The variants of English Language.

Variants: Variants of the English language are the differences in grammar, idioms, dialects, etc that can be attributed to location. The variations include American English, British English, Australian/New Zealand English and South African English. English is the major language in all countries, but the variations in each can make communication difficult at times.

Australian English. 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, arising 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. Australian English differs from other varieties of English in vocabulary, accent, pronunciation, register, grammar and spelling.

History 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. The native-born children of the colony created the new dialect from factors present in the speech they heard around them, and provided an avenue for the expression of peer solidarity. Even when new settlers arrived, this new dialect was strong enough to deflect the influence of other patterns of speech. A large part of the convict body were of Irish origin, 25% of the total convict population. Many of these people were arrested in Ireland, and some in Great Britain. Many, if not most of the Irish convicts spoke either no English at all, or spoke it poorly and rarely. There were other significant populations of convicts from non-English speaking areas of Britain, such as the Scottish Highlands and Wales. Records from the early 19th century indicate the distinct dialect that had surfaced in the colonies since first settlement in 1788, [2] with Peter Miller Cunningham's 1827 book Two Years in New South Wales, describing the distinctive accent and vocabulary of the native born colonists, different from that of their parents and with a strong London influence. Anthony Burgess writes that "Australian English may be thought of as a kind of fossilised Cockney of the Dickensian era." [2]

Vowels The vowels of Australian English can be divided according to length. The long vowels, which include monophthongs and diphthongs, mostly correspond to the tense vowels used in analyses of Received Pronunciation (RP) as well as its centring diphthongs. The short vowels, consisting only of monophthongs, correspond to the RP lax vowels. There exist pairs of long and short vowels with overlapping vowel quality giving Australian English phonemic length distinction, which is unusual amongst the various dialects of English, though not unknown elsewhere, such as in regional south-eastern dialects of the UK and eastern seaboard dialects in the US. As with General American and New Zealand English, the weak-vowel merger is complete in Australian English: unstressed / ɪ / (sometimes written as / ɨ / or //) is merged into /ə/ (schwa).

Consonants Australian English is non-rhotic; in other words, the /r/ sound does not appear at the end of a syllable or immediately before a consonant. However, a linking /r/ can occur when a word that has a final in the spelling comes before another word that starts with a vowel. An intrusive /r/ may similarly be inserted before a vowel in words that do not have in the spelling in certain environments, namely after the long vowel /o ː / and after word final /ə/. There is some degree of allophonic variation in the alveolar stops. As with North American English, Intervocalic alveolar flapping is a feature of Australian English: prevocalic /t/ and /d/ surface as the alveolar tap [ ɾ ] after sonorants other than /ŋ/, /m/as well as at the end of a word or morpheme before any vowel in the same breath group. For some speakers /t/ in final or in medial position is glottalised to. For many speakers, /t/ and /d/ in the combinations /tr/-/tw/ and /dr/-/dw/ are also palatalised, thus /t ʃ r/-/t ʃ w/ and /d ʒ r/-/d ʒ w/, as Australian /r/ is only very slightly retroflex, the tip remaining below the level of the bottom teeth in the same position as for /w/; it is also somewhat rounded ("to say 'r' the way Australians do you need to say 'w' at the same time"), where older English /wr/ and /r/ have fallen together as / ʷ r/. The wine–whine merger is complete in Australian English. Yod-dropping occurs after /r/, /l/, /s/, /z/, /θ/, /t ʃ /, /d ʒ /, /j/ and / ɹ /,. Other cases of /sj/ and /zj/, along with /tj/ and /dj/, have coalesced to / ʃ /, / ʒ /, /t ʃ / and /d ʒ / respectively for many speakers. /j/ is generally retained in other consonant clusters.

Pronunciation Differences in stress, weak forms and standard pronunciation of isolated words occur between Australian English and other forms of English, which while noticeable do not impair intelligibility. The affixes -ary, -ery, -ory, -bury, -berry and -mony (seen in words such as necessary, mulberry and matrimony) can be pronounced either with a full vowel or a schwa. Although some words likenecessary are almost universally pronounced with the full vowel, older generations of Australians are relatively likely to pronounce these affixes with a schwa while younger generations are relatively likely to use a full vowel. Words ending in unstressed -ile derived from Latin adjectives ending in -ilis are pronounced with a full vowel (/ ɑ el/), so that fertile rhymes with fur tile rather than turtle. In addition, miscellaneous pronunciation differences exist when compared with other varieties of English in relation to seemingly random words. For example, the vowel in yoghurt is pronounced as/ə ʉ / ("long 'O'") rather than / ɔ / ("short o"). Similarly, vitamin is pronounced with / ɑ e/ ("long 'I'") in the first syllable, rather than / ɪ / ("short 'I'"). Despite this, advertisement is pronounced with / ɪ /.Brooch is pronounced with /ə ʉ / as opposed to / ʉː /, and Anthony with /θ/ rather than /t/.

Grammar As with American English, but unlike British English, collective nouns are almost always singular in construction, i.e. the government was unable to decide as opposed to the government were unable to decide. In common with British English, the past tense and past participles of the verbs learn, spell and smell are often irregular (learnt, spelt, smelt). As with North American varieties of English and unlike British English, the past participles gotten and proven are commonly used in all registers, and are not stigmatised. Also stigmatised in British English but acceptable in Australian English is snuck as the past tense of sneak. Shan't and the use of should as in I should be happy if..., common in upper-register British English, are almost never encountered in Australian (or North American) English. While prepositions before days may be omitted in American English, i.e. She resigned Thursday, they must be retained in Australian English, as in British English: She resigned on Thursday. Ranges of dates use to, i.e. Monday to Friday, as with British English, rather than Monday through Friday in American English. River generally follows the name of the river in question as in North America, i.e. Darling River, rather than the British convention of coming before the name, e.g. River Thames. Note in South Australia however, the British convention applies—for example, the River Murray or the River Torrens. When saying or writing out numbers, and is inserted before the tens and units, i.e. one hundred and sixty-two, as with British practice. However Australians, like Americans, are more likely to pronounce numbers such as 1200 as twelve hundred, rather than one thousand two hundred. As with American English, on the weekend and studied medicine are used rather than the British at the weekend and read medicine.

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