English language outside UK

Contents

 

Introduction…………………………………………………………...2

1. Historical background of development of English outside UK……3

1.1 New Zealand………………………………………………3

1.2 Australia…………………………………………………...4

1.3 Canada……………………………………………………..6

2. Pronunciation differences in English language……………………..7

2.1 New Zealand……………………………………………….7

2.2 Australia……………………………………………………8

2.3 Canada……………………………………………………...9

3. Vocabulary peculiarities of the language…………………………...12

3.1 New Zealand……………………………………………….12

3.2 Australia……………………………………………………15

3.3 Canada…………………………………………………….. 16

Conclusion……………………………………………………………..26

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Introduction

 

 

 

English is part of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European family of languages. By year 1000, the English language consisted of approximately 40 000 words. Nowadays, the number has grown to more than 500 000. If we calculate the average of words created per century, this comes to 46 000. A great number of words found in the English vocabulary was borrowed from Latin, French, Low German, and the Scandinavian languages. We also know that some periods were more fertile than others: invasions, contact with other cultures, inventions, technological progress, music, fashion are some of the factors which have helped to enrich the language.

 

     British colonialism in the 19th century and American capitalism and technological progress in the 20th century were undoubtely the main causes for the spread of English throughout the world.

 

     From around 1750 to 1950 the British Empire covered about a quarter of the globe. It was one of the most powerful empires the world has ever known. The colonies gradually freed themselves but about fifty countries chose to keep a connection with Britain by belonging to the The British Commonwealth. English is spoken all over the Commonwealth either as a native or an official language, and the British monarch is the symbolic head of the association.

 

     The USA has played a leading role in most domains for the last hundred years. At the end of the 19th century and first quarter of the 20th, it welcomed millions of European immigrants who had fled their countries ravaged by war, poverty or famine. This labour force strenghtened American industries and development. The Hollywood film industry also attracted many foreign artists in quest of fame and fortune and the number of American films produced every year soon flooded the market. Before the Treaty of Versailles(1919), which ended the First World War between Germany and the Allies, diplomacy was conducted in French. However, President Wilson succeeded in having the treaty in English as well. Since then, English started being used in diplomacy and gradually in economic relations and the media. During the II World War, America intervened both militarily and economically to save Europe from chaos. From then onwards, the United States have consolidated their cultural, economical and technological power: inventions, rock and roll, the first man on the moon, the revolution of the Internet, the country's growing prosperity and commercial aggressiveness have contributed to the further expansion and importance of English in the world today.

 

 

 

1. Historical background of development of English outside UK

 

English spread all over the world. Great Britain, the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand are English speaking countries. Why is English such an extended language in the world?

 

During the 17th and 18th centuries British navigators sailed across the seas with the aim of extending Britain's power and prosperity .They colonized new territories around the world, taking their language with them. The first New World settlement was established in Jamestown in America in 1607. Canada became half English-speaking in 1763, French left in Quebec. During the 17th century British rule was established in the West Indian islands of Antigua, Barbados, Jamaica, St Kitts and Trinidad and Tobago. Australia and New Zealand were discovered during Capitan Cook's voyage in 1768. English was imposed as the official language of the new colonies; it was the language of education and administration.

 

English speaking countries are situated in different parts of the world and differ in many ways. The weather and climate of these countries, and the way of people's life differ. Each country has its own history customs, traditions, and its own national holidays. But they all have a common English language.

 

1.1 New Zealand

 

New Zealand English (NZE, en-NZ) is the form of the English language used in New Zealand.

 

The English language was established in New Zealand by colonists during the 19th century. The most distinctive influences on New Zealand English have come from Southern England, Scottish English (see Dunedin), and the indigenous Māori language.

 

New Zealand English is close to Australian English in its pronunciation; there are, however, several subtle differences, many of which show the influence of Maori speech[citation needed]. One of the most prominent differences between the New Zealand accent and that of Australia is the realization of /ɪ/: in New Zealand English, as in some South African varieties, this is pronounced as a schwa.

 

A distinct New Zealand variant of the English language has been in existence since at least 1912, when Frank Arthur Swinnerton described it as a "carefully modulated murmur," though its history probably goes back further than that. From the beginning of the British settlement on the islands, a new dialect began to form by adopting Māori words to describe the different flora and fauna of New Zealand, for which English did not have any words of its own.

 

1.2  Australia

 

Australian English began diverging from British English shortly after the foundation of the Australian penal colony of New South Wales in 1788. British convicts sent there, (including Cockneys from London, came mostly from large English cities. They were joined by free settlers, military personnel and administrators, often with their families. However, a large part of the convict body was Irish, with at least 25% directly from Ireland, and others indirectly via Britain. There were other populations of convicts from non-English speaking areas of Britain, such as the Welsh and Scots. English was not spoken, or was poorly spoken by a large part of the convict population and the dominant English input was that of Cockney from South-East England.

 

In 1827 Peter Cunningham, in his book Two Years in New South Wales, reported that native-born white Australians of the time—known as "currency lads and lasses"—spoke with a distinctive accent and vocabulary, with a strong Cockney influence. The transportation of convicts to Australia ended in 1868, but immigration of free settlers from Britain, Ireland and elsewhere continued.

 

The first of the Australian gold rushes, in the 1850s, began a much larger wave of immigration which would significantly influence the language. During the 1850s, when the UK was under economic hardship, about two per cent of its population emigrated to the Colony of New South Wales and the Colony of Victoria.

 

Among the changes wrought by the gold rushes was "Americanisation" of the language—the introduction of words, spellings, terms, and usages from North American English. The words imported included some later considered to be typically Australian, such as dirt and digger. Bonzer, which was once a common Australian slang word meaning "great", "superb" or "beautiful", is thought to have been a corruption of the American mining term bonanza, which means a rich vein of gold or silver and is itself a loanword from Spanish. The influx of American military personnel in World War II brought further American influence; though most words were short-lived; and only okay, you guys, and gee have persisted.

 

Since the 1950s the American influence on language in Australia has mostly come from pop culture, the mass media (books, magazines and television programs), computer software and the internet. Some words, such as freeway and truck, have even been naturalised so completely that few Australians recognise their origin.

 

One of the first writers to attempt renditions of Australian accents and vernacular was the novelist Joseph Furphy (a.k.a. Tom Collins), who wrote a popular account of rural New South Wales and Victoria during the 1880s, Such is Life (1903). C. J. Dennis wrote poems about working class life in Melbourne, such as The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke (1915), which was extremely popular and was made into a popular silent film (The Sentimental Bloke; 1919). John O'Grady's novel “They're a Weird Mob” has many examples of pseudo-phonetically written Australian speech in Sydney during the 1950s, such as "owyergoinmateorright?" ("How are you going, mate? All right?") Thomas Keneally's novels set in Australia, particularly The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, frequently use vernacular such as "yair" for "yes" and "noth-think" for "nothing". Other books of note are "Let Stalk Strine" by Afferbeck Lauder – where "Strine" is "Australian" and "Afferbeck Lauder" is "alphabetical order" (the book is in alphabetical order) – and "How to be Normal in Australia" by Robert Treborlang.

 

British words such as mobile (phone) predominate in most cases. Some American and British variants exist side-by-side; in many cases – freeway and motorway, for instance – regional, social and ethnic variation within Australia typically defines word usage.

 

Australian English is most similar to New Zealand English, due to their similar history and geographical proximity. Both use the expression different to (also encountered in British English, but not American) as well as different from.

 

Words of Irish origin are used, some of which are also common elsewhere in the Irish diaspora, such as bum for "backside" (Irish bun), tucker for "food", "provisions" (Irish tacar), as well as one or two native English words whose meaning have changed under Irish influence, such as paddock for "field", cf. Irish páirc, which has exactly the same meaning as the Australian paddock.

 

Australia adopted decimal currency in 1966 and the metric system in the 1970s. Australians have measured temperatures in degrees Celsius since 1972, road signs were metricated in 1974, and goods of all kinds have been measured in litres and kilograms ever since that time. While the older measures are usually used and understood by those born before 1960, younger Australians rarely use pounds, ounces, stones, degrees Fahrenheit, yards or miles[citation needed]. Some imperial measurements persist in popular usage, such as feet and inches for people's height, along with pounds and ounces for newborn babies and pints for bee.

 

1.3 Canada

 

The term "Canadian English" is first attested in a speech by the Reverend A. Constable Geikie in an address to the Canadian Institute in 1857. Geikie, a Scottish-born Canadian, reflected the Anglocentric attitude prevalent in Canada for the next hundred years when he referred to the language as "a corrupt dialect," in comparison to what he considered the proper English spoken by immigrants from Britain.

 

Canadian English is the product of four waves of immigration and settlement over a period of almost two centuries. The first large wave of permanent English-speaking settlement in Canada, and linguistically the most important, was the influx of British Loyalists fleeing the American Revolution, chiefly from the Mid-Atlantic States – as such, Canadian English is believed by some scholars to have derived from northern American English, and is nothing more than a variety of it. The second wave from Britain and Ireland was encouraged to settle in Canada after the War of 1812 by the governors of Canada, who were worried about anti-English sentiment among its citizens. Waves of immigration from around the globe peaking in 1910 and 1960 had a lesser influence, but they did make Canada a multicultural country, ready to accept linguistic change from around the world during the current period of globalization.

 

The languages of Aboriginal peoples in Canada started to influence European languages used in Canada even before widespread settlement took place, and the French of Lower Canada provided vocabulary to the English of Upper Canada.

 

 

 

 

2. Pronunciation differences in English language

2.1 New Zealand

 

Vowels

The short front vowels

The short-i of KIT is a central vowel around [ə] or [ɘ]. This sounds somewhat similar to (although not quite as open as) a short-u in other forms of English, and contrasts sharply with the [i]-like vowel heard in Australia. Because of this, some New Zealanders often claim that Australians say "feesh and cheeps" for fish and chips while some Australians conversely claim that New Zealanders say "fush and chups".The New Zealander's short-i is not phonologically distinct from the schwa /ə/.

The short-e /ɛ/ of DRESS has moved to fill in the space left by /ɪ/, and it is phonetically in the region of [e]. It sounds like a short-i itself to most other English speakers.

Likewise, the short-a /æ/ of TRAP is approximately [ɛ], which sounds like a short-e to most Northern Hemisphere English speakers.

