"Waltzing Matilda" (part 2, lyrics)

There are no "official" lyrics to "Waltzing Matilda" and slight variations can be found in different sources. This version incorporates the famous "You'll never catch me alive said he" variation introduced by the Billy Tea company. Paterson's original lyrics referred to "drowning himself 'neath the coolibah tree".

Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong
Under the shade of a coolibah tree,
And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled:
"You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me."

Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda
You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me
And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled:
"You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me."

Down came a jumbuck to drink at that billabong.
Up jumped the swagman and grabbed him with glee.
And he sang as he shoved that jumbuck in his tucker bag:
"You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me."

Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda
"You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me",
And he sang as he shoved that jumbuck in his tucker bag:
"You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me."

Up rode the squatter, mounted on his thoroughbred.
Down came the troopers, one, two, three.
"Whose that jolly jumbuck you've got in your tucker bag?
You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me."

Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda
"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me"
"Whose that jolly jumbuck you've got in your tucker bag?
You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me."

Up jumped the swagman and sprang into the billabong.
"You'll never catch me alive", said he.
And his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billabong:
"You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me."

Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda
"You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me"
And his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billabong:
"You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me."

(From Wikipedia)

"Waltzing Matilda" (part 1)

"Waltzing Matilda" is Australia's most widely known bush ballad. A country folk song, the song has been referred to as "the unofficial national anthem of Australia"

The title is Australian slang for travelling by foot with one's goods (waltzing, derived from the German auf der Walz) in a "Matilda" (bag) slung over one's back. The song narrates the story of an itinerant worker, or "swagman", making a drink of tea at a bush camp and capturing a sheep to eat. When the sheep's owner arrives with three police officers to arrest the worker for the theft, the worker commits suicide by drowning himself in the nearby watering hole, after which his ghost haunts the site.  

The song has never been the officially recognised national anthem in Australia. Unofficially, however, it is often used in similar circumstances. The song was one of four included in a national plebiscite to choose Australia's national song held on 21 May 1977 by the Fraser Government to determine which song was preferred as Australia's national anthem. "Waltzing Matilda" received 28% of the vote compared with 43% for "Advance Australia Fair", 19% for "God Save the Queen" and 10% for "Song of Australia".

The lyrics are hidden on the final pages of Australian passports, such as above and below the words "notice" on some passports.

(From Wikipedia)

Australian Inventors

Australian inventions and inventors

Australian culture is a surprise box, the Australia people have contributed with several invents and most of them very useful, I am going to show you some of them:

Do you know Australia’s Aboriginal people invented the aerodynamic boomerang and a spear thrower called the woomera?

Some Australian famous inventors include Alfred Traeger, who built a radio for the Royal Flying Doctor Service in 1929, and David Ronald de Mey Warren, who invented the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder.

The Professor Ian Frazer in 2006 was Australian of the Year and invented a vaccine to prevent cervical cancer.

But the most surprising is that Australian inventions  include notepads, the surf lifesaving reel, aspirin in 1915, the pacemaker, penicillin in 1940, the plastic disposable syringe, the wine cask in 1965, the bionic ear in 1978, dual-flush toilet flush in 1980, anti-counterfeiting technology for banknotes and long-wearing contact lenses in 1999.

 Professor Ian Frazer.

Australian Sports

Sport is an important part of the culture in Australia, with a long history in the country dating back to the pre-colonial period. Early sports that were played included cricket, horse racing, Australian rules football and rugby.

There are a number of professional sport leagues in Australia, including the Australian Football League (Australian rules football), National Rugby League (rugby league), Super Rugby (rugby union), the A league and W-League (soccer), ANZ Championship (Netball), the National Basketball League, the Women's National Basketball League and the Australian Baseball League.

The rugby is one of the most popular sports in Australia, it has three division; a Rugby Union, Australian Rules and a Rugby League.

The media plays an important part in Australia's sporting landscape.

Australian Language Evolution, Expressions.

“Storyteller words”

At the present time, Australian English is famous for its air of novelty, is something of a living museum, preserving several eighteenth- and nineteenth-century regional words from Cornwall, Wessex, the Midlands, East Anglia, Northumbria, Scotland and Ireland.

