Learn Australia Language

Crikey i reckon its carked it mate!

Goodness i think it has died my friend!

Australian English is made up of slang and has many words that some consider unique to the language.The origins of these words are not clear and are often disputed.

Australian Language can be very funny and colourful, below are just a handful of words that Aussies use.

Ankle biter /Young child

Barbie /Barbecue

Billabong /Waterhole

Bluey /Someone with red hair;

Bruce /A man

Bunghole /Mouth

Chinnwag /A good chat

Chooks /Chicken

Cockie /Farmer

Coldie/ A cold beer

Crook /Sick or not functioning

Cruddy /Low quality

Digger /Australian soldier

Dijeridu /Aboriginal musical wind instrument

Dipstick /Fool

Drongo /An idiot

Dunny /The toilet

Evo /Evening

Face fungus/A man's beard

Fair dinkum /Someone or something really genuine

Footy /Rugby League or Aussie Rules 

G'day /Hi or Hello

Get Stuffed/ Go away!

Good on ya mate /Well done there, mate

Grog /Alcohol

Hard Yakka/ hard work

Holy-dooly /An expression of surprise

Iffy /Something questionable

Jackaroo, Jillaroo /Trainee male or female cattle station hand

Jarmies /Pyjamas

Kafuffle /Argument

Liquid amber/ Beer

Mate /Friend

Narkie /Short-tempered

Never Never /Mythical place in the outback

Nong /Idiot

No worries, mate /Don't worry about it

Ocker /Aussie who likes beer, sport and women

Oldies /Parents

Oz /Australia

Pommy, Pom /English person

Prang /Vehicle crash

Prezzies /Gifts

Quack /Doctor

Ripper! /Great!

Rip snorter! /Something really great

Saltie /Saltwater crocodile

Sandgroper /Someone from Western Australia

Sangas /Sandwiches

Sheila /Young woman

Smoko/Morning Tea

Snags /Sausages

Stralian /Australian

Stubby /Small bottle of beer

Tinnie /Can of cold beer

Toey /Very nervous person or in need of  a partner

Top-ender /Someone from Northern Territory

True Blue /Really

Australian Tucker/ Food

Underdaks /Underpants

Uni /University

Veggies /Vegetables

Waterhole /Pub or hotel 

Woomera /Stick used by Aborigines to throw spears

Wowser /Old-fashioned, prudish

Yabbie /Freshwater Australian crayfish

Yam /Fictional story

Zonked /Really tired

ZZZs /Get some sleep

These are just a handful of Australian language or slang words, if you no more please leave them in the comment box below.

ANZAC Day rememberance

 

 

The 11th Bn on the Pyramids in Egypt prior to the landing at Anzac Cove, Gallipoli . Not many of the soldiers in this picture survived the 8 month campaign.

Anzac Day is a national day of remembrance in Australia and New Zealand, and is commemorated by both countries on 25 April every year to honour members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) who fought at Gallipoli in Turkey during World War I. It now more broadly commemorates all those who died and served in military operations for their countries. Anzac Day is also observed in the Cook Islands, Niue, Samoa and Tonga.

Anzac Day marks the anniversary of the first major military action fought by Australian and New Zealand forces during the First World War. The acronym ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, whose soldiers were known as Anzacs. Anzac Day remains one of the most important national occasions of both Australia and New Zealand. This is a rare instance of two sovereign countries not only sharing the same remembrance day, but making reference to both countries in its name.

In Australia and New Zealand, Anzac Day commemoration features solemn "Dawn Services", a tradition started in Albany, Western Australia on 25 April 1923 and now held at war memorials around both countries, accompanied by thoughts of those lost at war to the ceremonial sounds of The Last Post on the bugle. The fourth stanza of Laurence Binyon's poem For the Fallen (known as the "Ode of Remembrance") is often recited.

At the Australian War Memorial, following events such as the Anzac Day and Remembrance Day services, families often place artificial red poppies beside the names of relatives on the Memorial's Roll of Honour. In Australia, sprigs of rosemary are often worn on lapels and in New Zealand poppies have taken on this role.

In more recent times the families and young people have been encouraged to take part in dawn services, and services in Australian capital cities have seen some of the largest turnouts ever. Reflecting this change, the ceremonies have become more elaborate, incorporating hymns, readings, pipers and rifle volleys. Others, though, have retained the simple format of the dawn stand-to, familiar to so many soldiers.

Two-up has also been legalised on ANZAC Day, when it is played in Returned Servicemen's Leagues (RSL) clubs and hotels. Two-up was played extensively by Australia's soldiers during world war 1

Ode of Remembrance

They went with songs to the battle, they were young.

Straight of limb, true of eyes, steady and aglow.

They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,

They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning,

We will remember them.

Aussie Lifesavers Surf Lifesaving

Surf lifesavers originated in Australia in 1906 in response to drownings at local beaches in Sydney. Such groups became necessary following the relaxing of laws prohibiting daylight bathing on Australian beaches. Volunteer groups of men were trained in life saving methods and patrolled the beaches as lifesavers looking after public safety.
The original surf life saving club is a matter of contention between the Bronte and Bondi beach clubs in Sydney.

Since this time, volunteer lifesavers have saved more than 550,000 lives.
Surf lifesavers spend more than a million hours a year patrolling our beaches, pools and coastlines. Together they rescue around 11,000 people, provide emergency care to 35,000 and give safety advice to more than 600,000 others. And that’s every year.

It is estimated that 83 per cent of Australian's lived within 50 kms of the coastline and its beaches.

Lifesavers are volunteers that typically patrol in groups under a patrol captain for a given period of time on weekend and public holidays under a roster system.
In order to be a surf lifesaver a person must hold a Bronze Medallion or a Surf Rescue Certificate and pass an annual proficiency test.

For Kids

Nippers is a junior program that introduces children aged 5 to 13 to surf lifesaving. It is a fun outdoors activity that grows a child’s confidence, teaches valuable life skills and knowledge. Every surf life saving club around Australia offers a nippers program, all with various styles and sizes.

Stay Alive!
The red and yellow of our Aussie surf lifesavers has been etched into the hearts and minds of all Australians. We watch over you.

Next time you are at the beach, watch out for them. Find the red and yellow flags and always swim between them -
 remember if surf lifesavers can't see you they can't save you.

Australian Camels

Camel Hunting

Forget adrenaline sports – a new initiative to relieve frustrated Aboriginal youths in the interiors of Australia, has them camel hunting .

Substance abuse and alcoholism are rampant among teenagers in remote Aboriginal settlements like Kintore, in central Australia, where there are hardly any (legal) recreational opportunities to speak of. This has worried substance abuse task force experts enough to initiate camel hunting expeditions for these youngsters to channel their energy.

The camels themselves are not native Australian. Brought over from India in the 19th century for load carrying purposes, they have grown in number to become a nuisance.
They threaten fragile desert ecosystems, and destroy property.

The community of Docker River in the Northern Territory  was under siege by 6,000 marauding wild camels, before being culled.

Camel hunting expeditions consist of teenagers accompanied by one of Kintore’s three police officers. Once an animal has been shot, it is butchered and the meat is taken back into the settlement to be shared with the elders of the community.

Camel Hunting can provide a lot of food for the community, and help save the outback Eco-system.

View Camel Recipes http://outbackcooking.blogspot.com/2009/05/camel-recipes.html
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Quoll native cat

British explorer Captain Cook collected quolls along the east coast of Australia in 1770, and recorded "quoll" as their local Aboriginal name. Quolls were often seen in later years by early settlers, who called them "native cat", "native polecat" and "spotted marten", names based on familiar European animals.

Quolls or native cats (genus Dasyurus) are carnivorous marsupials, native to Australia and Papua New Guinea. Adults are between 25 and 75 centimetres (30 in) long, with hairy tails about 20 to 35 centimetres (14 in) long. Females have six to eight nipples and develop a pouch—which opens towards the tail—only during the breeding season, when they are rearing young. Quolls live both in forests and in open valley land. Though primarily ground-dwelling, they have developed secondary arboreal characteristics. They do not have prehensile tails, but do have ridges on the pads of their feet,to walk the rough ground. Their molars and canines are strongly developed.

Cane toads have driven the northern quoll to extinction in many parts of northern Australia and they are threatening to invade Western Australia's Kimberley regions, one of the quoll's last strongholds.

But a University of Sydney project revealed in 2010 is teaching them to avoid eating the invasive amphibians.



Before releasing the quolls into the wild, Professor Rick Shine, Stephanie O'Donnell and Dr Jonathan Webb fed each marsupial a small dead cane toad.

The toads were not large enough to kill the quolls, but they were laced with a chemical that made the quolls feel nauseous.

Dr Webb said the quolls quickly learned to avoid eating toads.

The tribe Dasyurini to which quolls belong also includes the Tasmanian devil, antechinuses, the Kowari, and mulgaras, which makes him a relative of Taz the Tasmanian Devil.

Country Women’s Association CWA



The Country Women’s Association of Australia (commonly abbreviated as CWA) is the largest women's organisation in Australia. It has 44,000 members across 1855 branches. Its aims are to improve the conditions for country women and children and to try to make life better for women and their families, especially those women living in rural and remote Australia. The organisation is self-funded, non-party-political and non-sectarian.