 

Documentary films from the first half of the 20th century featuring both Australian and New Zealand voices show that the accents were more similar before the Second World War and they diverged mostly after the 1950s.[citation needed] Recent linguistic research[who?] has suggested that the short, flat "i" heard in New Zealand comes from the dialects of English spoken by lower-class English people in the late-19th century. It is, however, also encountered in Scottish English, and given the higher level of Scottish emigration to New Zealand than to Australia, this may[citation needed] also be an influence. The pronunciation of English vowels by native Māori speakers may[citation needed] also have influenced the New Zealand accent. (However Maori has [i], the "Australian" sound, but not /ɪ/ or [ə] the "English (RP)" and "New Zealand" ones respectively, making this seem unlikely) - There is also a Māori accent distinct from the accent of native English speakers.

 

Conditioned mergers

The vowels /ɪə/ as in near and /eə/ as in square are increasingly being merged, so that here rhymes with there; and bear and beer, and rarely and really are homophones. This is the "most obvious vowel change taking place" in New Zealand English. There is some debate as to the quality of the merged vowel, but the consensus appears to be that it is towards a close variant, [iə].

Before /l/, the vowels /iː/:/ɪə/ (as in reel vs real), as well as /ɒ/:/oʊ/ (doll vs dole), and sometimes /ʊ/:/uː/ (pull vs pool), /ɛ/:/æ/ (Ellen vs Alan) and /ʊ/:/ɪ/ (full vs fill) may be merged.

 

Other vowels 

/ɑr/-/ɑː/ as in start, bath, and palm is a near-open central-to-front vowel [ɐː] or [ɐ̟ː]. The phonetic quality of this vowel overlaps with the quality for /ʌ/ as in strut. The difference between the two is entirely length for many speakers.

 

Consonants

New Zealand English is mostly non-rhotic (with linking and intrusive R), except for speakers of the so-called Southland burr, a semi-rhotic, Scottish-influenced dialect heard principally in the Southland and parts of Otago. Among r-less speakers, however, non-prevocalic /r/ is sometimes pronounced in a few words, including Ireland and the name of the letter R itself.

/l/ is dark in all positions, and is often vocalised in the syllable coda. This varies in different regions and between different socio-economic groups; the younger, lower social class speakers vocalise /l/ most of the time.

Other consonants

The distinction between /w/ as in witch and /hw/ as in which, retained by older speakers, now seems to be disappearing.

The intervocalic /t/ may be flapped.

 

2.2 Australia

Australian English is a non-rhotic accent and it is similar to the other Southern Hemisphere accents (New Zealand English and South African English). Like most dialects of English it is distinguished primarily by its vowel phonology.

 

The vowels of Australian English can be divided into two categories: long and short vowels. The short vowels, consisting only of monophthongs, mostly correspond to the lax vowels used in analyses of Received Pronunciation. 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 is, certain vowels differ only by length.

 

The following linguistic features of Australian English are generally employed by people with lower standards of education and socio-economic background, and those with higher economic and/or educational standards speak in a manner which does not compress, shorten or remove these features.

Many speakers have also coalesced /dj/, /sj/ and /tj/ into /dʒ/, /ʃ/ and /tʃ/, producing standard pronunciations such as /tʃʉːn/ for tune.

The flapping of intervocalic /t/ and /d/ to alveolar tap [ɾ] before unstressed vowels (as in butter, party) and syllabic /l/ (bottle), as well as at the end of a word or morpheme before any vowel (what else, whatever). Thus, for most speakers, pairs such as ladder/latter, metal/medal, and coating/coding are pronounced identically.

Both intervocalic /nt/ and /n/ may be realised as [n] or [ɾ̃], which can make winter and winner homophones. Interesting will sound like inner-resting. Most areas in which /nt/ is reduced to /n/, it is accompanied further by nasalisation of simple post-vocalic /n/, so that V/nt/ and V/n/ remain phonemically distinct. In such cases, the preceding vowel becomes nasalised, and is followed in cases where the former /nt/ was present, by a distinct /n/. This stop-absorption by the preceding nasal /n/ does not occur when the second syllable is stressed, as in entails.

 

New Zealanders will often reply to a question with a statement spoken with a rising intonation at the end. This often has the effect of making their statement sound like another question. There is enough awareness of this that it is seen in exaggerated form in comedy parody of working-class / uneducated New Zealanders. This rising intonation can also be heard at the end of statements, which are not in response to a question but to which the speaker wishes to add emphasis. High rising terminals are also heard in Australia, but are said to be more common in, and possibly originating from, New Zealand..

In informal speech, some New Zealanders use the third person feminine she in place of the third person neuter it as the subject of a sentence, especially when the subject is the first word of the sentence. The most common use of this is in the phrase "She'll be right" meaning either "It will be okay" or "It is close enough to what is required". This is similar to Australian English.