To take just a few examples, words like corker, dust-up, purler and tootsy all came to Australia from Ireland via the cotton mills of Lancashire.  Billy comes from the Scottish bally, meaning 'a milk pail.'

Australians get larrikin from Worcestershire and Warwickshire, where the word originally meant 'a mischievous youth'.

' A typical Australianism like fossick, meaning 'to search unsystematically', is a Cornish word, showing the influence of the Cornish miners who settled in Southern Australia.

 Cobber almost certainly came from the Suffolk verb to cob, 'to take a liking to someone.' and Tucker, widely used for 'food,' had various English origins.

(Robert McCrum;  The Story of English. Viking, 1986)

Australian colloquialisms

Australians often abbreviate words and then add 'o' or 'ie' on the end. We also like reverse nicknames, calling people with red hair 'bluey' or saying to someone with dark hair. Australians also tend to flatten our vowels and end sentences with a slightly upward inflection.

Common Australian colloquialisms include:

·        Bring a plate – when you are invited to a party and asked to 'bring a plate', this means to bring a dish of food to share with your host and other guests. Take the food to the party in any type of dish, not just a plate, and it is usually ready to serve. This is common for communal gatherings such as for school, work or a club. If you are unsure what to bring, you can ask the host;

·        BYO – when an invitation to a party says 'BYO', this means 'bring your own' drink. If you do not drink alcohol, it is acceptable to bring juice, soft drink or soda, or water. Some restaurants are BYO. You can bring your own wine to these, although there is usually a charge for providing and cleaning glasses called 'corkage';

·        Arvo – this is short for afternoon. 'Drop by this arvo,' means please come and visit this afternoon;

·        Fortnight – this term describes a period of two weeks;

·        Barbecue, BBQ or barbie – outdoor cooking, usually of meat or seafood over a grill or hotplate using gas or coals;

·        Snag – the raw type sausages usually cooked at a barbecue. They can be made of pork, beef or chicken;

·        Chook– means a chicken;

·        Cuppa – a cup of tea or coffee 'Drop by this arvo for a cuppa' means please come and visit this afternoon for a cup of tea or coffee;

·        Loo or dunny – these are slang terms for toilet. If you are a guest in someone's house for the first time, it is usually polite to ask permission to use his or her toilet;

·        Fair dinkum – honest, the truth;

·        To be crook – to be sick or ill;

·        Flat out – to be very busy;

·        Shout – to buy someone a drink. At a bar or a pub when a group of friends meet, it is usual for each person to 'shout a round', meaning buy everybody a drink;

·        Bloke – a man. Sometimes if you ask for help, you may get be told to 'see that bloke over there'; and

·        How ya goin? 'How are you going?' – means how are you, or how do you do?

Differences between Australian and American English

Hi everyone!!! Today I am going to leave you a video which, in my opinion, is very interesting and helpful to try to understand a little better Australian accent.  In the video, we can also learn some differences between American and Australian vocabulary, an example for that could be “gas station” in America and “service station” in Australia, like the blond guy (who looks exactly like an Australian guy) explain to us in the video. I hope you enjoy it!!!

Pubs or hotels?

Let´s met in a hotel?

One of the Australian peculiarities is that the word hotel is actually “pub”. Then when somebody proposes “let´s met in a hotel?” don´t be astonished because they really want to say “let´s go for a drink?”

This started in the University of Melbourne. It is surrounded by “hotels” (also called pubs) with similar characteristics:  old buildings, an environment student, usually crowds of people and with a large variety of beers and wines.

Most of the “hotels” (pubs) are hanging a placard saying “live music”. That is what makes it so attractive. You can have your nice glass of wine while you are listening live music.

Ubicacion: The Corkman Irish Pub, Leicester Street, Carlton, Victoria (Australia)

YES, YOU MUST COME AND VISTIT  IT BECAUSE IS ONE OF THE BEST PLACES!!!

Please pass me the “Dead Horse”!!

Imagine the following situation: You get a scholarship or a grant to study English abroad and you decide to go to Australia. Once you arrive there, you meet a lot of people from different places around the world; however some of them are Australians as many teachers are. One day, all of you decide to have a barbecue and then, someone (one of the Australian boys) says: Please pass me the “Dead Horse”!!

