English in New Zealand

[Aymeric]

I have heard in some universities of exchange programs for students to improve their English in New Zealand.

Given that Maori and English are the two official languages of the country, could anyone tell me if the English spoken in New Zealand is really suitable for a student who wishes to learn "proper" English ?

I'm asking this question by refering to my own experience : I am now in Malaysia, where English is an official language. Although a lot of Malays speak English fluently, they still don't speak it perfectly, which is what Americans or British would call "English as a second language"... So my question is, is it the same situation in New Zealand?

[Aymeric]

Hem...

[bender]

I think New Zealanders' accent is the harder to understand. If so, it's not the most proper dialect for someone who wants to speak English as an international language.
Once there was a showing of short films from different countries, in English, with no subtitle. Everybody in the cinema could understand most of what was said in the movies except in the one from New Zealand. I mean, at least I think so, for nobody laughed at the jokes of this movie.

[Car]

Oh, yes, I watched "East is east" not so long ago (without subtitles since it wasn't a DVD) and I didn't get more than what the film was basically about and I had the pictures to help me after all.

[Psi-Lord]

I myself actually found the New Zealand exchange student we once had in my home town much easier to understand than the American girl that arrived there by that same time.

[Psi-Lord]

I can't listen to this myself because my loudspeakers aren't working, but http://www.ualberta.ca/~johnnewm/NZEnglish/sounds.html might be worth checking.

[MikeL]

New Zealand English is closer in pronunciation to southern British than any other major dialect. Few Britons would have any difficulty understanding a New Zealander. The vowel system of NZ English shows some shifts compared to RP but they are relatively small. For instance the short i, as in "fish and chips" tends to be produced further back, so that it starts to sound like "fush and chups". (A good way to distinguish a NZer from an Australian is to get him or her to say "fish and chips"; the Ocker will say "feesh and cheeps" - with a vowel that is longer and much more frontalized).

[Ariki]

*ahem*

this "ocker" says "feesh and cheeps".

Australian English is actually transitioning from British English to American English. It's only a matter of time before the accent is American.

And, in Auckland, the NZ English spoken here is actually becoming more Australianised. I noticed it when I heard every sentence end "higher" than in the beginning of the sentence.

My father, has noticed that the NZ English accent has changed in 50 years - he doesn't remember hearing "fush and chups" when he was younger. He hates the "NZ English" accent.

This "ocker" is Māori.

[MikeL]

Kia ora, riki.
You are right about the influence of Australian pronunciation on Aucklanders' speech, particularly the rising intonation. However it's only apparent in the younger generation. We oldies keep our language pure and uncontaminated...
In fact, dislike of a particular pronunciation is irrational, and almost always has a psychological hangup or cultural prejudice behind it...

[Ariki]

In fact, dislike of a particular pronunciation is irrational, and almost always has a psychological hangup or cultural prejudice behind it

Or maybe it just sounds bad to the listener's ears(I don't care if others pronounce it as "fush and chups"..)

[MikeL]

One of the most interesting developments in NZ English within the last generation is the coalescence of the two diphthongs found in the words "fair" and "fear" or "rear" and "rare". While we older kiwis (or for the politically correct, those of us who have had more life experience)clearly distinguish these pairs, younger people tend to pronounce them identically, with a sound half-way between the two.
I am not aware of this development in English dialects outside N.Z.

[bender]

One of the most interesting developments in NZ English within the last generation is the coalescence of the two diphthongs found in the words "fair" and "fear" or "rear" and "rare". While we older kiwis (or for the politically correct, those of us who have had more life experience)clearly distinguish these pairs, younger people tend to pronounce them identically, with a sound half-way between the two.
I am not aware of this development in English dialects outside N.Z.

Yes, that was the most notable feature of the NZ accent when I first heard it. Even in Australia they don't pronounce those pairs identically!

I hear both as [-ɪə]

[Lee]

Yes, that was the most notable feature of the NZ accent when I first heard it. Even in Australia they don't pronounce those pairs identically!

Really? Whereabouts in Australia where you?

[bender]

Yes, that was the most notable feature of the NZ accent when I first heard it. Even in Australia they don't pronounce those pairs identically!

Really? Whereabouts in Australia where you?

I never been to Australia... I said that based on what I heard in movies, etc. I might be mistaken, though: I don't think I got a good listening...

[Felix the Cassowary]

(A good way to distinguish a NZer from an Australian is to get him or her to say "fish and chips"; the Ocker will say "feesh and cheeps" - with a vowel that is longer and much more frontalized).

