A history of the English Language

229.
English World-Wide.
In the various parts of the former British Empire, as in the United States, the English 
language has developed differences that distinguish it from the language of England. In 
Australasia, Africa, South Asia, and Canada, peculiarities of pronunciation and 
vocabulary have grown up that mark off national and areal varieties from the dialect of 
the mother country and from one another. These peculiarities are partly such as arise in 
communities separated by time and space, and are partly due to the influence of a new 
environment. In some countries the most striking changes are the result of imperfect 
learning and systematic adaptations by speakers of other languages. Differences of nature 
and material civilization, and generally contact with some foreign tongue, are clearly 
reflected in the vocabulary. 
1. 
Australia and New Zealand. 
In Australia it has been well said, “It is probably not too much to say that there never was 
an instance in history when
14 
English as We Speak It in Ireland
(Dublin, 1910), p. 96. 
15 
An illuminating treatment of Hiberno-English syntax, from which the following examples are 
taken, is A. Lunny, “Linguistic Interaction: English and Irish in Ballyvourney, West Cork,” in 
A history of the english language 300

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Aspects of English Dialects in Ireland, 1,
ed. Michael V.Barry (Belfast, 1981), pp. 118–41. See also 
P.L.Henry, 
An Anglo-Irish Dialect of North Roscommon
(Dublin, 1957). 
so many new words were needed, and that there never will be again, for never did settlers 
come, nor can they ever come again, upon Flora and Fauna so completely different from 
anything seen by them before. An oak in America is still a 
Quercus,
not as in Australia a 
Casuarina
. But with the whole tropical region intervening it was to be expected that in 
the South Temperate Zone many things would be different, and such expectation was 
amply fulfilled.”
16
Australian English uses many words that would not be understood in 
England or America. Some of these are old words that have acquired new meanings by 
being applied to new things. Thus the term 
robin
is used for various birds not known in 
Europe. The word
 jackass
(shortened from 
laughing jackass
) means a bird whose cry is 
like a donkey’s bray. Other words have been borrowed from the aboriginal languages of 
Australia and from Maori in New Zealand. 
Kangaroo
and 
boomerang
have become 
general English, but 
wombat
is still chiefly Australian because it is the name of an 
Australian animal.
17
The Australian calls a rowdy street loafer a 
larrikan
. A 
swagman
is a 
man traveling through the 
bush
(back country) carrying a 
swag
(tramp’s bundle). Where 
an American talks of a 
ranch,
the Australian speaks of a 
station
and, like us, distinguishes 
between a 
sheep station
and a 
cattle station
. A 
boundary rider
is one who patrols an 
estate and keeps the owner informed concerning every part of it. The English of Australia 
not only is characterized by interesting differences of vocabulary but varies strikingly in 
pronunciation from the received standard of England. The accent of the majority of 
Australians has characteristics often associated with Cockney, especially in the quality of 
the vowels and diphthongs that occur in the words