Languages/ethnicity
languageAlthough Australia has no official language, it is English that is their national language. Australian English has a distinctive accent and vocabulary. According to the 2011 census, spoke 76.8% of the population only English at home. Other languages spoken at home included Mandarin 1.6%, Italian 1.4%, Arabic 1.3%, Cantonese 1.2% and Greek 1.2%. A large proportion of first and second generation migrants are bilingual. A native language remains the main language for about 50,000 people. Australia has a sign language known as Auslan, which is the main language of about 6,500 deaf people.
It is believed that there were 400 Aborgines languages at time when europeans landed at Australia. Only about 70 languages survived |