The Australian short I is more fronted and higher than in other dialects, but it's *not* longer, and is quite distinct from the local pronunciation of both ee (which has an on-glide and is variable in length based on the next sound) and ear (which sometimes has an offglide to [ə] or [a] and is longer). The onset of ear has moved higher and fronter in time with the target of short I. A more conservative allophone of /I/ is used before /l/, which tends to be a bit longer (only just shy of the length of a long vowel, but most of the extra is part of an offglide), but it's got a more conservative (laxer) starting point.

*ahem*

this "ocker" says "feesh and cheeps".

Australian English is actually transitioning from British English to American English. It's only a matter of time before the accent is American.

Perfect nonsense. Australian English is becoming more Australian. The pronounciations of words which differ non-systematically is sometimes converting to the American pronounciation, true, (e.g. CONtroVERsy vs conTROVersy or kla:k vs klø:k) but that's happening in Britain too. The values of phonemes keeps changing in more novel ways, there's no sign of rhotacism, and in any case, in these cases there's no single American English to try and creep towards.

In word choice, Australia can be more conservative than Britain: We say 'tomato sauce' (or simply 'sauce'), whereas Brits've adopted the American 'ketchup'. 'Chook' seems to have fallen out of our formal register, and the birds are a lot less common in modern urban speech than the meat, but informal registers are common enough in Oz that it's unlikely to be completely replaced by 'chicken' anytime soon. (Note for Otherlanders: 'chook' is an Australian word for the thing that when you kill, cook and cut up becomes 'chicken'. To me, 'chicken' is an uncountable noun referring to a form of food, like 'beef' or 'pork'.)

Our grammar is also diverging: Aussies prefer present participles (with contractions), but Americans prefer simple pasts.

And, in Auckland, the NZ English spoken here is actually becoming more Australianised. I noticed it when I heard every sentence end "higher" than in the beginning of the sentence.

That's a Kiwiism imported into Australia, actually.

[Ariki]

Poppy cock lol

As a native speaker of Australian English, this is a feature of English in Sydney, the raising of the voice at the end of a sentence.

Perfect nonsense. Australian English is becoming more Australian. The pronounciations of words which differ non-systematically is sometimes converting to the American pronounciation, true, (e.g. CONtroVERsy vs conTROVersy or kla:k vs klø:k) but that's happening in Britain too. The values of phonemes keeps changing in more novel ways, there's no sign of rhotacism, and in any case, in these cases there's no single American English to try and creep towards.

The spelling and speech in Sydney is certainly becoming more Americanized - in fact, it is a fear that many Australians have that the English spoken in Australia will become more American due to influences from American television on Australia TV.

In word choice, Australia can be more conservative than Britain: We say 'tomato sauce' (or simply 'sauce'), whereas Brits've adopted the American 'ketchup'. 'Chook' seems to have fallen out of our formal register, and the birds are a lot less common in modern urban speech than the meat, but informal registers are common enough in Oz that it's unlikely to be completely replaced by 'chicken' anytime soon. (Note for Otherlanders: 'chook' is an Australian word for the thing that when you kill, cook and cut up becomes 'chicken'. To me, 'chicken' is an uncountable noun referring to a form of food, like 'beef' or 'pork'.)

In Sydney, we eat chickens, we eat breakfast (not brekky) and we have recess and lunch (not little lunch and big lunch).

In Sydney, and in many places in Australia, the speech is becoming more American.

[MikeL]

Our grammar is also diverging: Aussies prefer present participles (with contractions), but Americans prefer simple pasts.

Present participles / simple pasts? Don't quite understand this. Can you give an example?

And talking of verbs, what is the situation regarding the replacement of the Pluperfect Tense in conditional sentences with the new compounded Pluperfect ("If I had've done that...") Is this a home-grown development or an imported Americanism?

[Felix the Cassowary]

Our grammar is also diverging: Aussies prefer present participles (with contractions), but Americans prefer simple pasts.

Present participles / simple pasts? Don't quite understand this. Can you give an example?

Not off the top of my head, but I can locate the article that discusses it (D. M. Engel & M.-E. A. Ritz, 2000, 'The use of the Present perfect in Australian English', Australian Journal of Linguistics, 20(2)), which provides numerous ones (from the radio, which was their source), like

• In the morning <i>he's stuck</i> an 'I love Redman' sticker on her back (Radio chat show)
• He <i>has</i> now <i>met</i> with Ayres this morning (Radio news)
• After the collision, the vehicle <i>has sped off</i> (Radio news)
• A man <i>has been</i> injured when the tanker he was driving crashed into [...] (Radio news)

or a longer one (because it's funny):

... a guy in Mexico, he said [...] 'I reckon we should go to the zoo, but we shouldn't go there when it's open, we should go there when it's night time [...].' And so <i>he's jumped</i> the fence with a few friends, and went over to the lion enclosure and <i>he's dropped</i> his mobile phone into the lion enclosure. [[...]] Now the funny thing is [...] that he just jumped the fence, went into the lion enclosure to get his phone, <i>he's walked up</i> to his phone and the phone <i>has started</i> ringing, <i>it's set</i> the lions right off because [...] lions, apparently don't like novelty chimes, they just like the normal 'ring ring', and when they heard the novelty chime, set them right off and attacked the guy. Didn't kill him, but they attacked him, and he was lucky to escape with his life and his Motorola phone.

