 Although Australia has no official language , English has always been entrenched as the de facto national language . Australian English is a major variety of the language with a distinctive accent and lexicon , and differs slightly from other varieties of English in grammar and spelling . General Australian serves as the standard dialect . According to the 2011 census , English is the only language spoken in the home for close to 81 % of the population . The next most common languages spoken at home are Mandarin ( 1 @.@ 7 % ) , Italian ( 1 @.@ 5 % ) , Arabic ( 1 @.@ 4 % ) , Cantonese ( 1 @.@ 3 % ) , Greek ( 1 @.@ 3 % ) , and Vietnamese ( 1 @.@ 2 % ) ; a considerable proportion of first- and second @-@ generation migrants are bilingual . A 2010 – 2011 study by the Australia Early Development Index found the most common language spoken by children after English was Arabic , followed by Vietnamese , Greek , Chinese , and Hindi . 
