The Scots had an absolutely huge influence on the south island accent which is different from the north island accent. They still use a pile of Scottish words.
Go to Gore ,after 5 whiskeys you can't understand them , 5 generations and its still thick Scott, but Chrstchurch very upper class English, my mother was taught to speak with a plum in her mouth ,
Being shown new rentals in W]A kiwi daughter steps out onto large patio and states that she loves a big deck. Her Aussie friend screams with laughter and tells estate agent shes got the 5 kids to prove it .
There are different accents around NZ depending on where you're from and your background. For example, someone from South Auckland will have a different accent compared to someone from North Shore . Both will sound different to someone raised on the East Coast. South Islanders have a distinct accent too .
I never picked up on this until I moved from blenheim to Perth ten years ago. Most kiwis I've worked with here are north island Maori with only a few exceptions being fellow white south islanders. Massive difference in accents, and the top of the south really does have its own sound. I also found it interesting how many white people from the far North have a strong hint of Maori in their accent.
Yes here in Blenheim we have an accent that is completely different from up North. I've had some friends move down from Auckland and we can tell the difference between our accents and the way we talk down here. According to my friends we sound posher in Blenheim then up in Auckland which I thought was funny
It was so surreal hearing our accent in Thor: Ragnarok. Just suddenly the voice of some normal guy amongst the movie characters' different accents that I'm used to hearing from the big screen.
@@devlinpratt2598 Yeah bro you're not wrong. It's funny how they try to class us all the same. I literally have mates from the same areas and we all speak differently haha
born in NZ, lived in aussie for 10 years after high school, i now struggle to tell them apart unless one if really strong. my ears have trained so they both sound pretty normal to me (my aussie mates say i sound kiwi, my kiwi mates say i sound aussie to them go figure)
Very north island focused. Brought up in the deep south in the 60s the effect of scots and irish imigration lingered in vocab and sound (wee, crib, etc) This day I use more celtic vowels and roll/trill my r consonant
I was actually surprised they didn't touch on the Southland accent as well as the Wellington twang. I thinks it's really cool that we are seeing regional accents evolve in Aotearoa over a very short time span.
Was actually pretty astonished when you mentioned Mt Roskill. You got that right for sure, extremely diverse. You’ll here different versions of the NZ accent.
Aunt Daisy's pronunciation on Kia Ora is so much better than many can say now. Doesn't make sense that most boomers can't get it but the Greatest generation nailed it.
Imagine the English getting into a fuss about how Australians and New Zealanders say "good day" I'm sure they did, but they got over it and everything is OK! Literally nothing changed because its the greeting, the meaning and the gesture that counts. Not the pronunciation.
@@cburgess2805 pronunciation is important in foriegn languages otherwise nobody can understand what you mean. Te Reo Māori isn't any harder that Japanese but nobody ever put as much value on it and endorsed it's teaching.
@@cburgess2805 that's a racist and ignorant opinion. All languages have value and its not up to you or any other benefactor of white patriarchal society to add or subtract value from ANY culture. Haere Rā coloniser 👋
@@eucalyptusbunny he said more useful not more valuable. There are tens of millions of japanese speakers in the world and associated japanese media to consume. The number of maori speakers is less then the population of palmerston north, some 50,000 or so.
I watched your video... One thing I was astounded at, how the hell was our abomination of an accent voted sexiest amongst world travellers? Also, you could have gone into more detail around bro-ism. How the english of the likes of Billy T James seeped into everyday parlance. Things like chur bro, sweet as, fanks cuz etc becoming commonplace.
Very interesting. Folks have always found my accent a bit weird. Ever since I was a child, my accent has been consciously self cultivated, to the point that people have told me that I sound English. Later at university, I came across a linguist who heard me speak. He found it extremely remarkable that (as a young person) my accent was so cultivated. Curiously enough, he could still clearly identify my accent as a NZ accent, though he admitted that it wasn't the easiest to identify (he noticed among other things that my front vowels do not rise).
I'm born and bred Kiwi, never did an OE, worked for a company that was bought by an Aussie firm, and the new boss asked me where in England I came from. Both my parents were teachers, so I never stood a chance of not "speaking proper" :-D That said, I've been an actor for 40+ years and accents are a special interest to me. But I do not like the trend - it sounds more ignorant to me, sorry.
