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Whatsapp A road safety warning on the Mereenie Loop Road in Central Australia mimics the Aboriginal English spoken nearby.

Country, deadly, bush tucker, sorry business, blackfella, gubbah, biggest mob, gammon, humbug, cheeky, cleverman, featherfoot, grannies, the old people... Aboriginal English terms are now increasingly part of the wider Australian vernacular.

Since the last edition of the Australian National Dictionary was published in 1988, Aboriginal language terms like muligah and kudjeri have become more widely spoken.

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Jay Arthur documented Aboriginal English in the late 1990s.

She reflects on the depth and versatility of the Aboriginal use of English as well as the history of the Aboriginal English term 'country' which has a spiritual and philosophical dimension - the relationality of people to a certain place.

The latest edition of the Australian National Dictionary - the primary repository of uniquely Australian words and phrases - includes 536 new words from Aboriginal languages.

Many of the terms describe flora and fauna or human relationships.

But some of the words being listed are more conceptual - like songline or tjukurrpa, for instance.

Dr Bruce Moore is the Dictionary's chief editor and he says country has become so widely understood that it is widely regarded to be an Australian English term.