Language
The English have contributed greatly to Australian life. Today, English is the most commonly spoken language in Australia.
English was inherited from English colonisation, and it is spoken by the vast majority of the population. It serves as the official language: the language in which government business is carried out. According to the 1991 census, 94% of Australia's. population speak only English. Adding those who speak English "well" or "very well" brings this figure to 96%. Australian English is similar to British English in terms of spelling, grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation and some slang usage. The differences are not usually a barrier to effective communication between an Australian English and a British English speaker, but there are certainly enough differences to cause occasional misunderstandings, usually surrounding slang or region dialect differences.
Read more about this topic: English Australian
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“A president, however, must stand somewhat apart, as all great presidents have known instinctively. Then the language which has the power to survive its own utterance is the most likely to move those to whom it is immediately spoken.”
—J.R. Pole (b. 1922)
“Men sometimes speak as if the study of the classics would at length make way for more modern and practical studies; but the adventurous student will always study classics, in whatever language they may be written and however ancient they may be. For what are the classics but the noblest recorded thoughts of man?... We might as well omit to study Nature because she is old.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I now thinke, Love is rather deafe, than blind,
For else it could not be,
That she,
Whom I adore so much, should so slight me,
And cast my love behind:
I’m sure my language to her, was as sweet,
And every close did meet
In sentence, of as subtile feet,
As hath the youngest Hee,”
—Ben Jonson (1572–1637)