BUSH was one of the first words to enter what became the distinctive Australian version of English.
It came from the Dutch "bosch" and by 1827 had completely replaced the English "woods" in even official records.
- Speaking Our Language - The Story of Australian English, by Bruce Moore, Oxford University Press Australia, rrp $29.95
In Dutch, it meant country covered with natural wood and probably entered Australian speech from South Africa, as Cape Town was the principal port on the way here in early colonial times.
In Moore's book we learn that "kangaroo" was the first distinctive Australian-English word.
Captain Cook and Sir Joseph Banks recorded it from Aboriginal speech during their stop at the present Cooktown, Queensland, in 1770.
"Drover" was recorded by 1847 and "Mallee" was being applied figuratively by the 1850s.
"Dag" - in its wool growing sense - was borrowed from English dialect, recorded here by 1895 and soon spreading to other uses.
Moore finds that the Australian accent would have been fully developed by 1840, spreading from Sydney around the later colonies.
It was probably not very different from the way we speak now.
World War I diggers adopted broader Australian, probably to reinforce their Australian identity while overseas.
Moore says Ned Kelly almost certainly spoke with an Australian accent, although some Kelly experts believe he spoke in the Irish way.
Moore believes people get their accents from other children, not parents.
The varied dialects from the British Isles and elsewhere flattened out as the immigrints mingled in early Australia. This became much more pronounced in their children.
