The phonemes of New Zealand English

Abstract

The New Zealand accent belongs to the British group of English accents. There are three main divisions: General New Zealand, which is spoken in most parts of the country, and the accents of Otago, in the south of the South Island, and on the West Coast of the South Island. The three divisions follow the original pattern of settlement. In the North Island, settlement was directed by the New Zealand Company, which founded Auckland and Wellington in 1840; other settlements followed in the late 1840s. In the South, the Anglican Church founded Christchurch and Nelson in the early 1850s. These settlements had the common aim of reproducing English society as it existed in the south of England and drew most of their settlers from persons dispossessed by the Industrial Revolution. The difficulties of life in early New Zealand effectively levelled out social differences, with important effects on the language. Otago was founded in 1848 by the Scottish Free Church. The West Coast was not settled until the Gold Rush of the 1860s attracted miners from the goldfields of Victoria and California. Since that time there has been considerable immigration from the British Isles, at first a mere trickle from Europe and then a flood of Central European refugees after the Second World War. In general the willingness of the average New Zealander to travel for reasons of work or promotion has prevented the growth of regional accents; but the West Coast and Otago tend to keep to themselves, isolated by rough country and their own sense of community.