Traditional customs

 One of the traditions of Australia that most distinguishes it from the rest is that this country has a day itself, when the calendar reaches de January 26, all people celebrate ¨Australia Day¨ to commemorate the anniversary of the declaration of Australia as British colony for almost 225 years. As one of the last days summer holidays, many families and children take advantage of the holiday to have fun with music, picnics and fireworks.

Here you are a video how about Australians celebrate that day:

  Among other celebrations, on April 25 is a day important for Australian community because "Anzac Day" isa tribute to all those killed in the wars that included the singing of the Austalian Anthem, a prayer, recitations and moments of silences...

  -Source:

• http://www.nuestrorumbo.com/2010/06/23/tradiciones-y-costumbres-de-australia

Cricket

                           

Cricket was first played in southern England in the 16th century. By the end of the 18th century, it had developed into the national sport of England. The expansion of the British Empire led to cricket being played overseas and by the mid-19th century the first international matches were being held. 

Cricket has been played in Australia for over 210 years and the first recorded cricket match in Australia took place in Sydney in December 1803.

It is quite popular in all Australian states, so it is considered Australia's national sport. Cricket Australia is the governing body for professional and amateur cricket, which operates all of the Australian national representative cricket sides, including the Australian cricket team, the Australia national women's cricket team and youth sides as well. CA is also responsible for organising and hosting Test tours and One Day Internationals with other nations, and scheduling the home international fixtures.

Here is a piece of a cricket match: Australia vs. England

 To know everything about this sport take a look at this page : http://www.cricket.com.au/get-involved/play-cricket/how-to-play(Cricket Australia). Come on guys, it's really interesting!!

Sources:

http://www.cricket.com.au/

http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/discover_collections/society_art/cricket/early/cricket_early.html

Kylie Minogue

 As said my classmate, the music is a direct way to share accent or dialect. To show you another Australian accent, we have chosen another Australian singer: "kylie Minogue¨, who is one of the most representative in.

In my opinion, although this was not his first single, ¨Can´t get you out of  my head¨is their best known song...

So, I leave you a video of this amazing song.. listen and enjoy it!

Australian Fauna and Flora Emblems

Australia is a land like no other, with about one million different native species. More than 80 per cent of the country’s flowering plants, mammals, reptiles and frogs are unique to Australia, along with most of its freshwater fish and almost half of its birds. 

Australian population is so engaged with the flora and fauna, such was the case that all of the states have different emblems of animals, plants, etc.

In Western Australia: their animals are Black Swan and Numbat their floral  Red & Green Kangaroo Paw.

In South Australia: their animals are Hairy-Nosed Wombat and Piping Shrike (unofficial) and their floral Sturt's Desert Pea.

In Queensland: their animals are  Koala and Brolga, their floral Cooktown Orchid.

In New South Wales: their animals are Platypus and Kookaburra , their floral Waratah.

In Victoria: their animals are Leadbeater's Possum and Helmeted Honeyeater, their floral Common Heath.

In Tasmania: their animal is Tasmanian Devil(unofficial) and their floral Tasmanian Blue Gum.

In Northern Territory: their animals are Red Kangaroo and Wedge-Tailed Eagle, their floral Sturt's Desert Rose.

Click in the hyperlink to know more about each animal or plant!

cultural mixture at the cuisine

Australian cuisine refers to the cuisine of the Commonwealth of Australia and its preceding indigenous and colonial societies. Indigenous Australians have occupied the lands of Australia for years, during which time they developed a unique hunter gatherer diet, known as "bush tucker", drawn from regional Australian flora and fauna, such as the kangaroo. Australia was, from 1788 to 1900, a collection of British colonies in which culinary tastes were strongly influenced by British and Irish traditions, and agricultural products such as beef cattle, sheep and wheat became staples in the national diet. Postwar Australia's multicultural immigration program lead to a diversification of the cuisine of Australia, particularly under the influence of  Mediterranean and East Asian immigrants.

Australian cuisine of the first decade of the 21st century shows the influence of globalization. Organic and biodynamic, kosher and halal foods have become widely available and there has been a revival of interest in bush-foods. British traditions persist to varying degrees in domestic cooking and the takeaway food sector, with roast dinners, the Australian meat pie and fish and chips remaining popular, but there are also new elements featured in these foods. To barbecue meats in the open air is considered a treasured national tradition. While fast food chains are abundant, Australia's metropolitan centers possess many famed haute cuisine and nouvelle cuisine establishments. 

Restaurants whose product includes contemporary adaptations, interpretations or fusions of exotic influences are frequently termed "Modern Australian".

Australian Jazz

Is there such a thing as Australian jazz, or is there just jazz which is made in Australia? Why does that distinction matter?

In attempting to examine these questions the intent is not to bullishly trumpet national cultural triumphs, but to document the intriguing implications of one of the richest seams of creativity in the land. Trying to pin down what it is that makes Australian jazz Australian, may be as fruitless as trying to describe the wind: ultimately you can just hear it and feel it. There is no single musician you can point to and say, ‘That’s what Australian jazz sounds like’. (John Shand)

Australia has spawned many extremely original practitioners who have pursued their own nuances and developments in the music. The result is that, despite a hostile environment on a host of levels, Australia has become a creative centre of jazz, rivalling the Scandinavian and Western European countries that have steadily diluted New York’s pre-eminence over the last three decades.

Many of the leading "Australian" jazz were the renowned pianist-composers Mike Nock, Dave MacRae and Judy Bailey, drummer Barry Woodsand and vocalist Ricky May.

Sources:
-Shand, John. Jazz : The Australian Accent
-Wikipedia

Australian English

Australian English variation

Although Australian English is relatively homogeneous, some regional variations are notable.

The dialects of English spoken in South Australia, Western Australia and Victoria, Queensland and the Torres Strait islands differ slightly from each other and from the English spoken in New South Wales. Differences in terms of vocabulary and phonology exist.

Most regional differences come down to word usage. For example, swimming clothes are known as cossies or swimmers in New South Wales, togs in Queensland, and bathers in Victoria and South Australia. The word footy generally refers to the most popular football code in the particular state or territory; that is, rugby league in New South Wales and Queensland, and Australian rules football elsewhere. Beer glasses are also named differently in different states. Distinctive grammatical patterns exist such as the use of the interrogative eh?.

There are some notable regional variations in the pronunciations of certain words. 

This phonological development is more advanced in South Australia, which had a different settlement chronology and type than other parts of the country. 

L-vocalisation is also more common in South Australia than other states. In Western Australian English the vowels in near and square are typically realised as centring diphthongs, whereas in the eastern states they may also be realised as monophthongs. A feature common in Victorian English is salary–celery merger. 

There is also regional variation in /u:/ before /l/.

Here you are a comedian video about the AusE accent in different places:

AC/DC

As we all know, Music is the most direct way to share different accents or dialects people have. Due to that, we are going to show you several Australian bands or singers in order to hear their accent in different songs. The very first band is, in my opinion, the most famous and global band Australia has; they are AC/DC.

This is a curious anecdote of the name of the band:

Malcolm and Angus Young developed the idea for the band's name after their sister, Margaret Young, saw the initials "AC/DC" on a sewing machine. "AC/DC" is an abbreviation meaning "alternating current/direct current" electricity. The brothers felt that this name symbolised the band's raw energy, power-driven performances of their music. 

"AC/DC" is pronounced one letter at a time, though the band are colloquially known as "Acca Dacca" in Australia slang.

I leave you here a video of a concert of them in the Olympic Stadium of "La Cartuja" Seville, (Spain) , the city where we live.

Source: - http://www.goingrank.com.au/ 

              - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC/DC

"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.