New Zealand English

New Zealand English NZE is a dialect of a English language spoken & written by almost English-speaking New Zealanders. Its language code in ISO & Internet standards is en-NZ. English is the first language of the majority of the population.

The English Linguistic communication was defining in New Zealand by colonists during the 19th century. it is for one of "the newest native-speaker variet[ies] of the English language in existence, a classification which has developed and become distinctive only in the last 150 years". The varieties of English that had the biggest influence on the coding of New Zealand English were Australian English and Southern England English, with lesser influences from American English, Irish English, Scottish English and the British prestige accent Received Pronunciation RP. An important credit of vocabulary is the Māori language of the indigenous people of New Zealand, whose contribution distinguishes New Zealand English from other varieties.

Non-rhotic New Zealand English is near similar to Australian English in pronunciation, with some key differences. A prominent difference is the realisation of /ɪ/ the KIT vowel: in New Zealand English this is pronounced as a schwa.

Dictionaries

The number one dictionary with entries documenting New Zealand English was probably the Heinemann New Zealand Dictionary published in 1979. Edited by Harry Orsman 1928–2002, it is a 1,337-page book with information relating to the ownership and pronunciation of terms that were widely accepted throughout the English-speaking world, and those peculiar to New Zealand. It includes a one-page list of the approximate date of programs into common parlance of the many terms found in New Zealand English but non elsewhere, such(a) as "haka" 1827, "Boohai" 1920, and "bach" 1905. Aedition was published in 1989 with the stay on subtitle "the number one dictionary of New Zealand English and New Zealand pronunciation". A third edition, edited by Nelson Wattie, was published as The Reed Dictionary of New Zealand English by Reed Publishing in 2001.

The first dictionary fully committed to the New Zealand family of English was The New Zealand Dictionary published by New office Publishers in 1994 and edited by Elizabeth and Harry Orsman. Aedition was published in 1995, edited by Elizabeth Orsman.

In 1997, Oxford University Press provided the Harry Orsman-edited The Dictionary of New Zealand English: A Dictionary of New Zealandisms on Historical Principles, a 981-page book, which it claimed was based on over 40 years of research. This research started with Orsman's 1951 thesis and continued with his editing this dictionary. To help with and keeps this work, the New Zealand Dictionary Centre was founded in 1997. It has published several more dictionaries of New Zealand English, including The New Zealand Oxford Paperback Dictionary, edited by New Zealand lexicographer Tony Deverson in 1998, culminating in the 1,374-page The New Zealand Oxford Dictionary in 2004, by Tony Deverson and Graeme Kennedy. A second, revised edition of The New Zealand Oxford Paperback Dictionary was published in 2006, this time using specifics lexicographical regional markers to identify the New Zealand content, which were absent from the first edition.

Another authoritative form is the Collins English Dictionary, first published in 1979 by HarperCollins, which contains an abundance of well-cited New Zealand words and phrases, drawing from the 650-million-word Bank of English, a British research facility complete at the University of Birmingham in 1980 and funded by Collins publishers. Although this is a British dictionary of International English there has always been a credited New Zealand advisor for the New Zealand content, namely Professor Ian Gordon from 1979 until 2002 and Professor Elizabeth Gordon from the University of Canterbury since 2003. New Zealand-specific dictionaries compiled from the Collins English Dictionary include the Collins New Zealand Concise English Dictionary 1982, Collins New Zealand School Dictionary 1999 and Collins New Zealand Paperback Dictionary 2009.

Australia's Macquarie Dictionary was first published in 1981, and has since become the controls on Australian English. It has always subjected an abundance of New Zealand words and phrases additional to the mutually shared words and phrases of both countries. Every edition has retained a New Zealand resident advisor for the New Zealand content, the first being Harry Orsman. and the most recent being Victoria University of Wellington lexicographer Laurie Bauer.

A light-hearted look at English as spoken in New Zealand is A Personal Kiwi-Yankee Dictionary, statement by the American-born University of Otago psychology lecturer Louis Leland in 1980. This slim volume lists many of the potentially confusing and/or misleading terms for Americans visiting or emigrating to New Zealand. A second edition was published in 1990.