German Influence on Australian English

Ever since European settlement on the Australian continent began, German speakers have been present and contributed to the development of the Australian nation. It can thus be assumed that the German-speaking minority and the English-speaking majority have been continuously interacting with and influencing each other in one of the longest-standing immigrant language contact situations in Australia. This study is concerned with the influence of the minority language German on the majority language Australian English, which has hitherto received only little attention. German Influence on Australian English, on the one hand, examines the connection between the history of German-speaking immigration to Australia and different types of transference and, on the other hand, synchronically and empirically investigates at the individual levels of language - namely lexis, pronunciation, grammar and toponyms - the results of more than two centuries of German-English language contact that are still visible in Australian English today.