The majority of Australians speak English as a first or other language, however a significant number of people also speak languages other than English. About 76% of Australians reported speaking only English at home in the 2021 Census.
Australia has no official language. English is considered the de facto national language, however. The primary dialect in Australia is General Australian or Australian English which differs in some ways from American and U.K. English in terms of spelling and grammar.
The research suggests Proto-Australian was spoken prior to the first ice age, and that the current Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages spoken throughout the country developed and spread only 12,000 years ago.
Australia is one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse countries in the world. Aside from English, Australians speak an estimated 300+ languages.
The most common verbal greeting is a simple “Hey”, “Hello”, or “Hi”. Some people may use Australian slang and say “G'day” or “G'day mate”. However, this is less common in cities. Many Australians greet by saying “Hey, how are you?”.
Mandarin is the second most spoken language in Australia, according to the latest 2021 consensus. At least 2.5% of Australians, or 596,703 people, use Mandarin as their primary language at home, making it the most frequently language spoken in the country after English.
Australian English can be described as a new dialect that developed as a result of contact between people who spoke different, mutually intelligible, varieties of English. The very early form of Australian English would have been first spoken by the children of the colonists born into the early colony in Sydney.
"Barbie" is Australian slang for barbecue and the phrase "slip a shrimp on the barbie" often evokes images of a fun social gathering under the sun. Australians, however, invariably use the word prawn rather than shrimp.
In England and Australia, you'll often hear Happy Christmas, but in the US and Canada, Merry is the star of the show.
Australia is known for many things, including swathes of tropical beaches, marine reserves, Aboriginal culture, cute koalas, rolling wine country, and lush rainforests.
Aboriginal languages may be much older than people think, argues a linguistic anthropologist who says they originated as far back as the end of the last ice age around 13,000 years ago.
Lieutenant James Cook, captain of HMB Endeavour, claimed the eastern portion of the Australian continent for the British Crown in 1770, naming it New South Wales.
“My research shows the British and Irish working-class introduced most of the swearing we have in Australia,” Krafzik says. “It was cemented in those early colonial days.” The British officer class tended to rotate in and out of the colonies. The working-class settlers – and convicts – stayed.
What does it mean? Another word for friend. Common in Britain as well, but used even more enthusiastically by Aussies, who pepper the ends of their sentences with a longer, stretched out “maaaaate” that conveys friendliness and establishes a relaxed bond between the speakers.
Unlike some of the strong accents and dialects used back in England, the Australian accent was clear and easy to understand, because it was developed by people trying to understand each other!
Early European settlers to Australia — many of whom were convicts — were from all over Great Britain and Ireland, and their speech patterns blended to form the new Australian accent.
In the 2021 census, the most commonly nominated individual ancestries as a proportion of the total population were: English (33%) Australian (29.9%) Irish (9.5%)