Australian English

Phonological Variation:

• Australian English is a non-rhotic dialect.
• Vowels are divided according to length.

short vowels	long vowels
monophthongs		diphthongs
IPA examples ʊ foot, hood, chook ɪ kit, bid, hid, e dress, led, head ə comma, about, winter æ trap, lad, had a strut, bud, hud ɔ lot, cloth, hot	IPA examples ʉː goose, boo, who’d iː fleece, bead, heat eː square, bared, haired ɜː nurse, bird, heard æː bag, tan, bad[nb 1] aː start, palm, bath[nb 2] oː thought, north, force[nb 3]	IPA examples ʊə cure, lure, tour[nb 4] ɪə near, beard, hear[nb 5] æɔ mouth, bowed, how’d əʉ goat, bode, hoed[nb 6] æɪ face, bait, hade ɑe price, bite, hide oɪ choice, boy, oil

Consonant phonemes of Australian English

	Bilabial		Labio- dental		Dental		Alveolar		Post- alveolar		Palatal		Velar		Glottal
Nasal		m						n						ŋ
Plosive	p	b					t	d					k	ɡ
Affricate									tʃ	dʒ
Fricative			f	v	θ	ð	s	z	ʃ	ʒ					h
Approximant								r				j		w
Lateral								l

• Affixes such as -ary, -ery, -ory, -bury, -berry and -mony (seen in words such as necessary, mulberry and matrimony) are sometimes pronounced as a 'schwa' sound. This is predominantly found in the speech of the older generation, whereas the younger generation use the full vowel sound.

Lexical Variation:

• g'day = hello (greeting)
• dinkum = true
• arvo = afternoon
• smoko = cigarette break
• bickies = money
• durry = cigarette
• grog = alcohol drink
• hoon = idiot
• larrikin = rascal
• yakker = hard work

• "On the weekend" is used, not "at" and "studied medicine" used instead of "read medicine".

The Macquarie Dictionary is a dictionary of Australian English. It also incorporates New Zealand English. It is used by Universities.

Macquarie Dictionary Online

Australia switched to the metric system in the 1970's which altered the country's vocabulary.


Grammatical Variation:

• The same as in English, collective nouns are singular in construction, eg the government was NOT the government were.
• Similar past tense & past participles, from verbs such as 'to learn' and 'to spell', are irregular.
• Prepositions before days are used. (Unlike in American English, like in English).
• 'And' is used in between the tens and units when writing and saying numbers.
• Australian English grammar is very similar to English grammar.