([...] = their abbrev, [[...]] = my abbrev)

I can't vouch for the abnormality of the participles there, they sound perfectly normal for colloquial speech or for news speech as the case may be. But I'm told those are Australian uses. If anyone could tell me how they seem from a Otherlandish perspective, 'twould be interesting.

Americans, otoh, do silly things like say 'Did you eat yet?' instead of "Have you eaten?", and so forth, as is widely documented on the Net if you look for diffs b/n British and American English.

And talking of verbs, what is the situation regarding the replacement of the Pluperfect Tense in conditional sentences with the new compounded Pluperfect ("If I had've done that...") Is this a home-grown development or an imported Americanism?

Instead of 'If I'd done that?'? My guess'd be imported, but that's just a guess.

[MikeL]

(D. M. Engel & M.-E. A. Ritz, 2000, 'The use of the Present perfect in Australian English', Australian Journal of Linguistics, 20(2)), which provides numerous ones (from the radio, which was their source), like

• In the morning <i>he's stuck</i> an 'I love Redman' sticker on her back (Radio chat show)
• He <i>has</i> now <i>met</i> with Ayres this morning (Radio news)
• After the collision, the vehicle <i>has sped off</i> (Radio news)
• A man <i>has been</i> injured when the tanker he was driving crashed into [...] (Radio news)

I suspected this was what you were referring to. It was the mention of present participles that puzzled me.

Interesting that these examples are from broadcast media. In NZ this usage is not unknown on television news ("The Prime Minister has met today with...")and is, I think, a media mannerism rather than a popular trend.

[Kirk]

The values of phonemes keeps changing in more novel ways, there's no sign of rhotacism, and in any case, in these cases there's no single American English to try and creep towards.

Well-put. North American dialects amongst themselves are also diverging from one another (Northern Cities Vowel Shift, California Vowel Shift, "cot-caught" merger, Canadian Raising, etc.) not to mention there never was a homogenous NAE to begin with.

In Sydney, and in many places in Australia, the speech is becoming more American.

Australian English is actually transitioning from British English to American English. It's only a matter of time before the accent is American.

As Felix the Cassowary said, that's absolute nonsense and not based on linguistic facts and research. Read more below

The spelling and speech in Sydney is certainly becoming more Americanized - in fact, it is a fear that many Australians have that the English spoken in Australia will become more American due to influences from American television on Australia TV.

Actually, riki, linguistic research has proven over and over again that media have absolutely no influence over people's accents, even tho that's a common myth. The only thing the media may do is popularize certain lexical items, but even then their influence is less than you'd think, and they have no effect whatsoever on the many other important aspects of language, notably phonology, intonation, mophology, syntax, etc. Linguistic research has actually shown English dialects and varieties as a whole to be constantly diverging from each other as compared to getting more similar. So, no, Australian English is nowhere close to becoming American English, especially as both Australian and American English (and British English and every other modern form of English) further evolve from their common ancestor.

If you want proof of this, just check out Felix the Cassowary's and my conversation we've been having using our respective dialects written in IPA on this thread. Unless Felix does a number of major things like start speaking rhotically, shift almost his whole vowel inventory around, and change around a number of other phonological processes, he will be nowhere close to speaking with an American accent.

(e.g. CONtroVERsy vs conTROVersy or kla:k vs klø:k) but that's happening in Britain too.

I think it's funny that so many British speakers (and apparently Aussies as well) think that conTROversy is an Americanism when it is unheard of here. The first time I ever heard such a pronunciation was when I had a British professor and it struck me as quite odd, as no North American I've heard has ever said "conTROversy." American dictionaries list the word as North Americans exclusively pronounce it; "CONtroversy" while Webster's does list "conTROversy as "British."

Or maybe I misread your comment and you were saying "CONtroversy was the Americanism. In that case, I should point out "CONtroversy was long the only form in British and American English until "conTROversy" popped up in the UK somewhere within the past 50-100 years. There's still some variation, as more traditional British English speakers use traditional "CONtroversy" (as is the only form here), but it's not an Americanism to use the traditional form that had always been on the British Isles anyway