process called levelling down because you had all these people who came here on 11 ships from different dialect areas, regional dialect areas across England," he said.
AbE is the name given to complex, rule-governed varieties of English that are spoken by over 80 per cent of Indigenous peoples across Australia (Partington and Galloway, 2007).
Australian Aboriginal languages are a unique language group, having no generally accepted genetic connections with non-Australian languages. (Despite its name, the Austronesian language family does not include Australian Aboriginal languages.)
Aboriginal English is the name given to the various kinds of English spoken by Aboriginal people throughout Australia. Technically, the language varieties are dialects of English.
The Aussie accent, as we know it today, started more than 200 years ago with the children of the convicts, soldiers and other European arrivals. The parents spoke with all different kinds of English accents because they came from many places in England.
Today, this means that there are three types of Australian accent. Some people speak with a “general” accent, which is more or less the way it has been for centuries. Other people speak with an accent that is closer to RP English. The third group of people have a “broad” Australian accent.
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 Southeast England.
You can find Aboriginal Muslims all over the country. Most live in urban areas and attend mosques alongside Muslims from other cultural backgrounds. Some of them are “cultural Muslims.” They identify with the cultural practices and some beliefs found in Islam, but they don't go to the mosque.
Some of the most well known Aboriginal words for hello are: Kaya, which means hello in the Noongar language. Palya is a Pintupi language word used as a greeting much in the same way that two friends would say hello in English while Yaama is a Gamilaraay language word for hello used in Northern NSW.
Perhaps the most significant influencers on Australian English is that of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages.
There is no one Aboriginal word that all Aborigines use for Australia; however, today they call Australia, ""Australia"" because that is what it is called today. There are more than 250 aboriginal tribes in Australia. Most of them didn't have a word for ""Australia""; they just named places around them.
This is about 10 per cent of Australia's First Nations people. Indigenous Australians who do not speak English as a first language may require an interpreter in order to have equal access to government services. Some matters, such as healthcare, may be highly sensitive and complex.
According to linguists, there are three main kinds of Aussie accent: broad (think former Prime Minister Bob Hawke), general (closer to Kevin Rudd) and cultivated (like Malcolm Fraser).
Australian English is most similar to British English in spelling and sentence construction, although its accent and vocabulary are very distinct from the UK.
Australian English resembles British English more closely than it does American English, particularly in terms of spelling. One of the biggest differences between Australian English and British English is the yod dropping, which is not happening as much in British English.
Australia was colonised two centuries later, which explains why the accent of Australian English is more similar to British English compared to American English. However, American English became very popular in Australia later in history, which affected their pronunciation.
But the Australian accents are different from the accents of America, or Canada, or New Zealand because those accents were created from kids growing up in those places with different communities and histories. Accents are all about the people we spend time with when we are young.
This study found that modern southern, central and eastern English populations were of "a predominantly Anglo-Saxon-like ancestry" while those from northern and southwestern England had a greater degree of indigenous origin.
Different, mutually unintelligible language groups were often mixed together, with Australian Aboriginal English or Australian Kriol language as the only lingua franca.
Although it was once thought that the Britons descended from the Celts, it is now believed that they were the indigenous population and that they remained in contact with their European neighbours through trade and other social exchanges.