Resource for historical language?

Might you have access to journals, letters, or newspapers from the time/place? It'd give you some sense of it. many such things are online for historical American stuffs, but I haven't found 'em for Australia. I might be behind the times, though; or libraries might be our friends.

Apart from that, novels written there/then might help too.

Since your readers aren't going to know nineteenth century 'strine, you don't want to be too authentic.

Mostly, you don't want to be anachronistic, and sound too modern. So avoid modern slang, and terms that didn't exist like writng about using the Hoover to clean up a mess . . . and yeah, that one was from a published book

I've got a link to 19thc Americanisms, but nada on Australian. Sorry I can't be of more help.

Lisa, I do think it's worth reading up on other speech in order to get a sense of its rhythms. And yeah, history books don't help there. Actual historical source material does, more.

Absolutely, look for authentic samples--newspapers, letters, diaries, etc.

For standard Australian, the dictionary that I'm increasingly seeing being cited is Macqurarie's Dictionary. It's not a historical dictionary, but it often does give historical information, including dates, about when something was first or commonly uses. There's an online version, but it's a subscription site. I bet you could find a used one at ABE books or someplace similar online.

Here's the subscription site:

http://www.macquariedictionary.com.au/anonymous@9c9DC84355768/-/p/dict/index.html

I believe...

Oxford do a dictionary of Australian English, we certainly have one for NZ English. Oxford will give the first date of printed word usage which is very helpful.

You should be able to find newspaper resources. And there are many letters, journals, and diaries written by the early pioneers you can find published.

Editors and publishers want plain English. No modern idioms, but no gadzookery either. Use the odd word which your readers should guess from context or know, but don't pepper your writing with strange, old fashioned words.

Are you in Australia now? Because each state has a govt funded Writers' Centre and it's well worth joining and asking them for help. Also you have, like us in NZ, National Archives which are available to everyone.

Read any of Kerry Greenwood's Phryne Fisher Murder Mysteries. They are set in the 1920s I know, but her secondary characters are often the ordinary man or woman and she gets the Australian (Oz) flavour through well with just the odd Oz word. 'She'll be right' and 'Beaut' are long established from Victorian times.

Ah.

I'm a member of the Vic group when I can afford the fees. They are most useful. The Queensland one publishes your annual markets book. Check out the writers' retreats and courses and residencies. I'm always green with envy that we have nothing in NZ!

There's the Australian National Dictionary Centre, and their word lists, too. I'd forgotten about the Centre--it was born as a result of the data collection for the second edition of the Australian National Dictionary--this is the historical dictionary for Australian English, but it's not out yet, and it's going to be priced much like the OED itself; not a casual purchase. It's due in June.

And...

there's always 'Seven Little Australians' to read.

My Father -in -law once gave me a book from the 30's which contained all of the old English slang words and from where they originated. I just did a google search on:

Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (Bearing in mind the Aussie slang originated from England).

Amazon has one by that title by Eric Partridge (ISBN-10 0415291895) these books are very entertaining and full of historical fact. Also if you Google the above, a number of free web sites come up with Australian, NZ and British slang and their origins - maybe worth checking.
Regards,
Steve

Don't know if this would be of any help, all online and searchable:

Austral English: A Dictionary of Australasian Words Phrases and Usages, 1898.

I don't know a thing about Australian, but it looks pretty useful, with dated examples of words used in context. Since it's 1898 it'll have some anachronistic words if you're writing about earlier in the century, but it does seem to try to note when words came into use, and at least there'll be no 20th century words in it.