@@jaymieindigo-blue4203 PArtly because we see and hear so much from other places ... and because we're so isolated geographically, we tend to take more notice of the differences.
Yeah, all accents worldwide will become like this, the world is becoming more and more integrated due to the internet, so I think over time accents will converge back towards a single accent with only very slight regional variations
Excents are funnee. Went on my OE to Scotland (in 80s) and didn't meet or speak to another Kiwi for months. When I met another Kiwi I was shocked at her (and probably my) accent. My old man was Scots but I thought he had no accent till I phoned home one day and some strange Scotsman (my dad) answered it.
Same bro. But in oz. Went back home was in a pub out in the sticks got a bit tiddly and could hear it. Crack up. Sounded like a drunk Welsh pirates. Dats us aye don't change
Incorrect at 6:49. It is not whether or not it begins with a vowel, but whether or not it begins with a vowel sound. One would say 'thuh' uniform. But 'thee' honour.
I think that mass communication has revealed that whenever English speakers have travelled to other parts of the world and lived in obscurity, their accent has changed over time due to lack of influence from where they came from and increased influence from others around them. The general Australian accent is just a New Zealand accent with the vowel sounds intact, although many English speakers in Melbourne have al and el sounds reversed, ie. Malbourne, elbum, etc. Perhaps that also drifted in from across the ditch.
this is something i have always thought about such as what did our accents sound in the past compared to now and what will it be in the future and why we sound different
I'm an Aussie & appreciate the explanation of the differences between the ways we and Kiwis form vowels. However, the video doesn't explain why our vowel sounds diverged. This aspect of the two accents fascinated me when the first big wave of Kiwis migrated here in the early 80s, and still does!
@@MichaelTavares The guy in the video used the term diverge, as in, the two accents diverged from the various British English accents, but the vowel sounds became different. I wasn't having a go at Kiwis.
I think it suggested since New Zealand was slightly newer than Australia the vowels had not risen in the mouth as much. Thus Australian vowels were "higher"?. Ozzies: Feesh (high) Kiwis: Fush (lower) etc
I’ve been friends with a kiwi gentleman for twenty years. I recently listened to Jane Harper’s “The Survivors” on audio. It takes place in Tasmania and is read by an Australian actor. Yes, I know NZ is not part of Australia, but the accents are similar. It took a while, but my mind transitioned from “huh?” to “translating” words from their accent to my American accent.
I traveled with an aussie from Melbourne ,was surprised to find he wasn't from NZ,,didn't have the twang, soft spoken like kiwi , also lived in the east end London, and recognized aussie sound (east coast ),
An Aussie here. Although I've met Kiwis who have strong New Zealand accents, for the most part I feel like our accents are quite similar, like the cousins we are. Admittedly, not similar enough to stop Aussies doing the "fush and chups" joke. Sorry about that. I've demonstrated to my children with old ABC recordings (as in our national broadcaster) that the very strong (so-called "ocka") Aussie accent was far less common when I was young. And never from a newsreader, who all spoke with a very "Oxbridge" plum. My wife and I both have what would be regarded by the average Aussie as a "cultivated" accent, not strongly ocka. Our children have all been homeschooled so their exposure to very ocka accents has been limited. Amusingly, after taking phone calls from locals (very drawling-accented farmers - we live in a rural area) I've actually heard my children complain that they "couldn't understand half of what they said" because the accent was so strong. I've often wondered why the Kiwi and Aussie accents have differences so I enjoyed your video, thanks. I had assumed that the Kiwi accent was strongly influenced by Scottish immigration because, to my ears, the Scots have vowels clipped in a similar way to Kiwis. Back in the 1980s there was an Aussie comedy show where in one of the episodes there was a reference to New Zealand as the place that vowels go to die (I think this was a reference to what used to be said of New Zealand as "the place that baby Austins go to die"). One last thing. There are still large pockets of plummy accented Aussies. If you go to South Australia for instance, particularly around Victor Harbour, the accent is very posh. They say "plahnt" and "dahnce" and words like "holy" are said like hoe-lee as opposed to hole-ee. Very posh.
