Official languages N/A | Common keyboard layouts QWERTY | |
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Main languages Australian English (81%) Indigenous languages Australian Aboriginal languages, Tasmanian languages, Torres Strait Island languages Minority languages Chinese (2.9%) Italian (1.2%), Arabic (1.1%), Greek (1%), Vietnamese (0.9%), Spanish (0.4%) Sign languages Auslan
Yolŋu Sign Language and other Aboriginal sign languages | ||
Australia has no official language, but is largely monolingual with English being the de facto national language. Australian English has a distinctive accent and vocabulary. A considerable proportion of first and second generation migrants are bilingual. According to Ethnologue, 81% of people spoke English at home, including L2 speakers. Other languages spoken at home included Chinese 2.9%, Italian 1.2%, Arabic 1.1%, Greek 1%, Vietnamese 0.9% and Spanish 0.4%. There were almost 400 languages spoken by Indigenous Australians prior to the arrival of Europeans. Only about 70 of these languages have survived and all but 30 of these are now endangered.
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Australian Aboriginal languages
It is believed that there were almost 400 Australian Aboriginal languages at the time of first European contact. Most of these are now either extinct or moribund, with only about fifteen languages still being spoken among all age groups of the relevant tribes.
An indigenous language remains the main language for about 50,000 (0.25%) people. Australia has a sign language known as Auslan, which is the main language that approximately 10,000 deaf people use. Chinese is by far the most spoken foreign language, with 715,000 speakers as of 2016, and has even been considered to be put on signs across Australia, to encourage tourists to explore and interact with other people.
The Aboriginal languages with the most speakers today are Arrernte, Kala Lagaw Ya, Tiwi, Walmajarri, Warlpiri, and the Western Desert language.
Tasmanian languages
All the indigenous languages of Tasmania are extinct today, and little reliable information about them was recorded.
Torres Strait languages
Two languages are spoken on the islands of the Torres Strait, within Australian territory, by the Melanesian inhabitants of the area: Kala Lagaw Ya and Meriam Mir. Meriam Mir is a Papuan language, while Kala Lagaw Ya is an Australian language.
Pidgins and creoles
Two English-based creoles have arisen in Australia after European contact: Kriol and Torres Strait Creole. Kriol is spoken in the Northern Territory, and Torres Strait Creole in Queensland.
Broome Pearling Lugger Pidgin was a pidgin used as a lingua franca between Malays, Japanese, Vietnamese, Torres Strait Islanders and Aborigines on pearling boats.
Foreign Languages
There has been a steady decline in the percentage of Australians who speak only English at home since at least 2001. According to the 2001 census, English was the only language spoken in the home for around 80% of the population. By the 2006 census it had fallen to close to 79%, while in the 2011 census, that number had fallen to 76.8%. Other languages spoken at home included Mandarin 1.6%, Italian 1.4%, Arabic 1.3%, Cantonese 1.2% and Greek 1.2%.
In the 2001 census, 2,843,851 Australians reported speaking a language other than English at home, including 50,978 speakers of Indigenous languages.
Other languages spoken in Australia, according to Ethnologue, include Adyghe, Basque, Western Cham, Estonian, Fijian Hindustani, Hebrew, Indo-Portuguese, Northern Kurdish (11,000 speakers), Cham (25,000 speakers), Lithuanian (10,000 speakers), Cocos Islands Malay, Mambae, (30,000 speakers), Chaldean Neo-Aramaic, Nung, Piemontese, Pukapuka (140 speakers), Romanian, Traveller Scottish, Senaya, Slovene, Sylheti, Tai Dam, Tongan, Turoyo (2,000 speakers), Unserdeutsch, Uyghur, Northern Uzbek, Welsh and Eastern Yiddish. There is also the developing Italo-Australian Dialect that is not officially recognised by the Australian government but has been noted by linguists throughout Italy and Australia; the number of speakers is unknown.
According to Ethnologue, Languages of Australia in 2016 include: