New Zealand English
New Zealand English is the dialect of English spoken in New Zealand.
New Zealand English is close to Australian English in pronunciation. Possibly the only difference between New Zealand and British spelling is in the ending "-ise" or "-ize". New Zealanders use the "-ise" ending exclusively, whereas Britons use either ending, and some British dictionaries and style manuals prefer the "-ize" ending.
Many local everyday words are not English at all, being traditional Māori language names for local flora, fauna, and the natural environment, and some other Māori words have made their way into the vernacular.
In 1998, Oxford University Press produced a Dictionary of New Zealand English that it claimed was based on over 40 years of research. This research started with Harry Orsman's 1951 thesis and continued with his publishing this dictionary as the editor. To assist with and maintain this work, the New Zealand Dictionary Centre was founded in 1997.
Vocabulary
Examples of centuries old Māori names for native birds are the kiwi, kea, kakapo, tui and pukeko, the extinct moa, and the kotuku or white heron. There are also fish such as hoki, kahawai, tarakihi or terakihi and mako shark, and shellfish like toheroa and paua.
Most of the native trees also have Māori names such as the kauri, rimu, totara, kowhai, matagouri and pohutukawa. Other vegetation with Māori names includes the kumara, a type of sweet potato.
The word kiwi has acquired other meanings, most commonly as an informal term for New Zealander, or as an adjective instead of New Zealand. The use of kiwi to refer to kiwifruit is not part of New Zealand English.
Many Māori words or phrases that describe Māori culture have become part of New Zealand English. Some of these are:
- haka: a chant and (war) dance of challenge, popularised by the All Blacks rugby team, who perform it before the game in front of the opposition
- hangi: a method of cooking food in a pit; or the occasion at which food is cooked this way
- hui: a meeting; increasingly being used by New Zealand media to describe business meetings relating to Māori affairs
- iwi: tribe, or peoples
- kia ora: hello, and indicating agreement with a speaker
- kohanga reo: Māori language pre-school (literally 'language nest')
- mana: reputation—a combination of authority, integrity, power and prestige
- marae: ceremonial meeting area in front of the meeting house; or, the entire complex surrounding this, including eating and sleeping areas
- pakeha: people of non-Māori origin, especially those of European origin
- puku: belly, usually a big one
- whanau: extended family
Other Māori words may be recognised by most New Zealanders, but generally not used in everyday speech:
- aroha: love, affection
- haere mai: welcome, come here
- hapu: subtribe; or, pregnant
- ka pai: good; well done
- kai: food
- koha: gift
- korero: to chat; to speak in Māori
- tangi: to mourn; or, a funeral at a marae
- taniwha: mythical water monster
- tapu: sacred, taboo; to be avoided because of this; probably borrowed from Tongan tabu
- te reo: the Māori language (literally, the language)
- tohunga: priest, shaman
- turangawaewae: one's own turf
- wairua: spirit
- whakapapa: genealogy, to discuss family history
New Zealanders also refer to Māori people, in the plural as Māori, not as 'Māoris', and this is often pronounced as 'maw-rri' with a trilled 'r'.
Pronunciation of Māori place names
Many Māori place names suffered from a fairly ungainly anglicisation for most of the 19th and 20th centuries, but since the 1980s increased consciousness of te reo Māori has led to a shift back to correct pronunciations. The anglicisations have persisted most among natives of the towns in question, so it has become something of a shibboleth, with correct pronunciation marking someone as non-local.
Examples
- Paraparaumu - para-pram
- Pauatahanui = part-a-noo-ee
- Oakura - okra
- Te Awamutu - tee-a-moot
To further confuse matters, many southern Maori words, which have a distinctive pronunciation that differs from standard Maori, are frequently mistaken for anglicisations and "corrected". These include the pronunciation of Oamaru as Om-a-roo and of Kawarau as Ka-warra.
A mixture of southern Maori speech patterns and anglicisation leads to a third trend, the removal of the final vowel of place names, or the reduction of final vowels to a schwa. This is particularly common in the southern South Island. This pattern also results in local shibboleths, and result in such pronunciations as Lake Wakatipu being referred to as Wakatip, and Otago being pronounced o-taag-uh.
Māori influence
The dominant influence of the Māori language (Te Reo Māori) upon New Zealand English is lexical. An 1999 estimate based on the Wellington corpora of written and spoken New Zealand English put the proportion of words of Māori origin at approximately 0.6%; mostly place and personal names.