Yep, kiwi accents are definitely heavily influenced by Scottish migrants. I've heard the exact same strange vowel sounds. Aussie accents are more south east england derived: cockney, estuary etc.
@@shboi8103 I’m really surprised you have t heard that. Only really in people under 40. I live in the Auckland region. But you hear it on television and radio too. Listen out for it.
Says does rhyme withs days but kiwis often pronounce it as sez. What this video doesnt mention is that mixed pronounciation amomgst kiwis has been purposely done for the past 40years. This is simply due to the entertainment kiwis are exposed to. Gen alpha now have a thick american accent when ever they make videos due to youtube. Gen x jumped between aussie, british and american accent due to soap operas
My parents were English-born - Mum from Surrey (middle middle class) and Dad from upper middle class with posh Mum. So my Kiwi accent was always somewhat moderated by that environment, though not posh Kiwi
2:16 despite living in Canterbury my whole life, and going to UC for 4 years, I still read the professors description and at first thought they were from a British university. My brain just couldn't accept someone so formal and eloquent in the same place as me
My grandparents were Dutch immigrants, but they decided not to teach the language to my mum, and so I never learned it either. And yet, when I came across an old Italian man one day, he could instantly tell I was of Dutch descent - because my Kiwi accent has a Dutch accent mixed in, despite never learning the language.
Born in 03 and I'd say I don't have the standard Kiwi accent, mine is a bit americanised when I speak casually, but I can switch it to kiwi/uk-ish when communicating with people or reading a speech.
My mother, born in Dunedin in1914, first took and later gave elocution lessons intended to get rid of the Kiwi vowel sounds. She then married an Englishman and moved to the UK, where despite all that training everyone immediately picked her out as a New Zealander. She once asked for a ticket to Marble Arch which needed several attempts before she was understood.
Kāo. It's quite similar to Pākehā English. As an Australian they sound very similar to my ear. There's a clear difference between younger and older in accent and word choice, but practically nothing between Pākehā and Māori of similar age.
nz accent originated in central otago, where there were virtually no maori. it's a blend of english, scottish and irish accents. some north island towns with high maori populations sound a bit different. down in otago/southland, it has more of a scottish rolling of "r"s reflecting the scottish settlers.
Kia Ora, Kiwi here. Interestingly, New Zealand also has regional accents that seem to be ignored quite a lot by the videos on Aotearoan accents here on You Tube.
As a kiwi, to me the most obvious difference in vowel sounds between us and the aussies is the "a" especially when used with "n", such as in the words "plant" or "answer". While we might say "ant" very similarly, with the aussies being a bit higher pitch, they keep the exact same sound to say "plant", where as us kiwis will change it to a much softer vowel with more of an "r" sound mixed in.
@@danieljohn4014 Funny, I don't remember writing this. I guess what I meant by the "r" in "plant" is like the informal way of saying "auntie" as "aunt". Which sounds like we start by saying the word "r" then the "nt" sound, the word "plant" is like "aunt" with the "pl" sound first.
I was born early Fifties in Pt Chevalier, a Western suburb, but not what is now called West Auckland. As the narrator says, I grew up with the unconscious thah/thee distinction for consonant/vowel sound beginnings. So much so that in my Thirties I considered "thah" before a vowel sound as a mark of poor education, or a giveaway of someone from an area of high Maori population. An older me knows language shifts and I don't judge anymore.
As an Aussie from Adelaide I used to have people in Sydney think I was a Kiwi, probably because my accent is more rounded and less broad than a typical Sydneysider. Quite an honour, actually 😉
@@GS-wz1ud That was the post-1801 Union Jack - the one still in use, with the red St.Patrick's Cross included. The flag in the video is the 1606-1800 version, containing only St.George's and St.Andrew's crosses.
Yesterday much loved and ubiquitous TV personality Hillary was embarrassed by the translater thinking she enjoyed eating s*men rather than Salmon. The kiwi accent is certainly a novelty that is very quirky and humourous, the famous" gus a chup brew" ad was a cultural phenomena. Anyway be proud as this was voted world's finest and favourite accent ( although with south African coming in second was it satire by some cheeky Aussies?)
Should see the change with the kids growing up now. I call them generation you tube. They grew up watching toy unboxings on unused tablets after the tablet fad died out. A fair few kids now have a kiwi x american accent.
