Was Auckland the cradle of the Kiwi accent? An old theory gets a new hearing |
If you’re a New Zealander who has spent time overseas, you’ve probably had someone comment on the way you speak: that swallowed e and flat i, the whole fush and chups thing … the rest of the world thinks we pronounce our vowels a bit funny.
Even as a researcher of the Kiwi accent, it took me a while to wrap my head around the fact that “here” and “hair” aren’t supposed to rhyme.
So where did this local form of spoken English originate, and how did we come to pronounce our vowels in such a unique way?
It’s clearly a question many people have asked, given the interest in my public talk on the subject in Auckland this week, part of a project using oral history recordings of Aucklanders born around the turn of the 20th century.
These recordings, now housed in the Auckland Libraries sound archives, let us listen back in time. When we compare them with modern recordings, we can trace how our accent has developed across generations.
This means going back to when large numbers of English-speaking settlers arrived in Aotearoa New Zealand from the mid-19th century. Because they came from different parts of Britain – largely the South of England, Scotland and Ireland – they didn’t all speak the same kind of English and brought their........