Australian English (AusE, AuE, AusEng, en-AU) is a major variety of the English language and is used throughout Australia. Although English has no official status in the Constitution, Australian English is Australia's de facto official language and is the first language of the majority of the population.
Australian English started diverging from British English after the founding of the colony of New South Wales in 1788 and was recognised as being different from British English by 1820. It arose from the intermingling of children of early settlers from a great variety of mutually intelligible dialectal regions of the British Isles and quickly developed into a distinct variety of English.
Read more about Australian English: Origins, Influences, Phonology
Famous quotes containing the words australian and/or english:
“The Australian mind, I can state with authority, is easily boggled.”
—Charles Osborne (b. 1927)
“So is the English Parliament provincial. Mere country bumpkins, they betray themselves, when any more important question arises for them to settle, the Irish question, for instance,—the English question why did I not say? Their natures are subdued to what they work in. Their “good breeding” respects only secondary objects.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)