I would say anyone born 70s-80s onwards has probably seen this with people their age as they see American movies or tv shows, children tend to sound like their environment and if they hear American accents a lot, they’ll likely pick up on it.
Te Waipounamu/South Islanders, particularly South canterbury, have a more refined way of speaking than the more common sounding Te Ika-a-Māui/North Island dialect/aka Lynn of Tawa...
I lived overseas for a couple of decades - most of that time spent teaching English so l had pretty much neutralised my New Zealand accent - came home on holiday one year during the absolute height of Lyn of Tawa's popularity. She was EVERYWHERE - l was horrified - all l could think was Good God, did l used to sound like THAT? I couldn't believe how everyone was celebrating her and her accent. I didn't find out until several years later that she was/is a comedian and was taking the Mickey. 😂
The one thing that still bugs me, is the shift that has added an ‘r’ sound to some words which really shouldn’t have it... like On and Off being vocalised as Orn and Orff.
We seem to have real problems with consecutive consonants: "assem-bu-lee", "ath-a-lete". It's interesting that some languages make them impossible (e.g. making every syllable a consonant followed by a vowel sound).
I was born in 1975 and growing up - the only people saying"thee" for the and the 2nd "the" were older people. never have I used "thee" sounding for the.
@@danieleyre8913 Totally agree. When I arrived in Auckland I picked it up immediately as I thought from listening to cricket and rugby commentators and meeting a few Kiwis in South Africa over the years that Kiwis had a 'toned down' version of an Aussie accent. Moreover South Islanders have a more British accent depending on where they're from and Maoris and Islanders have their own accents as well.
Nooo no way. I could hardly understand any kiwis when I moved here, couldn't make heads or tails of what they were saying because of their accent. We make consonants flat, and vowels round. Kiwis do the opposite
This is kind of irrilavent, but I have a story One of my relatives, was nicknamed Wild Bill. He had to flee Scottland because he was doing the dirty with someone else's wife, and he somehow ended up in Nz
Its a matter of perspective, because the vowels are shifted for Australian and Kiwi accents. Its like how Australians think we say 'sux' instead of 'six' but we think they say 'seex' instead of 'six'. A lot of it is exaggerated though, because I have never heard anyone say 'chups' in NZ.
Everything thinks their own accent is the way it’s spelt 😂😂 but I live in Wellington and my community is internationals and we all found it hard to understand the way kiwis pronounce vowels. Its more “fesh and cheps” than fush and chups. Or for example Benjamin to us sounds like binjamin when a kiwi says it, as well as yes sounding like yis.
Na. I think the majority of this interpretation isn't right. And dont agree with how we say chips as chups. Kiwis simply eliminate the letter i in the most words: chips = chps in = nnn clip = clp Pig dog and pug dog sound totally different in kiwi slang, we dont replace an i with a u, we just tend to delete it. And disagree with the Oz interpretation as well. We say bet as b-eh-t, aussies say bet exactly how we say bat. We say s-eh-x, they say it how we say sacks. We say Sdnee, they say sed-nee. That's how I hear it anyway...
Our 'i' sound doesn't remotely sound like 'u' (fush), stop speling it this way. It's a slightly different sound that you can't put an existing letter on, accept it instead of trying to match it to another vowel like 'u'. The way we say tuck, is the same as general Americans do, and we say it vastly different to 'tick'.
Strange thinking that the British have the correct accent?? I lived two years in Britain (Somerset) and found so many different accents in Britain that were harder to understand for British people in other regions than my New Zealand speech. Another Kiwi I knew got a job teaching English as a second language to immigrants in Birmingham ahead of local teachers because it was realised that his accent was easier for foreigners to pick up and make themselves better understood by all other English speakers.
3:35 the changes named are very true but they sound funny and unnatural with kiwi accent. He’s virtually saying Pat, pit, and pet instead of Pat, pet, and put in standard accent.