What does he mean by that? Certainly not to kill a horse and give it to him!! The answer is much simpler than that. And the fact is that Australians use that curious expression to refer to ketchup or tomato sauce.

An explanation of that expression may be that much Aussie slang (That is based on British slag) involves a rhyming game. Thereby, following the phonology of Australia, horse a sauce rhyme somehow.

Moreover, to avoid getting caught by surprise, Aussies pronounce this expression as: dead ‘orse.

Where the word “Kangaroo” comes from?

      As almost every word, the origin of the word “kangaroo” has different versions. The most popular is a common myth about the kangaroo's English name is that "kangaroo" was a Guugu Yimithirr phrase for "I don't understand you." According to this legend, Lieutenant Cook and naturalist Sir Joseph Banks were exploring the area when they happened upon the animal. They asked a nearby local what the creatures were called. The local responded "Kangaroo", meaning "I don't understand you", which Cook took to be the name of the creature. However the Kangaroo myth was debunked in the 1970s by linguist John B. Haviland in his research with the Guugu Yimithirr people.

Thereby, this is a more acceptable origin of the term: The word kangaroo derives from the Guugu Yimithirr (an Australian aboriginal language) word gangurru, referring to grey kangaroos. The name was first recorded as "kangooroo or kanguru" on 4 August 1770, by Lieutenant (later Captain) James Cook on the banks of the Endeavour River at the site of modern Cooktown.

…And you, which one would you choice? 

Australian English Phonology

Mainly, Australian English is distinctive from other varieties of English by his unique pronunciation. Like most dialects of English, is distinguished by its vowel phonology.

The vowel´s sounds of Australian English are divided in:

                     ·Long vowels (include monophthongs and diphthongs;mostly correspond to the tense vowels used in analyses of Received Pronunciation as well as its centring diphthongs ).

                           · Short vowels (which include to others monophthongs)

Australian English Monophthongs

Australian English Dipthongs

 

Moreover, Australian english contain differences in the duration fonematic. Some vowels are differents in their duration.

Consonants sounds are similar to other varieties non- rhotic´s english. 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<r> in the spelling comes before another word that starts with a vowel.An intrusive /r/ may similary be inserted before a vowel inwords that do not have <r> in the spelling in certain environments, namely after the long vowel /o:/ and after word final /ə/.

An introduction of the Australian vocabulary

Australian English has, as almost all varieties of English, several words, expressions, and idioms which have moved across borders and therefore they are spoken in all territories where English is present. Some 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. 

Australian poetry, such as The Man from Snowy River, and folk songs, such as Waltzing Matilda, contain many historical Australian words and phrases that are understood by Australians even though some are not in common usage today.

Australian English, in common with several British dialects (for example, Cockney, Scouse, Glaswegian and Geordie), uses 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.

Nevertheless the sort of vocabulary, expressions, and idioms that we are going to talking about are those ones which are unique to Australia. 

We will try to find the most curious ones and treat them with a humor point of view. Have fun everybody!!!

Sub-accents of AusE

As we must know, Australian accent is one of the hardest in the world. There is a tripartite division of Australian English accents:broad, general, and cultivated, occasionally tied to notions of social class, education and urban or rural backgrounds.The 'prestige' accent of England(RP) also exerts a considerable influence.

 -'General' Australian English is a neutral accent. It is the most spoken variety of Australians. This is what you will hear on the radio or on television.

 -Cultivated Australian accent (used by about 10% of the population) is similar to British English (the Near-RP),associated with high status.

 -Broad Australian English is a more extreme accent often identified as 'Australian'.It is associated with the values of the traditional Australian working-class and lower middle-class male.'This form moved the Australian vowels and diphthongs even further away from what was now the British standard of pronunciation, and emphasized nasality, flatness of intonation, and the elision of syllables'

                                       
This is an excerpt from the ABC Documentary, The Sounds of Au, about the three Australian accents.

You should also visit these interesting web sites, they have many useful information and so you'll learn to love AusE :

-Macquarie University-Australian Voices

-Language and Identity in Australia.Australians accents

And if you wanna' feel like an authentic australian speaker just click down here:

How to speak with an Australian accent with a voice coach (Garrett Jamison).