 

2.3 Canada

 

Perhaps the most recognizable feature of CanE is Canadian raising. The diphthongs /aɪ/ and /aʊ/ are "raised" before voiceless consonants, namely /p/, /t/, /k/, /s/, and /f/. In these environments, /aɪ/ becomes [ʌɪ~ɜɪ~ɐɪ]. One of the few phonetic variables that divides Canadians regionally is the articulation of the raised allophone of /aʊ/: in Ontario, it tends to have a mid-central or even mid-front articulation, sometimes approaching [ɛʊ], while in the West and Maritimes a more retracted sound is heard, closer to [ʌʊ]. Among some speakers in the Prairies and in Nova Scotia, the retraction is strong enough to cause some tokens of raised /aʊ/ to merge with /oʊ/, so that couch and coach sound the same, and about sounds like a boat (though never like a boot, as in the American stereotype of Canadian raising). Canadian raising is found throughout Canada, including much of the Atlantic Provinces. It is the strongest in the Inland region, and is receding in younger speakers in Lower Mainland British Columbia, as well as certain parts of Ontario.

 

Many Canadians, especially in parts of the Atlantic provinces, do not possess Canadian raising. In the U.S., this feature can be found in areas near the border such as the Upper Midwest, although it is much less common than in Canada; raising of /aɪ/ alone, however, is increasing in the U.S., and unlike raising of /aʊ/, is generally not noticed by people who do not have the raising.

 

Because of Canadian raising, many speakers are able to distinguish between words such as writer and rider—a feat otherwise impossible, because North American dialects turn intervocalic /t/ into an alveolar flap. Thus writer and rider are distinguished solely by their vowels, even though the distinction between their consonants has since been lost. Speakers who do not have raising cannot distinguish between these two words.

 

The low-back merger and the Canadian Shift

 

Almost all Canadians have the cot-caught merger, which also occurs in the Western U.S. Speakers do not distinguish /ɔ/ (as in caught) and /ɑ/ (as in cot), which merge as [ɒ], a low back rounded vowel. Speakers with this merger produce these vowels identically, and often fail to hear the difference when speakers who preserve the distinction (e.g. speakers of Conservative General American and Inland Northern American English) pronounce these vowels. This merger has existed in Canada for several generations.

 

This merger creates a hole in the short vowel sub-system and triggers a sound change known as the Canadian Shift, which involves the front lax vowels /æ, ɛ, ɪ/. The /æ/ of bat is lowered and retracted in the direction of [a] (except in some environments, see below). Indeed, /æ/ is further back in this variety than almost all other North American dialects; the retraction of /æ/ was independently observed in Vancouver and is more advanced for Ontarians and women than for people from the Prairies or Atlantic Canada and men. Then, /ɛ/ and /ɪ/ may be lowered (in the direction of [æ] and [ɛ]) and/or retracted; studies actually disagree on the trajectory of the shift. For example, Labov et al. (2006) noted a backward and downward movement of /ɛ/ in apparent time in all of Canada except the Atlantic Provinces, but no movement of /ɪ/ was detected.

 

Therefore, in Canadian English, the short-a and the short-o are shifted in opposite directions to that of the Northern Cities shift, found across the border in the Inland Northern U.S., which is causing these two dialects to diverge: the Canadian short-a is very similar in quality to the Inland Northern short-o; for example, the production [maːp] would be recognized as map in Canada, but mop in the Inland North.

Most Canadians have two principle allophones of /aɪ/ (raised to lower-mid position before voiceless consonants and low-central or low-back elsewhere) and three of /aʊ/ (raised before voiceless consonants, fronted to [aʊ] or [æʊ] before nasals, and low-central elsewhere).

 

Unlike in many American English dialects, /æ/ remains a low-front vowel in most environments in Canadian English. Raising along the front periphery of the vowel space is restricted to two environments - before nasal and voiced velar consonants - and varies regionally even in these. Ontario and Maritime Canadian English commonly show some raising before nasals, though not as extreme as in many American varieties. Much less raising is heard on the Prairies, and some ethnic groups in Montreal show no pre-nasal raising at all. On the other hand, some Prairie speech exhibits raising of /æ/ before voiced velars (/ɡ/ and /ŋ/), with an up-glide rather than an in-glide, so that bag sounds close to vague.

 

The first element of /ɑr/ (as in start) tends to be raised. As with Canadian raising, the relative advancement of the raised nucleus is a regional indicator. A striking feature of Atlantic Canadian speech (the Maritimes and Newfoundland) is a nucleus that approaches the front region of the vowel space, accompanied by strong rhoticity, ranging from [ɜɹ] to [ɐɹ]. Western Canadian speech has a much more retracted articulation with a longer non-rhotic portion, approaching a mid-back quality, [ɵɹ] (though there is no tendency toward a merger with /ɔr/). Articulation of /ɑr/ in Ontario is in a position midway between the Atlantic and Western values.

 

Another change in progress in Canadian English, part of a continental trend affecting many North American varieties, is the fronting of /uː/, whereby the nucleus of /uː/ moves forward to high-central or even high-front position, directly behind /iː/. There is a wide range of allophonic dispersion in the set of words containing /uː/ (i.e., the GOOSE set), extending over most of the high region of the vowel space. Most advanced are tokens of /uː/ in free position after coronals (do, too); behind these are tokens in syllables closed with coronals (boots, food, soon), then tokens before non-coronals (goof, soup); remaining in back position are tokens of /uː/ before /l/ (cool, pool, tool). Unlike in some British speech, Canadian English does not show any fronting or unrounding of the glide of /uː/, and most Canadians show no parallel centralization of /oʊ/, which generally remains in back position, except in Cape Breton and Newfoundland.