The Country Women's Association was formed in both New South Wales and Queensland in 1922. By 1936 there was a branch in each of the States and territories of Australia.

During WWII, most CWA efforts were redirected to supporting the war effort. They entertained and fed men in country training camps, supported the Australian Comforts Fund and knitted garments for soldiers. They particularly took on the task of making camouflage netting for the army from 1942. Over 400 camouflage netting circles were established, producing hundreds of thousands of nets by early 1944. Many members were also left to run the family farm while their husbands were away fighting.

Volunteers from the Country Women’s Association (CWA) packing Australian Comforts Fund (ACF) parcels for sending overseas to service personnel during WWII.

In the postwar years the CWA took an interest in welcoming new migrants – meeting at least two ships a months and providing catering for 1000-2500 migrants a time. They also helped families settle and invited women to branch meetings. Special services were set up for migrant women living in the snowy Mountains

 In 1992, the  Country Women’s Association of Australia was awarded the RSL Anzac Peace Prize in recognition of their outstanding effort in promoting international understanding and contributing to world peace in accordance with best traditions exemplified by the ANZAC spirit.

Today the  Country Women’s Association  awards student scholarships as well as providing instruction and encouraging participation in the fields of drama, art, music, public speaking, cooking and floral art. The organisation runs workshops for older members on how to use computers, electronic banking and ATMs. Submissions are made to governments at all levels on a wide variety of social issues.

Country Women’s Association of Australia is a member of the Associated Country Women of the World, which has non-government organisation status at the United Nations. ACWW has over 9 million members in 62 countries around the world.

In Queensland Younger Sets are a section of the Queensland Country Women’s Association, which is designed especially for young women (married or single). Girls can be members of a Younger Set up to the age of 25. A Younger Set is made up of girls who participate in arts and craft, cookery, international work, hold positions in their Set (such as president, treasurer, international officer, secretary and vice president), community work and fundraising.

The biggest event for Younger Sets each year is Leadership School. Leadership School is a week-long camp which is created as a youth network throughout Queensland drawing together young women from Younger Set’s all over the state. It is held in a different part of Queensland each year during the September School Holidays and is attended by Younger Set members and Associate Members who are 12 and over. Leadership School provides many different competitions allowing girls from each Set to compete against each other. It also has a large range of exciting activities such as Public Speaking, Debating, Handcraft, Outings, and much more!

Country Women's Association Cook Book
This book is an essential reference for every cook, offering helpful advice and handy hints that have stood the test of time, and a unique insight into the kitchens of the past. You will love this wonderful cookbook which has been inspiring Australian women for generations.
These delightful recipes traverse every aspect of the culinary world, from starters, appetisers and mains to delightful cakes, pastries and desserts, with special sections on home-made jams and preserves, pickles and chutneys, sweets, beverages and more. get it at there website http://www.cwaofnsw.org.au/merchandise/home.do


Its stated aims are

To bring all women and families together and form a network of support.
To provide a forum for the voice of all women in Australia.
To improve conditions and welfare of all women and families especially in country areas.
To support schemes which enhance the value of country living, especially health and educational facilities.
To encourage development in regional areas and to increase the viability of rural communities and the environment.
To provide a voice to Government at all levels.
To promote International goodwill friendship understanding and tolerance between all people.


Motto

Honour to God
Loyalty to the Throne
Service to the Country
Through Country Women
For Country Women
By Country Women

Lord Howe Island

Worlds largest ocean stack Balls Pyramid off Lord Howe Island

Lord Howe Island is a small island in the Tasman Sea 600 kilometres (370 miles) east of the Australian mainland, and is part of the Mid-North Coast Statistical Division of New South Wales, Australia.

Lord Howe island is roughly crescent-shaped, about 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) long and 2 kilometres (1.2 miles) wide. It is an eroded remnant of a 7 million-year-old shield volcano. The crescent of the island protects a coral reef and lagoon.
Mount Lidgbird 777 metres (2,549 ft) and Mount Gower 875 meters (2,871 ft) dominate the south end of the island, are remnants of lava flows that once filled a large volcanic caldera.
These lava flows occurred 6.4 million years ago, and were the last volcanic events on the island, which has subsequently eroded to what remains today.

Lord Howe Island was discovered on 17 February 1788, by HMS Supply, commanded by Lieutenant Henry Lidgbird Ball, RN, who was on his way from Botany Bay to Norfolk Island with convicts to start a penal settlement there. On his return journey on 13 March 1788, he sent a party ashore on the island. It was uninhabited, and it seems that it had not been known to any of the Polynesian peoples of the South Pacific. Whilst Mount Lidgbird on the island and the nearby Balls Pyramid are named after Ball, the island itself was named after Richard Howe, 1st Earl Howe, who was First Lord of the Admiralty.