What about how people from the South Island have a stronger R. Probably because they had less contact with Maori and Polynesian immigrants. Or central New Zealand sounds more stereotypical Nu Zuland. Central North Island and Central plateau farmers tend to sound more Australian
As an australian i can assure everyone in the world that noone australian has ever pronounced 'pit' as 'peet', or 'fish' as 'feesh'. The word 'pit' might come out sounding like the t sound at the end is in between a t and a d sound if an australian is speaking fast, and you'll also notice the australian nasal sound as with every other word. the worst thing about being an australian is hearing people who cant do our accent but think they can, ive only ever seen one non-australian do it right. People trying to become good at accents are gonna see this video and think that 'fish' and 'pit' are actually feesh and peet for us and then they're gonna try to impress an australian and make themselves look like idiots.
Very interesting. I really hate the sound of that old posh English that broadcasters used. Aunt Daisy sounds much better and far more relatable. And young people in Mt Roskill saying cat and bat that way today, is the Australian way of saying those words.
![[MV] A leap of faith...ความเชื่อใจครั้งสุดท้าย (From "Petrichor the series")](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/U1piZH2CNXA/mqdefault.jpg)
My Dad was a Dutch immigrant in the 50's, he had a book titled "How to speak New Zild" really funny and quite accurate in how we speak.
By Arch Acker.
The Scots had an absolutely huge influence on the south island accent which is different from the north island accent. They still use a pile of Scottish words.
Go to Gore ,after 5 whiskeys you can't understand them , 5 generations and its still thick Scott, but Chrstchurch very upper class English, my mother was taught to speak with a plum in her mouth ,
Roll the "r down South
@@marquismorris1548 They roll their "r's" so hard they could be twerking on Dancing With The Stars.
Back in high school I thought one of my teachers was American. Turns out she was from "Inverrrrcarrrgil"
They have some weird names for stuff
Kiwi in Sydney that gets large kicks watching Aussie faces as i invite em to my deck
Being shown new rentals in W]A kiwi daughter steps out onto large patio and states that she loves a big deck. Her Aussie friend screams with laughter and tells estate agent shes got the 5 kids to prove it .
@@debbiemohekey1509 Ha!
😆🤣
how many people can fit on your deck at once?
@@maestro_oz Five or sux
There are different accents around NZ depending on where you're from and your background. For example, someone from South Auckland will have a different accent compared to someone from North Shore . Both will sound different to someone raised on the East Coast. South Islanders have a distinct accent too .
Nelson has it's own accent as does Christchurch ( pretend upper class)
@@dd2451 Yeah- there are still brown people in Christchurch aye. Remember Scribe? Not that he died or anything.
I never picked up on this until I moved from blenheim to Perth ten years ago. Most kiwis I've worked with here are north island Maori with only a few exceptions being fellow white south islanders. Massive difference in accents, and the top of the south really does have its own sound. I also found it interesting how many white people from the far North have a strong hint of Maori in their accent.
Yes here in Blenheim we have an accent that is completely different from up North. I've had some friends move down from Auckland and we can tell the difference between our accents and the way we talk down here. According to my friends we sound posher in Blenheim then up in Auckland which I thought was funny
Now I want to send a voice recording of my voice to know what it sounds like to you fullas!!!!???
It was so surreal hearing our accent in Thor: Ragnarok. Just suddenly the voice of some normal guy amongst the movie characters' different accents that I'm used to hearing from the big screen.
Māori have different accents from pākeha. we also have a different vocal style. There's a lot of differences in NZ really
Yeah mate a west coast accent is very different to a northland accent or a Southland accent
@@devlinpratt2598 Yeah bro you're not wrong. It's funny how they try to class us all the same. I literally have mates from the same areas and we all speak differently haha
@@addicted2kai89 I reckon it’s awesome
This is really cool, although I still don't understand how people who aren't from Oceania can't tell kiwi as Aussie apart!
Can you tell American from Canadian?
@@oman115 I can
But only if they say aye aboot or random things in French
born in NZ, lived in aussie for 10 years after high school, i now struggle to tell them apart unless one if really strong. my ears have trained so they both sound pretty normal to me (my aussie mates say i sound kiwi, my kiwi mates say i sound aussie to them go figure)
@@oman115 I can. Canadian accent still has a tiny bit of British sounds in it, plus it's softer.
Very north island focused. Brought up in the deep south in the 60s the effect of scots and irish imigration lingered in vocab and sound (wee, crib, etc) This day I use more celtic vowels and roll/trill my r consonant
This is so interesting. Need more mini docos about how we have evolved as a fairly young country.