 

3. Vocabulary peculiarities of the language

3.1 New Zealand

The first comprehensive dictionary dedicated to New Zealand English was probably the Heinemann New Zealand dictionary, published in 1979. Edited by Harry Orsman, it is a comprehensive 1,300-page book, with information relating to the usage and pronunciation of terms that were both widely accepted throughout the English-speaking world and those peculiar to New Zealand. It includes a one-page list of the approximate date of entry into common parlance of many terms found in New Zealand English but not elsewhere, such as "haka" (1827), "Boohai" (1920), and "bach" (1905).

 

In 1997, Oxford University Press produced the Dictionary of New Zealand English, which it claimed was based on over forty years of research. This research started with Orsman's 1951 thesis and continued with his editing this dictionary. To assist with and maintain this work, the New Zealand Dictionary Centre was founded in 1997. Since then, it has published several more dictionaries of New Zealand English, culminating in the publication of The New Zealand Oxford Dictionary in 2004.

 

A more light-hearted look at English as spoken in New Zealand, A personal Kiwi-Yankee dictionary, was written by the American-born University of Otago psychology lecturer Louis Leland in 1980. This slim volume lists many of the potentially confusing and/or misleading terms for Americans visiting or migrating to New Zealand. A second edition was published during the 1990s.

There are also a number of dialectical words and phrases used in New Zealand English. These are mostly informal terms most common in casual speech.

 

New Zealand adopted decimal currency in the 1960s and the metric system in the 1970s. While the older measures are understood by those born before 1960, younger New Zealanders have lived most or all of their lives in a metric environment and may not be familiar with pounds, ounces, stones, degrees Fahrenheit, acres, yards, and miles, or pounds sterling, shillings, and pence - unless they have spent some time and effort studying foreign countries, such as the United Kingdom and the United States. However, that can be questionable.

Recognisable regional variations is slight, with the exception of Southland, where the "Southland burr" (see above) is heard. This southern area formed a traditional repository of immigration from Scotland (see Dunedin). Several words and phrases common in Scots or Scottish English still persist in this area as well. Some examples of this include the use of wee to mean "small", and phrases such as to do the messages meaning "to go shopping".

 

Some speakers from the West Coast of the South Island retain a half Australian accent from the region's 19th century gold-rush settlers.

 

Māori retain a further variation of New Zealand English, with accents of varying degree, and tending to use Māori words more frequently. Bro'Town was a popular TV programme that exaggerated Māori, Polynesian, and other accents.

Differences from Australian English

Many of these relate to words used to refer to common items, often based on which major brands become eponyms:

 

 

NZ	Australia	Explanation
Cellphone / mobile / mobile phone (cell)/phone(mobile)	Mobile phone  (mobile)	A portable telephone.
Chilly bin	Esky	Insulated container for keeping drinks and food cool.
Dairy	Delicatessen  convenience store  Deli	Equivalent to convenience store, although the term usage is becoming rarer. In larger cities convenience store or superette are used due to immigration (and to current NZ law forbidding a "dairy" from selling alcohol [23]). Note that the term delicatessen is used in New Zealand for a somewhat different purpose, referring to a shop or a section of a supermarket serving specialty foods such as salamis, fine cheeses, and the like (just as it is in most of the States of Australia).
Domain, field	Oval, paddock	An area normally used for recreational purposes, usually grass or earth covered
Duvet	Doona	A padded quilt.
Jandals	Thongs	Backless sandals (otherwise known as "flip-flops" or "Japanese sandals").
Jersey	Jumper	Jumper or sweater. In New Zealand and Australia "jersey" is also used for top part of sports uniform (e.g. for rugby) - another term for a sports jersey, guernsey, is frequently used in Australia but only rarely heard in New Zealand
Judder bar[ / Speed bump	Speed bump	Humps or the like in urban or suburban roads, designed to limit the speed of traffic. "Speed bump" is also a common term in both New Zealand and Australia
Maroon	Maroon, marone	Purplish-brown. Called by the same name in New Zealand as in the United Kingdom; Australia occasionally uses a different spelling and predominantly uses a different pronunciation - in New Zealand it rhymes with spoon, in Australia it rhymes with bone
No exit	No through road	A road with a dead end; a cul-de-sac.
Oil skin / Swanndri	Driza-Bone  Oil skin  (also "oil skin parka")	Oil skin: Country raincoat; Swanndri: heavy woollen jersey (often checquered).
Togs	Bathers  Swimmers  Cozzies  Togs  budgie smugglera	Swimwear (see Australian words for swimwear)
Trolley	Shopping trolley	A device, usually four-wheeled, for transporting shopping within supermarkets.
Trolley, Trundler	Shopping jeep/granny trolley	A two-wheeled device for transporting shopping from local shops (nowadays rarely seen).
Tramp	Bush walk	Bush-walking or hiking.
Twink	Wite-Out or Liquid Paper	Correction fluid.
Vivid  Felts, Felt tips , Marker	Texta	A permanent marker pen.
a Used mainly in Queensland and northern New South Wales.

