Australian English

 

AUSTRALIAN ENGLISH

Australian English is a major variety of the English language, used throughout Australia. Although English has no official status in the constitution, Australian English is the country’s national and de facto official language as it is the first language of the majority of the population.

Australian English began to diverge from British English after the founding of the Colony of New South Wales in 1788 and was recognized as being different from British English by 1820. It arose from the intermingling 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.