Australian and kiwi english

Introduction

It  is a fact of common knowledge that English is language of universal importance. It is clear that a language is that wave, through which is passed on the culture. If English language is becoming the main source of communication between people of different countries, the outcomes of this are obvious: culture of English speaking countries will be prevailing all over the world.

Chinese language is practically the native language of 1 billion of people, but English, indisputably, is widely-spread in geographical way and indeed more multipurpose than Chinese language. And its usage goes up with increased speed.

The English language is the official language of Australia, New Zealand,31 states of USA and  it stands to reason of Great Britain. It is represented on all continents and on the territories of 3 main oceans- Atlantic, Pacific and Indian.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Australian English.

Australia is one of the countries, in which a national identity was developing through the equality of cultures and languages of people, settling there.

The Australian English appeared there with the beginning of colonization the Australian land by the Englishmen in XVIII century. With gradual destruction of native population the English language took up a prior position on the continent. But because continent’s moving from  the parent state, in it began to crop up some distinctions from original.

The earliest form of Australian English was first spoken by the children of the colonists born into the colony of New South Wales. This very first generation of children created a new dialect that was to become the language of the nation. The Australian-born children in the new colony were exposed to a wide range of different dialects from all over the British Isles, in particular from Ireland and South East England, with a large proportion of Cockneys.[1]

The children, born in the colony created the new dialect because of the factors present in the speech they heard around them and provided a way for expression of peer solidarity. Even when new settlers arrived, this new dialect was strong enough to deflect the influence of other patterns of speech.

Currently the Australians are proud of their variant of the English language. They even have a joke about that there are 2 accents: urban and the accent of crocodile Dandy. But they have a variety of dialects and they are not strongly pronounced as in Great Britain. Their dialects don’t have marked grammatical distinctions and differences in usage. And you can’t simply distinguish through the speech of a man from which place he has arrived.

It is accepted to separate three flavors of Australian variant of the English language on the basis of phonological indications:

Cultivated Australian English: has some similarities to Received Pronunciation. It has become less common especially amongst younger generations. Cultivated Australian English has in the past been thought to indicate high social class or education, and is spoken by Kevin Rudd, Malcolm Fraser and Geoffrey Rush.

General Australian: The most common of Australian accents is known as General Australian English, and is used as a standard language for the purposes of television news broadcasts and advertising. This accent is especially prominent in urban Australia and it predominates in modern Australian films and television programmes and is used by, for example, Hugh Jackman, John Howard and Eric Bana.

Broad Australian: is a dialect of illiterate part of population with strongly  expressed deviations from the standard English language in phonetics, vocabulary and grammar.

People with high socio-economic and educational status speak on a cultivated Australian English and because of that it is considered that this subkind is more closer to British one.

Some people’s speech, speaking Cultivated Australian seems as if they imitate the speech of educated population of south districts of Great Britain. and other people, who speak other dialects of Australian English believe that their dialect is very affected and unnatural.[2]

Broad Australian is the contrary extreme and 30% percent of Australian population speak it. Precisely that this dialect is taken as Australian twang.[3]

And majority of population talk in General dialect, which combines all group of dialects.

Phonological features.

Australian English is a non-rhotic accent that is highly distinctive from other varieties of English. It shares most similarity with other Southern Hemisphere accents, in particular New Zealand English.[11] Like most dialects of English it is distinguished primarily by its vowel phonology.[12]

The vowels of Australian English can be divided into two categories: long and short vowels. The short vowels, consisting only of monophthongs, are similar to the lax vowels in British and North American English.

The long vowels, consisting of both monophthongs and diphthongs, mostly correspond to its tense vowels and centring diphthongs. Unlike most varieties of English, it has a phonemic length distinction: that compresses, shortens or removes these features.[13]

The Australian English vowels /ɪ/, /e/,/æ/,/ɜː/,/ə/, and /oː/ are noticeably closer (higher tongue position) than their RP (British Received Pronunciation) equivalents. The centring diphthongs are accordingly also closer in AE than RP.

Monophthongs

A long /æː/ sound is found in the adjectives bad, mad, glad and sad, before the /ɡ/ sound (for example, hag, rag, bag) and also in content words before /m/ and /n/ in the same syllable (for example, ham, tan, plant).[14]

In some speakers, especially those with the Broad accent, the vowel in words like dad, back and lag will be shifted toward [ɛ].

In some varieties of Australian English, bad (with long [æː]) and lad (with short [æ]) do not rhyme (see bad–lad split).

For many speakers, the /æː/ sound is flatter than the British /æː/.

There is æ-tensing before a nasal consonant—The nasal sounds create changes in preceding vowels because air can flow into the nose during the vowel. Nasal consonants can also affect the articulation of a vowel. So for several speakers, the /æː/ vowel in words like "jam", "man", "dam" and "hand" will be shifted towards [e].

