Australian English

Hi,

Was watching an interesting doco recently about some of the Asian languages and how with the different regions, there are so many words that are so vastly different with each other. Granted, the history of Asia is longer and quite a number of years for the separation to happen for each region to develop their own 'language' that are unique for their area.

In Australia, if we were to go down another 500 years down the track, hypnotically I wonder if someone from NSW be able to understand someone from Tasmania? I do note that in these modern era, we do have technology to connect us and engage people.

 

You'll find similar results for the post-war migrants from Europe - they still speak a 1950's/traditional language and have difficulty understanding the way locals speak.

As for local dialects - cossies, scungies, togs, swimmers, trunks, budgie smugglers, boardies and others are all local variations.

 

interesting mix there never thought about this..... we could also start looking at bogans lingo

 

The world is opening up, not closing down

 

Have to agree with this. Google is your friend. I don't understand half of what the children at work are talking about so I frequently Google their pearls of wisdom

 

I'm hoping it's going to improve .

 

Try some subterfuge - baffle them with bs in return.

 

It's already happening. SA has a slight but distinct accent. NT definately does, as does NQ....I doubt you'll see the accents develop much though, we're now too transient and communication is just too good.

A few hundred years ago.....you can see how the accents would have developed....and eventually turned into languages.

 

I think dialects develop because of isolation, but these days communities are not so isolated because of migration and because of mass communication etc.

But it is interesting to see what happens when new technology appears as each region often starts calling the same thing under different names - e.g. mobile phones in Australia are cell phones in America.

 

In my younger days, when American people talked about peanut butter and jelly, I really thought it was peanut butter and aeroplane jelly.

 

I'm glad it wasn't a conversation about Jatz crackers

 

Can someone tell me is it Canberra or Canbra?

 

You're missing a few "rrrr's".

 

My friends from malben still visit milk bars

 

Well over the years I have found a few things which are dialect like in Oz

Bathers - togs (nsw?), cossie, bathers (wa)
red sausages - little boys (nsw?), saveloys, cocktail frankfurters
polony - devon (vic), polony (wa)
beer sizes - middy and pint (wa), schooners, pots

you'll have to help me out which state owns some of the variations

 

While I was up in Brisbane people were saying to me "too easy" just like saying "no worries". It's something I never hear in Sydney.

But it came from Melbourne apparently.

 

Have you got an eskie or a chilly bin?

 

Or in nz we say "sweet" or "sweet bro" (informal).