The following extract is adapted from an article by Max Cryer, a well-known New Zealander, who has achieved success as an entertainer, singer, television producer and author. The article traces the development of Kiwi English and reveals that it has been influenced not only by so-called British English and Māori, but also by a multitude of other languages as well. Read the extract through and see if you do the exercises that follow by clicking on the tabs above.  If you want to listen to the extract read by a Kiwi speaker, click here. Our evolving language They call it English, as if that settles it.  But it doesn’t.  New Zealand English has travelled a unique ruggedly individualistic path adapting freely from many cultures and incorporating a vast array of the Māori lexicon.  Even our closest neighbours across the ditch find it confusing.  For several centuries only one language was spoken in this country.  Then in the 1800s one other language arrived.  This was not (as we tend to think) standard English, but a combination of various regional English dialects, plus the Scottish, Welsh and Irish versions.  To this English coat of many colours was later added embroidery – the arriving settlers had to come to terms with words which described things which simply didn’t exist in their homeland:  kōwhai, rimu, kauri, pā, tūī, pohutukawa.

Some of the languages which Kiwi English has borrowed from (Cryer, 2012).

Over the decades more words came with settlers from China, India, the Netherlands, Poland, Dalmatia, Fiji, Samoa, Hungary and Russia.  While in reverse, soldiers, sailors and seafarers went away on merchant ships to war, and brought back words from where they’d been (e.g. plonk – from vin blanc).  So in addition to the integration of Māori words naming anything which had no English equivalent, New Zealand English gradually became a polyglot: ingredients from many languages somehow melded into a whole.

The slow development of a style in New Zealand language was partially due to the tyranny of distance, which kept us in a sea-girt language bubble.  But starting in the 1920s this was enriched (some would say attacked) by the gradual growth of cinemas and radio. Early radio tended towards cultivating an "English" style of speech, which was somehow admired.  The first "talkback" radio in 1927 allowed New Zealanders to hear themselves on air - and many did not like what they heard.  BBC English was, and still is, a hard act to follow. But with radio came also the language of modern pop vernacular - from foreign nations, and cinema even more so.  Americanisms crept in, and a cringe factor seemed to inspire some New Zealanders to believe saying something the American way was somehow better.  "Flicks" and "pictures" became "movies" there was (and still is) confusion between a "theatre" and a "cinema", and "radio announcers" morphed into "disk jockeys".  

Electronic language provided cordless phones and cell phones, PCs, laptops, mice and monitors.  In 1995 Auckland journalists were invited to see a demonstration of something new-ish called the internet.  Could it possibly affect the normal way of life? It did - and affected the daily language as well. A diary became a "blog", "surfing" didn't need sea and "hardware" could not be bought along with roofing iron or nails. 

Even if so, New Zealand English manages to continue doing a language’s job – it communicates.

Whatever its future, the daily exchange of New Zealand English retains some rugged individuality.  Words from other languages are absorbed without stress: Diwali, feng shui, pizza, perestroika, sushi.  Sports players in their late thirties with a university degree and four children are (rather strangely!) called “boys” and “girls”.  What we call “whitebait” bears no relationship to the English fish it is named after.  Our “flax” is a mistaken name given to a plant which has no connection with the real flax from which linen is made.  Our “public schools” are what they say they are – for the public.

And we keep things up to the mark with words of our very own.  Where would we be without “perkbusters” and “whistleblowers”?

Cryer, M. (2012). Our evolving language. Alive. 10, pp. 42-45. Southern Cross Health Society: Auckland, New Zealand.

Check your understanding of the words from the reading Our evolving language and knowledge of where they come from by dragging the word or phrase to the correct meaning below. Definitions are adapted from Hornby (2010), Macalister (2005) and Deverson and Kennedy(2005).