Australian English (AusE, AuE, AusEng, en-AU) is the form of the English language spoken in Australia.
Australian English began diverging from British English shortly after the foundation of the Australian penal colony of New South Wales (NSW) 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 famil...
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Australian English (AusE, AuE, AusEng, en-AU) is the form of the English language spoken in Australia.
Australian English began diverging from British English shortly after the foundation of the Australian penal colony of New South Wales (NSW) 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 were 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 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 ...
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