 

 

 

3.2 Australia

Australian English has many words that some consider unique to the language. One of the best known is outback, meaning a remote, sparsely populated area. Another is The Bush, meaning either a native forest or a country area in general. 'Bush' is a word of Dutch origin: 'Bosch'. However, both terms have been widely used in many English-speaking countries. Early settlers from England brought other similar words, phrases and usages to Australia. Many words used frequently by country Australians are, or were, also used in all or part of England, with variations in meaning. For example, creek in Australia, as in North America, means a stream or small river, whereas in the UK it means a small watercourse flowing into the sea; paddock in Australia means field, whereas in the UK it means a small enclosure for livestock; bush or scrub in Australia, as in North America, means a wooded area, whereas in England they are commonly used only in proper names (such as Shepherd's Bush and Wormwood Scrubs). Australian English and several British English dialects (for example, Cockney, Scouse, Glaswegian and Geordie) use the word mate.

 

The origins of other words are not as clear or are disputed. Dinkum (or "fair dinkum") can mean "true", "is that true?" or "this is the truth!” among other things, depending on context and inflection. It is often claimed that dinkum dates back to the Australian goldrushes of the 1850s, and that it is derived from the Cantonese (or Hokkien) ding kam, meaning, "top gold". But scholars give greater credence to the conjecture that it originated from the extinct East Midlands dialect in England, where dinkum (or dincum) meant "hard work" or "fair work", which was also the original meaning in Australian English. The derivative dinky-di means 'true' or devoted: a 'dinky-di Aussie' is a 'true Australian'. However, this expression is limited to describing objects or actions that are characteristically Australian. The words dinkum or dinky-di and phrases like true blue are widely purported to be typical Australian sayings, even though they are more commonly used in jest or parody than as authentic slang.

 

Similarly, g'day, a stereotypical Australian greeting, is no longer synonymous with "good day" in other varieties of English and is never used as an expression for "farewell", as "good day" is in other countries. It is simply used as a greeting.

 

A few words of Australian origin are now used in other parts of the Anglosphere as well; among these are first past the post, to finalise, brownout, and the colloquialisms uni "university" and <part> short of a <whole> meaning stupid or crazy, (e.g. "a few bricks short of a load" or "a sandwich short of a picnic".)

Influence of Australian Aboriginal languages

 

Some elements of Aboriginal languages have been adopted by Australian English – mainly as names for places, flora and fauna (for example dingo). Beyond that, little has been adopted into the wider language, except for some localised terms and slang. Some examples are cooee and Hard yakka. The former is used as a high-pitched call, for attracting attention, (pronounced /kʉː.iː/) which travels long distances. Cooee is also a notional distance: if he's within cooee, we'll spot him. Hard yakka means hard work and is derived from yakka, from the Yagara/Jagara language once spoken in the Brisbane region. Also from there is the word bung, meaning broken or pretending to be hurt. A failed piece of equipment may be described as having bunged up or as "on the bung" or "gone bung". A person pretending to be hurt is said to be "bunging it on". A hurt person could say, "I've got a bung knee".

 

Although didgeridoo, referring to a well-known wooden musical instrument, is often thought of as an Aboriginal word, it is now believed to be an onomatopoeic word invented by English speakers. It has also been suggested that it may have an Irish derivation because the word dúdaire means "pipe player" in Irish Gaelic, and dúdaire dubh [du:dɪrʲɪ du:] means 'black pipe player'.

 

3.3 Canada

Where CanE shares vocabulary with other English dialects, it tends to share most with American English; many terms in standard CanE are, however, shared with Britain, but not with the majority of American speakers. In some cases British and the American terms coexist in CanE to various extents; a classic example is holiday, often used interchangeably with vacation. In addition, the vocabulary of CanE also features words that are seldom (if ever) found elsewhere.

 

As a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, Canada shares many items of institutional terminology and professional designations with the countries of the former British Empire – e.g., constable, for a police officer of the lowest rank, and chartered accountant.

Education

The term college, which refers to post-secondary education in general in the U.S., refers in Canada to either a post-secondary technical or vocational institution, or to one of the colleges that exist as federated schools within some Canadian universities. Most often, a college is a community college, not a university. It may also refer to a CEGEP in Quebec. In Canada, college student might denote someone obtaining a diploma in business management while university student is the term for someone earning a bachelor's degree. For that reason, going to college does not have the same meaning as going to university, unless the speaker or context clarifies the specific level of post-secondary education that is meant.

 

Within the public school system the chief administrator of a school is generally "the principal", as in the United States, but the term is not used preceding his or her name, i.e. "Principal Smith". The assistant to the principal is not titled as "assistant principal", but rather as "vice-principal".

 

Canadian universities publish calendars or schedules, not catalogs as in the U.S.. Students write or take exams, they rarely sit them. Those who supervise students during an exam are sometimes called invigilators as in Britain, or sometimes proctors as in the U.S.; usage may depend on the region or even the individual institution.

 

Successive years of school are usually referred to as grade one, grade two, and so on. In Quebec English, however, the speaker will often say primary one, primary two, (a direct translation from the French), and so on. (Compare American first grade, second grade (sporadically found in Canada), and English/Welsh Year 1, Year 2, Scottish/Nth.Irish Primary 1, Primary 2 or P1, P2, and Sth.Irish First Class, Second Class etc.) In the U.S., the four years of high school are termed the freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior years (terms also used for college years); in Canada, the specific levels are used instead (ie, "grade nine"). As for higher education, only the term freshman (usually reduced to frosh) has some currency in Canada.[41] The American usages "sophomore", "junior" and "senior" are not used in Canadian university terminology, or in speech. The specific high-school grades and university years are therefore stated and individualized; for example, the grade 12s failed to graduate; John is in his second year at McMaster. The "first year", "third year" designation also applies to Canadian law school students, as opposed to the common American usage of "1L", "2L" and "3L."

