Australian Aboriginal English (AAE) refers to a dialect of
Australian English used by a large section of the
Indigenous Australian population. It is made up of a number of varieties which developed differently in different parts of
Australia. These varieties are generally said to fit along a continuum ranging from light forms, close to Standard Australian English, to heavy forms, closer to
Kriol. There are generally distinctive features of accent, grammar, words and meanings, as well as language use. AAE is not to be confused with
Kriol, which is a separate language from English spoken by over 30,000 people in Australia. Speakers have been noted to tend to change between different forms of AAE depending on who they are speaking to, e.g. striving to speak more like
Australian English when speaking to a non-Indigenous English speaking person.