The use of Māori words is increasing, particularly in the North Island, although there are regional variations. For instance, in most of the country the native wood pigeon is called "kereru", but in Northland it is called "kukupa" and sometime "kuku", and on theChatham Islands the "parea".
"Kia ora" literally means "be healthy" but it has also become a standard term of greeting, meaning "hello" or "welcome". It also signifies agreement with a speaker at a meeting. Other Māori greetings, "Tena koe" {one person} or "Tena koutou" {three or more people} are also widely used. Similarly the phrase for goodbye, "Haere Ra", which may also be the origin of the once much widely used NZ phrase for goodbye "Hooray". The Maori phrase "kia kaha", literally "be strong", is also frequently encountered as an indication of moral support for someone starting a stressful undertaking or otherwise in a difficult situation.
Greeting someone on a cold morning is sometimes expressed as "Makariri nei?", (cold isn't it?). This phrase may have spawned the bastard Māori-English word "maka-chilly" which probably started as a joke and is not widely used. The slang word "buggered" is often equated with the Māori word for "broken", "Pakaru", and is synonymous with "Pakarued".
Some hybrid words, part English and part Maori, have developed, the most common of which is probably half-pai (often written half-pie), meaning incomplete or or substandard quality (pai being the Maori word for "good").
Intriguingly, several Maori words are used in English as lighthearted, or even slang, equivalents of their more common English counterparts. The term puku for stomach, for example, is more likely to be encountered during a friendly chat than in more formal circumstances.
The common Maori sentence ending nei, is thought to possibly be responsible for the exlamational and/or interrogative use of "eh!" at the end of sentences in New Zealand English (as noted below). Evidence supporting this suggestion is the increased prevalence of the usage of eh in areas with a higher proportion of Maori population. It is thus a far more common usage in South Auckland, for instance, than in rural Canterbury.
Unique New Zealand English vocabulary
There are also many non-Māori words that are unique to New Zealand English, or shared with Australia.
- bach a small holiday home, usually near the beach, often with only one or two rooms and of simple construction. Pronounced "batch".
- chip, punnet or pottle, depending on the region, the unit by which strawberries and certain other fruit are sold.
- chippie, a carpenter.
- choice!, excellent! Great idea!
- crib, another word for bach, more commonly used in the south of the South Island.
- The Ditch, the Tasman Sea, the "ditch" separating New Zealand and Australia. Occasionally also means the Cook Strait between the two main islands of the country.
- domain, as well as its common overseas uses can mean a public park, especially a small flat grassed area within urban surroundings (from demesne: any estate in land).
- eh!, used for emphasis at the end of a sentence, eh! (see note above on Māori influence. A similar but not identical usage is found in Canadian English).
- flatting, sharing a flat (apartment) or rented house.
- footpath, pavement or sidewalk, shared by many countries outside US.
- footy, football (usually Rugby Union or League, rarely soccer).
- freezing works, a meat-packing plant, an abattoir.
- good as gold, great, just right. Often shortened to good as.
- Jafa, a derogatory description of Aucklanders used by non-Aucklanders.
- OE or Big OE, Overseas Experience, time spent travelling and working overseas, usually in Europe.
- onya, short for "Good On Yer" (You).
- Pavlova, favourite meringue-like dessert made from egg whites, frequently served with cream and kiwifruit.
- pom, British person, usually English (mildly derogatory).
- Queen Street farmer, a usually pejorative term for an investor in rural land with no knowledge of land use.
- Remuera tractor, a usually pejorative term for a SUV (compare Queen Street farmer, above).
- scarfie, a university student, particularly one at the University of Otago.
- smoko, rest break during work (especially as smoking will soon be totally banned in public/workplaces).
- super, old age pension scheme (from superannuation).
- togs, swimming costume.
- varsity in New Zealand refers to the university itself, not to a sports team.
- WOF/Warrant, (Warrant Of Fitness), (repetitious) vehicle roadworthiness test, similar to British MoT and the Australian Roadworthy Certificate, except that it is required 6-monthly for older vehicles.
Differences from British English
The most noticeable difference in pronunciation is probably the flat "i", so that "six" is pronounced in a way sounding like "sucks". This is a part of the vowel shift that has occurred in New Zealand.
