Tag Archives: new zealand accents

That Tricky “Oh”

Over the holidays, I watched Jane Campion’s Top of the Lake, an excellent miniseries about a beautiful but troubled community in New Zealand’s South Island. American actress Elisabeth Moss plays the lead role of a police detective who has returned to … Continue reading

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Posted in Miscellaneous Accents and Dialects | Tagged , | 12 Comments

More on Young New Zealand English

Ubiquitous on the radio recently has been “Royals,” a minimalist anti-consumerist (I think) anthem by 16-year-old New Zealand singer Lorde (real name Ella Yelich-O’Connor). She been busy on the American interview circuit, revealing her non-singing, New Zealand-accented voice: Something that struck me about … Continue reading

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Posted in Miscellaneous Accents and Dialects, Uncategorized | Tagged , | 9 Comments

A New (Rhotic?) Dialect in New Zealand?

Needless to say, I was quite intrigued by this recent article at Stuff.co.nz about a new urban dialect spoken in South Auckland, New Zealand.  A unique type of youthful, urban speech has emerged, not dissimilar to Multicultural British English in terms of … Continue reading

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The Odd Vowel Out

Years back, an actor asked me a dialect ‘riddle’ of sorts: is there any vowel represented by the International Phonetic Alphabet that does not exist in any accent of English? I don’t know how to answer that question; it depends … Continue reading

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Posted in English Phonetics | Tagged , | 30 Comments

South African or Kiwi or Aussie?

Many accents get confused with one another: Canadian and American, Scottish and Northern Irish, Jamaican and Barbadian. But the granddaddy of all of them? The three-way mixup between Australian, New Zealand and South African English. If you speak with one of … Continue reading

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Posted in Australian English | Tagged , | 98 Comments

A Brief Clarification About New Zealand Accents

I want to quickly clear something up about New Zealand accents, since the topic was touched upon briefly yesterday. In New Zealand English, the vowel in “short e” words like dress or bed moves very close to the vowel that Americans and … Continue reading

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Posted in Miscellaneous Accents and Dialects | Tagged , , | 10 Comments

News Roundup: Gaddafi’s Secret Weapon

A few news tidbits from the world of accents and dialects: 1.) Another week,another fluffy study about how people perceive dialects. This time, New Zealanders were asked which accents they liked or disliked. The results? Kiwis like Kiwi accents the … Continue reading

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