 

Canadian students use the term marks (more common in England) or grades to refer to their results; usage is very mixed.

 

 

 

Units of measurement

Unlike in the United States, use of metric units within a majority of industries (but not all) is standard in Canada, as a result of the national adoption of the Metric System during the mid to late 1970s; this has spawned some colloquial usages such as klick for kilometre (as also heard in the U.S. military). See metrication in Canada. Nonetheless, Imperial units are still used in many situations. For example, many Canadians will state their weight and height in pounds and feet/inches, respectively. Temperatures for cooking are often given in Fahrenheit. Directions in the prairie provinces are often given using miles, because the country roads generally follow the mile-based grid of the Dominion Land Survey. Also, the U.S. letter paper size of 8.5 inches × 11 inches is used instead of the international and metric A4 size of 210 mm × 297 mm.

Transportation

Although Canadian lexicon features both railway and railroad, railway is the usual term, at least in naming (witness Canadian National Railway and Canadian Pacific Railway); most rail terminology in Canada, however, follows American usage (e.g., ties and cars rather than sleepers and trucks). Eastern Canada distinctively uses van rather than caboose.[citation needed]

A two-way ticket can be either a round-trip (American term) or a return (British term).

The terms highway (e.g. Trans-Canada Highway), expressway (Central Canada, as in the Gardiner Expressway) and freeway (Sherwood Park Freeway, Edmonton) are often used to describe various high speed roads with varying levels of access control. Generally, but not exclusively, highway refers to a provincially funded road. Often such roads will be numbered. Similar to the US, the terms expressway and freeway are often used interchangeably to refer to divided highways with access only at grade-separated interchanges (e.g. a 400-Series Highway in Ontario). However, expressway may also refer to a road that has control of access but has at-grade junctions, railway crossings (e.g. the Harbour Expressway in Thunder Bay.) Sometimes the term Parkway is also used (e.g. the Hanlon Parkway in Guelph). In Quebec, freeways and expressways are called autoroutes. In Alberta, the generic Trail is often used to describe a freeway, expressway or major urban street (e.g. Deerfoot Trail, Macleod Trail or Crowchild Trail in Calgary, Yellowhead Trail in Edmonton). The British term motorway is not used. The American terms turnpike and tollway for a toll road are not common. The term throughway or thruway was used for first tolled limited-access highways (e.g. the Deas Island Throughway, now Highway 99, from Vancouver, BC, to Blaine, Washington, USA or the Saint John Throughway (Highway 1) in Saint John, NB), but this term is not common anymore. In everyday speech, when a particular roadway is not being specified, the term highway is generally or exclusively used.

A railway at-grade junction is a level crossing; the U.S. term grade crossing is rarely, if ever, used.

A railway or highway crossing overhead is an overpass or underpass, depending on which part of the crossing is referred to (the two are used more or less interchangably); the British term flyover is sometimes used in Ontario, and in the Maritimes, subway is also used.[citation needed]

In Quebec, English speakers often use the word "Metro" to mean subway.

Politics

While in standard usage the terms Prime Minister and Premier are interchangeable terms for the head of an elected parliamentary government, Canadian English today generally follows a usage convention of reserving the title Prime Minister for the national leader and referring to provincial or territorial leaders as Premiers. However, because Canadian French does not have separate terms for the two positions, using premier ministre for both, the title Prime Minister is sometimes seen in reference to a provincial leader when a francophone is speaking or writing English. As well, until the 1970s the leader of the Ontario provincial government was officially styled Prime Minister.

To table a document in Canada is to present it (as in Britain), whereas in the U.S. it means to withdraw it from consideration.

Several political terms are more in use in Canada than elsewhere, including riding (as a general term for a parliamentary constituency or electoral district). The term reeve was at one time common for the equivalent of a mayor in some smaller municipalities in British Columbia and Ontario, but is now falling into disuse. The title is still used for the leader of a rural municipality in Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

The term Tory, used in Britain with a similar meaning, denotes a supporter of the federal Conservative Party of Canada, the historic federal or provincial Progressive Conservative party. The term Red Tory is also used to denote the more socially liberal wings of the Tory parties. Blue Tory is less commonly used, and refers to more strict fiscal (rather than social) conservatism. The U.S. use of Tory to mean the Loyalists in the time of the American Revolution is not used in Canada,[citation needed] where they are called United Empire Loyalists, or simply Loyalists.

Members of the Liberal Party of Canada or a provincial Liberal party are sometimes referred to as Grits. Historically, the term comes from the phrase Clear Grit, used in Victorian times in Canada to denote an object of quality or a truthful person. The term was assumed as a nickname by Liberals by the 1850s.

Members of the Bloc Québécois are sometimes referred to as Bloquistes. At the purely provincial level, members of Quebec's Parti Québécois are often referred to as Péquistes, and members of the Quebec provincial Action démocratique du Québec as Adéquistes.