Below, the latter word is how the former word sounds to the ears of a non-New Zealander:
- pan → pen
- pen → pin
- pin → pun
- peek → peck
Note that many of the differences listed below are avoided by New Zealanders speaking "properly", as in public speaking for example, in which case the main differences are the shifted vowel sounds listed here.
Additional Schwa
Typically, a New Zealander will insert the schwa to words such as grown, thrown and mown, resulting in grow-en, throw-en and mo-wen. However, groan, throne and moan are all unaffected meaning these word pairs can be distinguished by ear, unlike in British English.
This has also been seen (rarely) in the pronunciation of the word three, where the schwa appears between the 'th' and the 'r', creating a two-syllable word.
Distinction between /E@/ and /I@/
In thicker New Zealand accents, words like "chair" and "cheer", (/tSE@/, /tSI@/) are pronounced the same way (/tSI@/, i.e. as "cheer" in British, American or Australian English). The same occurs with "shared" and "sheared" (both pronounced /SI@d/), bear and beer, spare and spear. This pronunciation is not universal, many New Zealanders do in fact distinguish these words. (SAMPA used for phonetic transcriptions.)
Younger speakers tend to merge toward /I@/, while middle-aged speakers tend to merge toward /E@/. This merging has been seen in some other varieties of English, but notably not in Australian English.
Rising Inflection
New Zealanders will often reply to a question with a statement spoken with a rising inflection on the last couple of words (known in linguistics as a high rising terminal). This often has the effect of making their statement sound like another question. There is enough awareness of this that it is seen in exaggerated form in comedy parody of working class/uneducated new Zealanders.
Use of "She" as third person neuter
New Zealanders, in informal speech, will often use the third person feminine she in place of the third person neuter it as the subject of a sentence, especially when the subject is the first word of the sentence. Thus phrases such as "She's a beaut day" (i.e., It's a beautiful day) are not uncommon. The most common use of this is in the phrase "She'll be right" meaning either "It will be OK" or "It is close enough to what is required".
Differences from Australian English
Although foreigners can find it hard to distinguish the New Zealand dialect from the Australian, there are differences in the pronunciation of vowel sounds, which are considerably more clipped in New Zealand English. (Canadians face a similar problem, frequently being mistaken for U.S. Americans by non-North Americans.) The main distinguishing sounds are the short 'i' and 'e', as well as words like "chance", as described below.
Short i
The short 'i' in New Zealand English is pronounced as a schwa (SAMPA /@/). In Australian English, the short 'u' is the vowel closest to the New Zealand pronunciation, so an Australian hears "fush and chups" when a New Zealander is saying "fish and chips". Conversely, the closest sound in New Zealand English to the Australian short 'i' (SAMPA /I/) is 'ee' (SAMPA /i/), so New Zealanders may hear Australians talking about the "Seedney Harbour Breedge".
Recent linguistic research has suggested that this trait is sourced from dialects of English spoken by lower-class English people in the late 19th century, though why it persisted in New Zealand while disappearing from Australia is a mystery.
Short e
The short 'e' in New Zealand English has moved to fill in the space left by 'i', and sounds like a short 'i' itself to other English speakers. For example, you may hear New Zealanders talk about having "iggs for brickfast".
Chance, dance, etc.
The New Zealand pronunciation of words like "dance" uses the same vowel sound as the "a" in "car", i.e. /dAnts/, resembling the broad A of British English. The common Australian pronunciation rhymes with "ants", i.e. /d{nts/. However, either form may be used in Australia, with the former usually used in South Australia (and almost universal in Adelaide), and common in New South Wales.
More/sure
"More" and "sure" are pronounced mua and shua, whereas in Australia they would be pronounced as maw and shaw.
Letter 'h'
Pronunication of the letter 'h' is /eItS/, as in Britain and North America, as opposed to the aspirated /heItS/', found in Australian English, in turn of Hiberno-English origin.
Dissent about 'h'
No Kiwi ever says "'erbs" for "herbs" as do Americans of the north. Because a lot of Māori words start with the letter "h" it is more common to hear that letter pronounced clearly. You get "Huntly" not "Untly", "Huirangi" not "'Uirangi" and you get fewer examples of "an hotel" and more of "a hotel" particularly in spoken language where there is no editor to "correct" the personal useage. Some have a lot of difficulty believing that received information in the first sentence of the main section above. It may have been true 50 to 60 years ago, and earlier, and it is certainly what older textbooks say. One who speaks to New Zealanders these days cannot avoid the opinion that they are careful to emphasise the 'h' sound as much as Australians.
