Ethnolect: Immigration and Lebanese Born Migrants
Due to the increase of migration in recent years, ethnolects have become especially prevalent in Australian society. The Lebanese culture is especially apparent in Sydney’s CBD and this is manifested in the language of teenagers, as well as their migrant parents.
An ethnolect is a variation of language that is associated with another ethnicity or culture. The need for a cultural identity in a foreign society often gives rise to ethnolects. This desire for an identity possibly stems from the discrimination committed against cultural communities in Australia. Members of these communities thus develop their own variation of the language, which may include unique words or meanings, in order to exclude outsiders. This form of covert prestige creates group solidarity and strengthens the fabric the ethnic groups.
Welcome to Lebanese Australian English with Arabic flavourings!
Australia’s Lebanese community is one of the earliest recognized ethnic minorities in the country. It’s large population, mainly condensed in Sydney and its outer suburbs, can be owed to the mass migration sparked by the Lebanese civil war in the 1970s. Due to this, the Lebanese born population in Australia doubled in just a decade. Since then, the population of Lebanese Australians, including Lebanese born migrants and their children, has again doubled to just over 90,000 in 2010. In Victoria, we are most likely to find Lebanese populations in the northern suburbs of Melbourne such as Broadmeadows, Coburg, Brunswick, Fawkner and Altona.
Within the Lebanese ethnolect, two distinct variations can be observed: that of the first generation and that of the second generation.
First generational variations emerge from direct migrants from another country to Australia. Their ethnolects are particularly differentiable in their phonetic, phonological and syntactical features, due to the heavy influence of their first language.
The second generation, on the other hand, pertains to the children of
An ethnolect is a variation of language that is associated with another ethnicity or culture. The need for a cultural identity in a foreign society often gives rise to ethnolects. This desire for an identity possibly stems from the discrimination committed against cultural communities in Australia. Members of these communities thus develop their own variation of the language, which may include unique words or meanings, in order to exclude outsiders. This form of covert prestige creates group solidarity and strengthens the fabric the ethnic groups.
Welcome to Lebanese Australian English with Arabic flavourings!
Australia’s Lebanese community is one of the earliest recognized ethnic minorities in the country. It’s large population, mainly condensed in Sydney and its outer suburbs, can be owed to the mass migration sparked by the Lebanese civil war in the 1970s. Due to this, the Lebanese born population in Australia doubled in just a decade. Since then, the population of Lebanese Australians, including Lebanese born migrants and their children, has again doubled to just over 90,000 in 2010. In Victoria, we are most likely to find Lebanese populations in the northern suburbs of Melbourne such as Broadmeadows, Coburg, Brunswick, Fawkner and Altona.
Within the Lebanese ethnolect, two distinct variations can be observed: that of the first generation and that of the second generation.
First generational variations emerge from direct migrants from another country to Australia. Their ethnolects are particularly differentiable in their phonetic, phonological and syntactical features, due to the heavy influence of their first language.
The second generation, on the other hand, pertains to the children of