Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Symbols used
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Overview and background
- 3 The historical background
- 4 Previous attempts to explain the origins of New Zealand English
- 5 Methodology
- 6 The variables of early New Zealand English
- 7 The origins of New Zealand English: reflections from the ONZE data
- 8 Implications for language change
- Appendix 1 Mobile Unit speakers
- Appendix 2 The historical background of some settlements visited by the Mobile Unit
- Appendix 3 Maps
- Appendix 4 Seven Mobile Unit speakers born outside New Zealand
- Appendix 5 Acoustic vowel charts for the ten speakers included in the acoustic analysis
- Appendix 6 Speaker indexes for quantified variables, together with relevant social information
- References
- Index
6 - The variables of early New Zealand English
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Symbols used
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Overview and background
- 3 The historical background
- 4 Previous attempts to explain the origins of New Zealand English
- 5 Methodology
- 6 The variables of early New Zealand English
- 7 The origins of New Zealand English: reflections from the ONZE data
- 8 Implications for language change
- Appendix 1 Mobile Unit speakers
- Appendix 2 The historical background of some settlements visited by the Mobile Unit
- Appendix 3 Maps
- Appendix 4 Seven Mobile Unit speakers born outside New Zealand
- Appendix 5 Acoustic vowel charts for the ten speakers included in the acoustic analysis
- Appendix 6 Speaker indexes for quantified variables, together with relevant social information
- References
- Index
Summary
By and large there are no fundamentally unhealthy sounds in New Zealand speech … However as a race, you are not very good at short vowels. You would, for instance, rather say ‘yeees’ than ‘yes’; ‘mulk’ rather than ‘milk’; and ‘bull’ rather than ‘bill’. Your diphthongs frequently expire in a drawl or resolve themselves into triphthongs … Your long vowels tend to be placed in the wrong part of the mouth – ‘harm’, ‘there’ for example. And the things done to the final ‘y’ sound – ‘Anthonee, gloree!’ … Casting a quick (and tactful) glance at your consonants, may I observe that, as a whole, New Zealand tongues are idle. The ‘l’ sound is treacherous. Your plosives, too, tend to disappear without trace. And just a word about the way you ‘manhandle’ the name of your country … [I]s it to be ‘New Zealand’ or ‘Nu Zilland?’
(Trinity College Examiner, Andrew Morrison, ‘The New Zealand Voice’, NZ Listener 19 (491) November 1948, p. 7)Introduction
In this chapter, we present the main phonological variables important in the development of New Zealand English. We discuss each variable in turn. Firstly, we present what is known (or can be inferred) of the variable's antecedents in relevant parts of the British Isles. Secondly, we consider what has been said in the written records about the variable in New Zealand. Mostly these written comments are complaints about ‘improper’ language, but are revealing about the history of New Zealand English.
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- New Zealand EnglishIts Origins and Evolution, pp. 100 - 214Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004