Nerine

When we first arrived in NZ I was constantly having problems understanding the New Zealand accent. I went to buy a sim card on our second day in Auckland and the guy was asking me all these questions and I honestly could not understand a word he was saying .

After a few months I must've gotten tuned in to it as the only people I couldn't understand were the 'voices in the boxes' at the drive-ins.

I was watching the NZ Prime News on SkyNews a few days back and it was like listening to pidgin English.....all those 'E's and 'I's in torment.....and hard to listen to without subtitles.

Now the Ozzie accent isn't perfect by any means but some regional dialects are ok, at least it does sound like English most of the time. But what makes the Kiwi accent so peculiar and unique and am I the only person who found it so difficult to understand?

SarahB

Funnily enough its normally that the kiwis cant understand me! lol

I have got so used to the accent now I hardly ever notice it. The only time I think about it now is when I hear someone say Woman instead of Women.... or dick for deck.... things like that.... or when I see the pantene advert and they say Pantin... lol.... it just makes me laugh now.

Nerine

Yes there's a slight leaning towards saying "Woman" here too but it's not as strong.

Wonder what makes the accent in NZ so distinctly different?

Maz

No problems here. There again I've had exposure to a large number of different accents in the English language over the past couple of decades. I love the Kiwi accent. Even when they say on Flight of the Conchords "speak in a monotone, sound like a robot"

pascalr

Sorry to be negative, but simply can't stand the kiwi accent, esp the middle classes...urgh! and the dj's on kiwi radio all sound so wierd... have to turn off the radio when the tunes finish!
Thankfully I don't own a TV(can afford one, simply dont like them)

Quite like the aussie accent and love a south african female accent...mmmm

Maz

I read something either on the Beeb or in the Dom Post about the Kiwi accent and how it evolved. Studies and all that shit. Let me see if I can find it again.

Nerine

That would be great, thanks

bourbon-biscuit

I like how if you travel down near Dunedin you hear the Scottish influence.

Here in Hawkes Bay there's quite a strong regional accent, which I used to struggle with but am fine now. I help kids with spelling and reading and I have to be quite careful or the poor kids fail comprehensively because they struggle with my vowel sounds and I with theirs!

Maz

Here you go

For how little time the Europeans have been here, the way the accent has evolved is quite fascinating for linguists.

Nerine

Tell you makes me laugh though, I still pronounce place names the kiwi way - splitting words up into distinct syllables, each ending with a vowel - eg. saying MudgEE Bar ra for Mudgeeraba here in Oz

And I'm the one who used to tell the kids off for saying "know AN" instead of known ,and Woman for the plural .

Maz

And an article on the Beeb on south-east accents (in the UK). Dead interesting!

Nerine

Thanks, will have a read through that now .

Bo-Jangles

None of those articles ever mention Maori influence over the language, do they? Understanding some Maori language and knowing the correct Maori pronounciation of vowels, it makes perfect sense to me how those vowels got so mangled. Imagine being Maori and reading English in the early days with their letter i prounounced as ee and the E becoming A(eh) etc, it seems reasonable that a certain amount of crossover over language occured in order for folks to understand each other.

Also words like 'youse fullas' would seem to come from Maori and it makes sense that they attempt to refer to 'you' in a plural form, because of the distinct differentiation in Maori between, you (as one person), you (as two people) and you (lots of).

Campbells

I found it difficult to get to grips with the accent.

The tricky one for me is when I call a company and they answer the phone, I usually say, sorry I have a bad line can you repeat that, then they slowdown to 300.

Coehl

We get lots of telesales calls in the evening and I just put on a heavy Scottish accent. Had the one lass say, fair a bouts ye fae

Kiwiprincess

It is the arrival at Auckland Airport that is the kicker. Kind of reminds you which country you are in. Made me think "ahh, good to be home" but i suspect it made others think "what the h*ll, i thought they spoke english here"?!!

I got into a bit of trouble (in the UK) with workmates when i made a comment that it seemed i couldn't understand anything on tv unless it was talking about rugby or the BBC. Turns out they thought i meant that i only liked listening to 'posh' people. No, turns out i just needed to acclimitise to peoples accents.

But us Kiwis don't just strangle our vowels. We damn near invent new ones.

Oh, and I have wondered for a while about the Maori influence with our vowels but I don't know enough about how accents are picked up to comment.