Australia

New Zealand

New Zealand

Aotearoa, “the land of the long white cloud“ is the name that the Maori, the indigenous people of New Zealand, gave this South Pacific island state when they first reached it. The first Pakeha (the Maori name for Europeans, also used by the “European“ New Zealanders themselves) came to settle in New Zealand in the end of the 18th century. Since the great majority of European settlers is of British origin and New Zealand is a member of the Commonwealth (the official head of state still being the Queen), English came to be the language most widely used. The official languages of New Zealand are English and Maori.

New Zealand English is quite homogeneous throughout the country, because of the relatively recent settlement and the free movement of settlers in the country. The only exception is the Southland region (the southern part of the South Island), which has received some influence from Scottish and Irish varieties of English. From a socio-historical point of view, New Zealand English can be divided into a cultivated, a general and a broad variety. However, those distinctions are not as prominent as for example in the UK, since New Zealand has a rather equalitarian society without any strongly stratified social classes. The question whether there are distinct Pakeha English and Maori English varieties has been controversial. There are quite obviously differences in the two groups of speakers, although those differences mostly are quantitative, i. e. the varieties do not have distinctively different features, but use certain features with differing frequency.