New Zealand 2

Listen to New Zealand 2, a woman in her 20s from Auckland, New Zealand. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 20s

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1970s

PLACE OF BIRTH: Auckland, New Zealand

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: white New Zealander with English, Irish, and Welsh ancestry

OCCUPATION: student

EDUCATION: graduate level

AREA(S) OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS:

At the time of the recording, the subject had lived in Australia for two years; in Boston, Massachusetts (United States) for two years; and in Kansas (United States) for over three years.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

In the recorded speech, the subject compares New Zealand to Australian speech. Listen for the distinctive short “e” sound.

The text used in our recordings of scripted speech can be found by clicking here.

RECORDED BY: Laura Sternberg and Paul Meier

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 10/03/2000

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

I was born in Auckland, New Zealand. Um, from — I have a family of, uh, seven, five children. And, um, my parents still live in Auckland; the rest of my family is scattered all over the place. Um, I’ve been here in Kansas for three and a half years. Um, I was in Boston for two years before that, and I also lived in Australia for two years so, um, I have had some other influences on my accent, I suppose. But I did grow up in, in New Zealand. I go back every year for, um, about a month. Um, and I don’t think my accent’s changed that much. The short “I” vowel sound is the most obvious, like fish, uh, fish and chips is a New Zealand way of saying it or even more strongly would be fish and chips, almost a “u” sound. Um, or fish and chips for an Australian. Fish, fish anything to do, towards the double “e” sound, so fish and chips, fish and chips. Um, it’s also if you say yes, y-e-s; if you’re a New Zealander you say more like yes, a really short “e” sound, or yes for an Australian, a longer “e” sound.

Um, some slang:

Um, cobber is a New Zealand word for friend. I don’t know if that’s an Australian word or any other, um, country’s word, but it’s a New Zealand word for — it’s kind of an old-fashioned word. Um, cobber: It’s c-o-b-b-e-r.

Um, um, mate, of course, is another word for friend. “Good’ay mate” is really typical, um, New Zealand phrase.

Um, choice is a sort of kids’, um, slang; means great, but really only young people would say that.

Um, Māori people are the, um, native people of New Zealand, and, um, Māori language is, um, uh, certain, certain words, um, Māori words are scattered throughout New Zealand English, um, and they’ll be in the newspaper and on the radio and, um, they’ve become part of New Zealand English, such as Tangata Whenua, which is the native people of New Zealand, the Māori people.

Um, Pākehā, which is a white person.

Um, marae, which is a Māori village.

Pā, which is a house [or Māori village or defensive settlement].

Um, whānau is your extended family.

Wai is water, so any place name with wai in it is gonna be close to the water, like Waikeremoana or Waiwera or, um, the Waitakeres.

There are a lot of similarities between the Māori, um, New Zealand accent and the, uh, I mean between the Māori language and New Zealand accent, I think. Like the way that people say wai — it’s that kind of, um, slightly nasal sound, I think.

Uh, most of the settlers were from Great Britain, um, mostly from England, then Ireland. Um, it’s a pretty large Scottish settlement in the south island in Dunedin. My family is descended from English and Irish and Welsh. There’s also a Pacific island immigration in New Zealand. Auckland is the largest Pacific island city in the world; there are a lot of people from Samoa, um, Niue, the Cook Islands, uh, Tonga, other Pacific Islands that are close to New Zealand. Um, and New Zealand was in charge of, um, some Pacific Islands, um, the, the Cook Islands, for example. It used to be under the, under the domain of New Zealand. I remember having violin lessons at my first teacher’s house, and I started violin when I was 5, so I was probably about 6. She had a, um, one of those, what, pianos that had the stops on them? What are they called, the harmonium or something? They had those stops you could pull out and it will make different sounds. And I used to, instead of wanting to play the violin, I used to run over to the piano and try to play the piano all the time.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Laura Sternberg

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY: N/A

COMMENTARY BY: N/A

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

The archive provides:

• Recordings of accent/dialect speakers from the region you select.
• Text of the speakers’ biographical details.
• Scholarly commentary and analysis in some cases.
• In most cases, an orthographic transcription of the speakers’ unscripted speech.  In a small number of cases, you will also find a narrow phonetic transcription of the sample (see Phonetic Transcriptions for a complete list).  The recordings average four minutes in length and feature both the reading of one of two standard passages, and some unscripted speech. The two passages are Comma Gets a Cure (currently our standard passage) and The Rainbow Passage (used in our earliest recordings).

 

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