Sources:

-Moore,Bruce.Australian English in the twentieth century.Oxford English online Dictionary.Retrieved from Australian-english-in-the-twentieth-century

-Macquarie University online(Sydney).Faculty of Human Sciences.Retrieved from Macquarie-University/australian-voices/australian-accent

The beginning of a new dialect: Australian english (AusE)

The founding of the British penal colony of New South Wales at Sydney in 1788 is the starting point of a process of evolution from British English, spoken by the children of early settlers exposed to a wide range of different dialects, particularly from Ireland and South East England. Then arose Australian English,a new variety of English and the standard language of Australia.

'Many of the words now thought of as Australian in fact started out in Britain, and some can still be heard in British local dialects - such as dinkum, cobber, tucker (cf. tuck shop) and joker (person). 

On the other hand, in recent years the influence of American English has been apparent, so that the country now displays a curious lexical mixture.Thus we find American truck, elevator, and freeway alongside British petrol, boot (of a car) and tap.

People usually think of Australian English as characterized by such Aboriginal borrowings as boomerang, billabong, dingo, kangaroo, koala, kookaburra, wallaby, and wombat; but in fact the English settlers took very few words from the native languages spoken in the country'.It was due to the Aborigines of Australia were very few, nomadic and because over 200 languages were in use at the time.

On the other hand,about a third of Australian place names are unmistakably Aboriginal: Woolloomooloo, Bugarribbee, Warragumby'. 

I invite you to listen to a really interesting podcast to know more about where did the Australian accent come from: Download audio  Show transcript

Sources:

Crystal, David. The English Language. A guided tour of the language. London. Penguin. 2002.

ABC.RadioNational.Speaking our language:THE STORY OF AUSTRALIAN ENGLISH

Australian Aboriginal Languages.

"We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love... and then we return home.”

 ABORIGINAL PROVERB

Australian Aboriginal culture is one of the oldest and longest surviving cultures, that has dated back to at least 40,000 years. Some say it may date back as far as 65,000 years ago.

The aborigines lives are distinctly related to the land and being one with the environment. The land is not just the physical rocks, trees, and rivers but rather the land is part of the people spiritually and must be used in harmony and sustainably. The land has its own stories of creation. They were semi-nomadic people living in large groups within their own territories, often referred to as ‘traditional lands’. These lands were defined by the surrounding environmental boundaries, such as rivers or mountains.

There has existed over 250 Aboriginal languages in Australia with many dialects spoken, for example Anjumarla, Warrungu, koko-Bera... It is a very diverse language. Recently a map showing the geographical region of each different language of Australia. It was created by David Horton.

Here I leave the link, where you can see specifically in which part developed each dialect.

http://www.abc.net.au/indigenous/map/

THE BEGINNINGS...

"This is our land. It goes back, a long way back, into the Dreamtime, into the land of our Dreaming. We made our camp here, and now all that is left of our presence are the ashes and the bones of the dead animals the young men had killed. Soon even our footprints will be carried away by the wind.”

ABORIGINAL PROVERB

The continent of Australia was once part of the greater land mass called Gondwanaland, where it has housed one of the oldest and longest surviving culture.

Aboriginals were the real founders of Australia because they came to this land thousands of years before white people discovered it. In 1988 white Australians celebrated 200 years of white settlement in this country. But Aboriginals have been here for at least 40,000 years. When white people came to Australia, they came to a land that already belonged to the Aboriginals. No one knows exactly where the Aboriginals lived before they came to Australia. It is known that Aboriginals came from somewhere in South-East Asia and that they left their homes and travelled to Australia in canoes or on rafts. Australian aboriginal culture is the oldest living culture in the world, at least 40,000 years old.

Here is a example of the traditional music the native people of Australia, the so-called aboriginals.

Welcome!

Hi!! We are five classmates addicted to English ( Alicia, Julia, Marta, Myriam and Pedro J.) and this is our first blog project. We’ll try to have fun while learning several aspects of Australia and its language.

Please, write down and share your knowledge with us!

   Welcome to our blog community!!!