The term "Socred" is no longer common due to its namesake party's decline, but referred to members of the Social Credit Party, and was particularly common in British Columbia. It was not used for Social Credit members from Quebec, nor generally used for the federal caucus of that party; in both cases Créditiste, the French term, was used in English.

Members of the Senate are referred to by the title "Senator" preceding their name, as in the United States. Members of the Canadian House of Commons, following British parliamentary nomenclature, are termed "Members of Parliament", and are referred to as "The Honourable Jennifer Jones, MP" during their term of office only. This style is extended to the Premiers of the provinces during their service. Senators, and members of the Privy Council are styled "The Honourable" for life, and the Prime Minister of Canada is styled "The Right Honourable" for life, as is the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and the Governor-General. This honorific may also be bestowed by Parliament, as it was to retiring deputy prime minister Herb Gray in 1996. Members of provincial legislatures do not have a pre-nominal style, except in Nova Scotia, where members of the Queen's Executive Council of Nova Scotia are styled "The Honourable" for life, and are entitled to the use of the post-nominal letters "ECNS".

Law

Lawyers in all parts of Canada, except Quebec, which has its own civil law system, are called "barristers and solicitors" because any lawyer licensed in any of the common law provinces and territories must pass bar exams for, and is permitted to engage in, both types of legal practice in contrast to other common-law jurisdictions such as England, Wales, and Ireland where the two are traditionally separated (i.e., Canada has a fused legal profession). The words lawyer and counsel (not counsellor) predominate in everyday contexts; the word attorney refers to any personal representative; a Canadian lawyer representing a client is an attorney-at-law.

 

The equivalent of an American district attorney, meaning the barrister representing the state in criminal proceedings, is called a crown attorney (in Ontario), crown counsel (in British Columbia), crown prosecutor or the crown, on account of Canada's status as a constitutional monarchy in which the Crown is the locus of state power.

 

The words advocate and notary – two distinct professions in Quebec civil law – are used to refer to that province's equivalent of barrister and solicitor, respectively. In Canada's common law provinces and territories, the word notary means strictly a notary public.

 

Within the Canadian legal community itself, the word solicitor is often used to refer to any Canadian lawyer in general (much like the way the word attorney is used in the United States to refer to any American lawyer in general). Despite the conceptual distinction between barrister and solicitor, Canadian court documents would contain a phrase such as "John Smith, solicitor for the Plaintiff" even though "John Smith" may well himself be the barrister who argues the case in court. In a letter introducing him/herself to an opposing lawyer, a Canadian lawyer normally writes something like "I am the solicitor for Mr. Tom Jones."

 

The word litigator is also used by lawyers to refer to a fellow lawyer who specializes in lawsuits even though the more traditional word barrister is still employed to denote the same specialization.

 

Judges of Canada's superior courts (which exist at the provincial and territorial levels) are traditionally addressed as "My Lord" or "My Lady", like much of the Commonwealth, however there are some variances across certain jurisdictions, with some superior court judges preferring the titles "Mister Justice" or "Madam Justice" to "Lordship".

 

Masters are addressed as "Mr. Master" or simply "Sir".

 

Judges of provincial or inferior courts are traditionally referred to in person as "Your Honour". Judges of the Supreme Court of Canada and of the federal-level courts prefer the use of "Mister/Madam (Chief) Justice". Justices of The Peace are addressed as "Your Worship". "Your Honour" is also the correct form of address for a Lieutenant Governor.

 

As in England, a serious crime is called an indictable offence, while a less-serious crime is called a summary offence. The older words felony and misdemeanour, which are still used in the United States, are not used in Canada's current Criminal Code (R.S.C. 1985, c. C-46) or by today's Canadian legal system. As noted throughout the Criminal Code, a person accused of a crime is called the accused and not the defendant, a term used instead in civil lawsuits.

 

A county in British Columbia means only a regional jurisdiction of the courts and justice system and is not otherwise connected to governance as with counties in other provinces and in the United States. The rough equivalent to "county" as used elsewhere is a "Regional District".

Places

Distinctive Canadianisms are:

bachelor: bachelor apartment, an apartment all in a single room, with a small bathroom attached ("They have a bachelor for rent"). The usual American term is studio. In Quebec, this is known as a one-and-a-half apartment; some Canadians, especially in Prince Edward Island, call it a loft.

public house: or more often 'pub'. Drinking establishments which are not Public Houses, and usually themed are 'bars'.

camp: in Northern Ontario, it refers to what is called a cottage in the rest of Ontario and a cabin in the West. It is also used, to a lesser extent, in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, as well as in parts of New England.

fire hall: fire station, firehouse.

height of land: a drainage divide. Originally American.

parkade: a parking garage, especially in the West.

washroom: the general term for what is normally named public toilet or lavatory in Britain. In the U.S. (where it originated) mostly replaced by restroom in the 20th century. Generally used only as a technical or commercial term outside of Canada. The word bathroom is also used.

Indian reserve, rather than the U.S. term "reservation."

rancherie: the residential area of an Indian reserve, used in BC only.

quiggly hole and/or quiggly: the depression in the ground left by a kekuli or pithouse. Groups of them are called "quiggly hole towns". Used in the BC Interior only.

gasbar: a filling station (gas station) with a central island, having pumps under a fixed concrete awning.

The term Dépanneur is often used by English speakers in Quebec. This is because convenience stores are called Dépanneurs in French.