Only one native mammall remains on the island, the Large Forest Bat, there are two terrestrial reptiles that are native to the island, a skink and a gecko. Both are rare on the main island but more common on smaller islands offshore. The Garden Skink and the Bleating Tree Frog  have been accidentally introduced from the Australian mainland in recent years.

Lord Howe is also Australia’s premier bird watching destination, with over 14 species of seabirds nesting on the island

Lord Howe Island, with its adjacent islets, is an important breeding site for several kinds of seabirds. They include the Providence Petrel, for which the island was its only breeding location for many years after the breeding colony on Norfolk Island was exterminated in the late 19th century.
Species of landbirds that breed on the island group include an iconic endemic rail, the Lord Howe Woodhen, and three endemic passerine subspecies of the Golden Whistler, Silvereye and Currawong.
The Flesh-footed Shearwater breeds in very large numbers in summer; its chicks were heavily harvested by the islanders for food.
Masked Boobies are the largest seabirds breeding on Lord Howe island.

Fishing
On Lord Howe Island you can hand-feed the metre-long kingfish at Neds Beach, or try your hand at catching one off-shore from one of the local sports fishing boats.

Diving

Lord Howe Island has a mind blowing and isolated scuba diving site which was only discovered six years ago. Ball's Pyramid is the best diving Lord Howe Island has to offer - we encounter large schools of fish and huge hard, soft and black corals, gorgonia, stingrays, turtles and sharks.

How to get there!

QantasLink offers year-round scheduled services to Lord Howe Island. Flight time is under two hours, with flights departing from Sydney on most days, and from Brisbane on weekends.

A seasonal weekly service to the Island is also available direct from Port Macquarie from February to June and September to December.
There are connecting services with Qantas from all Australian capital cities and with QantasLink from many regional centres.

The Torres Strait Islands

Gabba Island or Pig island

The Torres Strait Islands are a group of at least 274 small islands which lie in Torres Strait, the waterway separating far northern continental Australia's Cape York Peninsula and the island of New Guinea. They are mostly part of Queensland Australia, a few islands very close to the coast of mainland New Guinea belong to the Western Province of Papua New Guinea. Population is approx 48,000

The Torres Strait Islands are distributed across an area of some 48,000 km². The distance across the Strait from Cape York to New Guinea is approximately 150 km at the narrowest point; The Torres Strait Islands lie scattered in between, extending some 200–300 km from furthest east to furthest west.

Waier Island

Culture

The indigenous people of the Torres Strait have a distinct culture which has slight variants on the different islands where they live. They are a sea-faring people, and engaged in trade with people of Papua New Guinea. The culture is complex, with some Australian elements, some Papuan elements, and Austronesian elements, just like the languages. The Islanders seem to have been the dominant culture for many centuries, and neighbouring Aboriginal and Papuan cultures show some Island influence in religious ceremonies and the like.

Thursday Island, also known as TI or Waiben, is the administrative and commercial centre of the Torres Strait Islands.

Eddie Mabo Born Murray Island 1936 died 1992

Native Title

Eddie Mabo, a man from the Torres Strait Islands, fought a court case, attempting to assert a legal title over his tribe's traditional lands.
It was a landmark case recognizing native title in Australia for the first time.
A judicial revolution occurred in 1992 when the High Court discarded the doctrine of terra nullius in the Mabo case. The ruling had repercussions for Indigenous peoples within Australia and around the world, especially in Canada, New Zealand, and the United States.

Language

There are two indigenous languages spoken on the islands: the Western-Central Torres Strait Language (called by various names, including Kala Lagaw Ya, Kalaw Kawaw Ya and Kowrareg), and the Eastern Torres Language Meriam Mir. One language, Torres Strait Creole, or Brokan, is used throughout Torres Strait, in neighbouring Papua as far as the West Papuan border area, and Cape York, as well as in many Island communities in Mainland Australia. This is a creole English similar to the closely related Tok Pisin in Papua New Guinea.

Getting there
QantasLink (13 13 13; www.qantas.com.au) flies daily from Cairns to Thursday Island (from $480 return). The airport is on Horn Island. Aero Tropics (1300 656 110, 07-4040 1222; www.aero-tropics.com.au) and Regional Pacific Airlines (1300 797 667, 07-4040 1400; www.regionalpacific.com.au) fly weekdays from Cairns to Bamaga (from $280 one way).

There are regular ferry services between Seisia and Thursday Island (one way/return $47/94, one hour) run by Peddells Ferry Service (07-4069 1551; www.peddellsferry.com.au; Engineers Jetty, Thursday Island).