The /aː/ sound, an open unrounded vowel, is used in words like car, bath, ask, father and pass. So the words like trap and bath wouldn't have the same vowel (see Trap–bath split).

Diphthongs

For many speakers, the vowel in words like "town" and "now" is [æʊ].

The vowel in words like "neat" and "feet" is [ei] sound where, for example, "neat" will be [neiʔ].

The vowel in "fate" is [æɪ] for several speakers, so words like that will sound like [fæɪʔ].

The vowel in "high" may be [ɑɪ] for those with the Broad accent, so "buy" might sound like "boy" in the foreign ear. This is a direct influence from the Cockney accent. Some of these features aforementioned are also present in the New York accent.

Vocabulary

Australian English has many words and idioms which are unique to the dialect and have been written on extensively, with the Macquarie Dictionary, widely regarded as the national standard, incorporating numerous Australian terms.

Internationally well-known examples of Australian terminology include outback, meaning a remote, sparsely populated area, The Bush, meaning either a native forest or a country area in general, and g'day, a greeting. Dinkum, or fair dinkum means "true", or "is that true?", among other things, depending on context and inflection.[27] The derivative dinky-di means 'true' or devoted: a 'dinky-di Aussie' is a 'true Australian'.

Australian English, in common with several British English dialects (for example, Cockney, Scouse, Glaswegian and Geordie) use the word mate. Many words used by Australians were at one time used in England but have since fallen out of usage or changed in meaning.

 In informal speech, incomplete comparisons are sometimes used, such as "sweet as". "Full", "fully" or "heaps" may precede a word to act as an intensifier. This is more common in regional Australia and South Australia. The suffix "-ly" is sometimes omitted in broader Australian English. For instance "real good" in lieu of "really good."

Spelling and grammar

As in most English speaking countries, there is no official governmental regulator or overseer of correct spelling and grammar. The Macquarie Dictionary is used by universities and style guides as a standard for Australian English spelling.

Australian spelling generally follows conventions of British spelling. As in British spelling, the 'u' is retained in words such as honour and favour and the -ise ending is used in words such as organise and realise, although the older -ize also exists, but is far less common.

Examples:

British English          Australian English

a good job      -               a good lurk

English person -          pom

Have you eaten yet? -Did you eat yet?

Well done!                          Good on ya!

Kiwi variant of English.

New Zealand has two official languages – English and Maori language, though it is generally English speaking country. Kiwi variant of English differs from Australian English: it is clear and understandable worldwide.

In New Zealand the accent RP(Received Pronunciation) has a high value and brings up an association with scholarship and competence, but local accents and dialects possess a high level of attraction.

There is undoubted American influence on pronunciation and vocabulary of Kiwi. Some linguists consider that in the country Maori English is forming  now.

The uniqueness of sociolinguistic situation in New Zealand consists in a joint influence of British, American, Australian, local variants of English and Maori language. All these factors initiate forming Kiwi variant of English language.

In New Zealand the English language more clear than Australian but two decades ago it bore strong resemblance to Australian English, but it is all the same closer to classical British variant of English. Sometimes the Kiwi people call their country as second Britain or “England in South ocean”.

But because of a whole number of changes of vowels Kiwi English began to differ from Australian variant. These changes comprise: centralization [i] in [a] as in thick, thin; rising [e] in [i] as in concession; contraction [æ] to [e] as in cat; fusion [æ] and [e] and [i], for instance, fair/fear, air/ear.

Features of New Zealand English

1. Non-rhotic, except in southern areas with heavy Scottish settlement.

2. /w/ and /hw/ are commonly distinguished.

3. Raising of /æ/ and /´/ to /´/ and /e/ respectively. /i/ is increasingly pronounced /ə /.

4. Before /l/ contrasts between /o/, /ɑ /, and /ʌ / are disappearing, so that dole, doll, and dull may be pronounced the same. Also before /l/ the contrast between /æ/ and /ɜ / is disappearing, so that mallow and mellow may be pronounced the same.

5. /ɛ / > /i/ before /r/, so that words like stare are pronounced /stiə /.

6. Maori loanwords, mostly for natural phenomena, the most familiar of which is kiwi. Slang largely shared with Australia. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Conclusion.

Despite of strong American influence, Australian and Kiwi variants of English language represent most likely a branch of British English than American one. These considered above variants of English are more closer to British English, but because of moving away from Great Britain, in these countries begin to form local variants of English with its own peculiarities. And likely there other choices of English will appear in the world after a while. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Bibliography:

[1]Moore, B., 2008, Speaking our language: The story of Australian English, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, p. 69.

[2] Аракин В. Д. История английского языка. – М., 2001. – 310 с.

[3 ] Коптелова Е. Speak English! // Иностранец, 2000. - № 25. – 35 с.

4.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_English

5.www.csun.edu/~sk36711/WWW/engl400/English_Down_Under.pdf