New South Wales Culture & Language

Life here is organised around the coast to a degree visitors underestimate. The surf club, the ocean pool and the early-morning swim are routine rather than recreation, and the beach is treated as public space in a way that shapes the whole social calendar.

Sydney is among the most multicultural cities in the world, and the interesting eating is in the suburbs rather than the centre — Cabramatta for Vietnamese, Lakemba for Lebanese, Ashfield for Shanghainese.

Aboriginal culture is living, not historical. Rock engravings sit inside suburban national parks, languages are being actively revived, and Welcome to Country is now standard at public events rather than ceremonial.

Sport is close to a civic religion, and the rugby league loyalties are geographic and inherited.

English is universal. More than a third of Sydney residents speak another language at home — Mandarin, Arabic, Cantonese, Vietnamese and Nepali most commonly.

Aboriginal languages are being actively revived; Dharug and Wiradjuri words appear increasingly in place names and signage, and the Gadigal name for the Sydney area is in common official use.

Local usage worth knowing: arvo is afternoon, servo a petrol station, bottle-o a liquor shop, thongs are flip-flops, and the bush means anywhere rural. Shortening words and adding an -o or -ie is not slang so much as the default register.