LANGUAGE

How did Aussie English develop?

In these monthly discussions we answer one question about language in PNG and beyond. This month we are looking at Australian English and asking how it developed.
ALTHOUG Papua New Guineans speak English, the country they tend to look to as a model for English usage is Australia, not England.
This is understandable given the colonial history of PNG and its proximity to Australia. It means that PNG has inherited much of the colourful vocabulary and stylistic conventions of its neighbour to the south. But how did Australia develop such a distinctive form of English?
Today about 73 per cent of Australians speak English as a home language and it is the language used everywhere in Australian government and education. But it is a relatively new arrival to the continent, coming with the first English speakers in 1788.

The new arrivals from Great Britain and Ireland spoke many different English geographic and social dialects. When the first English-speaking children were born in Australia, they grew up hearing all of these dialects, taking words and modelling their accents on what they heard around them. The largest groups of English speakers were from London and other southeast English towns, so these were the dialects that had the greatest influence on the way this first generation of Australian English speakers spoke. By 1820, visitors from England could notice that young Australian English speakers were developing their own way to speak. This mixing of dialects that all come together is called dialect leveling.
In the gold rushes of the mid-19th century, large numbers of Americans moved to Australia, bringing their dialects with them. American English has continued to influence Australian English up to the present day through the dominance of American culture in popular music, movies, and television. Other influences have been from the many ancient Aboriginal languages of the continent as well as from the languages spoken by more recent immigrants from all parts of the world.
The result has been a variety of English that, like many other English varieties, does not pronounce “r” at the end of a word. Certain vowel sounds have merged so that, for example, “Lennon” and “Lenin” are pronounced the same by most speakers. Combinations of certain vowels have a distinctive quality, such as “ay” in “day” being pronounced in a way that sounds almost like “eye” (“die”) to speakers of many other varieties of English. For most speakers, the sound “t” often becomes “d” between vowels in the middle of a word, as in the numbers “eighty” and “eighteen”.
Although Australia is a large continent, Australian English is remarkable for having very little geographic variation, other than an occasional word or pronunciation, such as the South Australian pronunciation of the “a” in words such as “dance” or “answer” being the same as in “father”, or the use of “togs” in Queensland, “swimmers” in Sydney, or “bathers” elsewhere for swimming clothing. The important words for different sizes of beer glasses are also different in different states. But English has just not been present in Australia long enough to develop geographic dialects that way that English has in Great Britain itself.
There is social variation, however. For many years there was a type of upper-class pronunciation that tried to imitate upper-class British pronunciation. That has largely disappeared, but there is still a difference between the pronunciation of most country and less educated people and many people who are urban and from families with more education. Under the influence of the mass media, an increasingly smaller number of people today use the broad pronunciation typical of country and less educated people.

Aboriginal English is another distinctive variety. In some areas indigenous Australians speak a creole English related to Tok Pisin. In others, they use standard English, but with distinctive words and pronunciations to show social solidarity.
It is the vocabulary of Australian English that has had the greatest impact on PNG English and Tok Pisin. Words such as “bush” for the jungle, “mate” for “friend”, and “tucker” for “food” are good examples that are known throughout PNG. Australians are well known for their creativity in swearing, and this gift has also been passed on to English-speaking Papua New Guineans.
With its large numbers of Australian expatriates both before and after Independence, Port Moresby English has been particularly influenced by Australian English. One example of this is the use of “youse” by many Port Moresby residents for plural “you” (Tok Pisin “yupela”).
Australians are famous for using shortened forms of words, such as “ute” for “utility” or “barbie” for “barbeque”. They are also haphazard is whether they use British or American variations. For example, while they use American “truck” rather than British “lorry”, that vehicle has its engine under a British “bonnet” rather than under an American “hood”.
There are some subtle grammar differences between American and British English. In general, Australians tend to follow American, rather than British variants. For example, words for groups of people forming a group, such as “government” and “group” are singular, not plural, in both American and Australian English (“the government is”, not “the government are”) and “shall” is rarely used. But like British English, and unlike American English, “the” can be omitted before “university” or “hospital” (“I was in hospital last week”) and, like Brits, Australians “have” a bath or a shower rather than “take” a bath or shower like Americans.
In school, Papua New Guineans learn Australian spelling, which tends to follow British, rather than American, rules, using British “labour”, “centre”, and “tyre” rather than American “labor”, “center” and “tire”. Where American dictionaries use only “-ize” and British dictionaries allow both “-ize” and “-ise”, however, Australian dictionaries prefer only “-ise” (“realise”, not “realize”). But as many online and software programs today use American spelling as a default, in both PNG and Australia, an increasing number of young people are growing up more used to American than British and Australian spellings.
Although a distinctive PNG form of English has become established, it is unlikely that it will ever stray too far from its Australian roots. PNG is a great consumer of Australian media, Australia is a preferred location for overseas studies, and, in non-covid times, there is much movement between the two countries. Modern Papua New Guinean culture has incorporated many aspects of Australian culture. Besides meat pies, rugby, and a social life lubricated with beer, Australian English is a familiar part of many Papua New Guineans’ lives. It will continue to be influential in Papua New Guinean cultural life for the foreseeable future.

• Professor Volker is a linguist living in New Ireland, and an Adjunct Professor in The Cairns Institute, James Cook University in Australia. He welcomes your language questions for this monthly discussion at http://[email protected]. Or continue the discussion on the Facebook Language Tok-tok page.

Studying project management

By KEVIN PAMBA
ON Friday, Oct 1 last year I had the opportunity to observe presentations by final year Diploma in Project Management students in Divine Word University, Madang.
The students, all professionals in different fields working in the public and private sectors, did the presentations on how they would management projects as project managers.
The lecturer in charge, David Fonzie Glama had assigned the students to work in groups and come up with a mock project each and show in class how they would deliver it – from start to finish. Glama required the students to demonstrate in the presentation what they learnt from project conception to conclusion (or delivery to the client).
The presentations of the students over the two hours were enlightening. The presentations took a casual observer in the class like me into the mind of a project manager and the realm of project management and what it entails to manage a project of different size and scope. The students, mostly based on their workplace settings, presented interesting scenarios of managing a project.
After the presentations, the leader of the class Captain Peter Marx Morlen from the Engineering Battalion of the Papua New Guinea Defence Force expressed the gratitude of the students to DWU and Glama. Capt Morlen said the project management course in DWU was a niche programme that they needed and were grateful to DWU for giving them the opportunity.
Capt Morlen said members of the class were involved in running projects, mainly from hands-on experience and the study in DWU offered them the tools to enhance their work or do better.
The Diploma in Project Management is among niche academic programmes introduced by DWU for working professionals and is housed in the Department of Governance and Leadership within the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.
“The Diploma in Project Management (DipPM) programme introduces and equips students with basic project management knowledge, skills, techniques and tools available to organizations in contemporary public or business environments. Project management is the discipline of planning, organizing, motivating, and controlling resources to achieve specific goals,” the department of Governance and Leadership says on its Webpage. The programme runs over two years (or four semesters) and is offered through the flexible learning (FL) mode for professionals in the field in the public and private sectors.
The Department says students take two units a semester and complete the program in two years. They are required to participate in a two-week residential component each semester. Those interested in the project management study in DWU can contact the Flexible Learning Centre on email [email protected]
Capt Peter Marx Morlen and his classmates graduated with their Diploma in Project Management during the 40th DWU graduation ceremony on Friday, March 11.

• Dr Kevin Pamba PhD is a senior lecturer in Governance and Leadership in DWU.