Letter 'l'
Pronunication of the letter 'l' at the end of a word such as kill, is sometimes voiced as a 'w'. This is further found in lower class areas. Some speakers will not differentiate the sound of the word 'bill' from 'bull', and both will have the final 'l' sound changed to a 'w'. Even words such as 'build' will be affected and will sound like 'buwd'. A common use of this is the word 'milk' usually said 'muwk' (rhyming with 'bull' to a speaker outside of New Zealand). Although this varies greatly in different areas and between different socio-economic groups within New Zealand itself. This seems to be most commonly found in the southern suburbs of Auckland City.
Other differences
Other differences in the dialects relate to words used to refer to common items, often based on major brands:
| NZ | Australia | Explanation |
|---|---|---|
| jandals | thongs | backless sandals (or flip-flops in other English dialects) |
| chilly bin | Esky | insulated container for keeping drinks and food cool |
| Swanndri | Driza-Bone | The quintessential back-country farmer's jacket of each country, a woollen shirt and oilskin jacket respectively. |
| dairy | milk bar/ delicatessen |
A kind of convenience store. |
| duvet | doona | A padded blanket |
In New Zealand, the word "milk bar" refers only to the milk bar of the 1950s and 1960s, a place that served non-alcoholic drinks, primarily milkshakes, tea and sometimes coffee. Ice creams were also served.
Dialects within New Zealand English
Most Kiwis speak Newzild "as she is spoke": geographical variations appear slight, and mainly confined to individual special local words. One group of speakers, however, hold a recognised place as "talking differently": the South of the South Island (Murihiku) harbours a "Celtic fringe" of people speaking with a "Southland burr" in which a back-trilled 'r' appears prominently. The area formed a traditional repository of immigration from Scotland. Several words and phrases common in Scottish English still persist in this area as well.
The trilled 'r' is also used by some Māori, who may also pronounce 't' and 'k' sounds almost as 'd' and 'g'. This is also encountered in South African English, especially among Afrikaans speakers.
Unique phrases
It is in metaphorical phrases that NZ English has made most progress or divergence. Often they reflect significant differences in culture, for example:
Ladies, a plate is often seen as part of the advertisement for social functions. It means that the function is self catering; people attending are meant to bring a plate-full of food. Many new arrivals in New Zealand have mistaken this and turned up with an empty plate, but only once.
Up the Puhoi without a paddle meaning to be in difficulties without an obvious solution. The Puhoi is a river just north of Auckland. Over the years the phrase has evolved and is now often heard as "Up the Boo-eye without a paddle". It is also sometimes attributed to other New Zealand rivers. It will be interesting if the phrase can withstand competition from the modern and very colourful variant "Up shit creek without a paddle".
A variant of the latter is up the boohai shooting pukeko with a long-handled shovel, meaning a fictitious place.
Why-kick-a-moo-cow is also often used to represent a fictitious place, particularly as a sparsely populated rural area in the "back of beyond", and is a pun on the sound of many Maori placenames.
Wide enough for an Ox team to do a U-ie —Said of very wide roads.
Sticky Beak meaning someone unduly curious about other people's affairs, a nosey parker. Sticky beak is used in both New Zealand and Australia with the same meaning but slightly different emphasis. In Australia "sticky beak" is quite pejorative, to be called sticky beak is definitely a criticism, whereas in New Zealand it is used with more affection, it is often used as a tease.
Box of Birds or even more colloqially "Box of Fluffies" or "Box of Fluffy Ducks" meaning to feel very good, chirping even. "How are you feeling?" "Oh, a Box of Birds"
Rattle yer Dags an instruction to hurry up. Sheep running through gates and yards often make a curious rattling noise caused by their 'dags' (dried faeces on wool about their hind-quarters) clattering together. Similarly "He's a bit of a Dag" describes someone as a comedian. The word "dag" possibly derives from the regional English word, "daglock" (Middle English dagge) meaning the same thing. See also Fred Dagg, Footrot Flats.
The Half Gallon Quarter Acre Pavlova Paradise was an affectionate term for NZ back in the 1970s. It was originally the title of a book written by expatriate Austin Mitchell.
See Also
Further reading
- Leland, Louis S., jr. (1980). A personal Kiwi-Yankee dictionary. Dunedin, NZ: John McIndoe Ltd.