I was expecting the Southland accent to get a mention.North Islanders think the are Yanks sometimes. Get a Southerner to say "dirty purple work shirt"
I was actually surprised they didn't touch on the Southland accent as well as the Wellington twang. I thinks it's really cool that we are seeing regional accents evolve in Aotearoa over a very short time span.
Was actually pretty astonished when you mentioned Mt Roskill. You got that right for sure, extremely diverse. You’ll here different versions of the NZ accent.
The production value on this video is amazing. This deserves so many more views. Great job!
Aunt Daisy's pronunciation on Kia Ora is so much better than many can say now.
Doesn't make sense that most boomers can't get it but the Greatest generation nailed it.
Imagine the English getting into a fuss about how Australians and New Zealanders say "good day"
I'm sure they did, but they got over it and everything is OK! Literally nothing changed because its the greeting, the meaning and the gesture that counts. Not the pronunciation.
@@cburgess2805 pronunciation is important in foriegn languages otherwise nobody can understand what you mean.
Te Reo Māori isn't any harder that Japanese but nobody ever put as much value on it and endorsed it's teaching.
@@jaymieindigo-blue4203 I guess Japanese is just more useful...
@@cburgess2805 that's a racist and ignorant opinion. All languages have value and its not up to you or any other benefactor of white patriarchal society to add or subtract value from ANY culture. Haere Rā coloniser 👋
@@eucalyptusbunny he said more useful not more valuable. There are tens of millions of japanese speakers in the world and associated japanese media to consume. The number of maori speakers is less then the population of palmerston north, some 50,000 or so.
I watched your video... One thing I was astounded at, how the hell was our abomination of an accent voted sexiest amongst world travellers?
Also, you could have gone into more detail around bro-ism. How the english of the likes of Billy T James seeped into everyday parlance. Things like chur bro, sweet as, fanks cuz etc becoming commonplace.
Because most of the travelers come to the south island 😂😂
@@mra6308 by south Island do you mean just Queenstown lol
@@eucalyptusbunny you ain't wrong 😂😂
@@eucalyptusbunny don’t forget about the quick stop over in Christchurch!
Noone cares about the accent, they just love New Zealand and therefore identify it with this accent
Literally no one in New Zealand says "feesh and chups". This example of our accent is actually so jarring lmao
we sound like "fush and chups" and aussies are the "feesh and cheeps" 😂
They actually say that Kiwis say "chups" and Aussies say "feesh."
i was raised in south auckland and have only ever pronounced it 'thuh' lol spot on.
Very interesting.
Folks have always found my accent a bit weird. Ever since I was a child, my accent has been consciously self cultivated, to the point that people have told me that I sound English. Later at university, I came across a linguist who heard me speak. He found it extremely remarkable that (as a young person) my accent was so cultivated. Curiously enough, he could still clearly identify my accent as a NZ accent, though he admitted that it wasn't the easiest to identify (he noticed among other things that my front vowels do not rise).
I'm born and bred Kiwi, never did an OE, worked for a company that was bought by an Aussie firm, and the new boss asked me where in England I came from. Both my parents were teachers, so I never stood a chance of not "speaking proper" :-D That said, I've been an actor for 40+ years and accents are a special interest to me. But I do not like the trend - it sounds more ignorant to me, sorry.
Kiwi's don't have an accent, - it's the rest of the world that has the accent!
Lol i've always thought this! We sound so plain
🤣🤣🤣
Yeah and we mimic all the other's way better than they can.
Yeah, eh.
@@jaymieindigo-blue4203 PArtly because we see and hear so much from other places ... and because we're so isolated geographically, we tend to take more notice of the differences.
during my final year of college i noticed most of the juniors had americanish accents, must be from too much youtube and tv
Yeah u can tell which kids watch too much utube. Its so weird!!!!!!
Yeah, I had a similar experience when I was still at the University of Auckland a 4-5 years back. A lot of very American accents all round.
Yeah, all accents worldwide will become like this, the world is becoming more and more integrated due to the internet, so I think over time accents will converge back towards a single accent with only very slight regional variations
@Thomas Vinsen no u
Excents are funnee. Went on my OE to Scotland (in 80s) and didn't meet or speak to another Kiwi for months. When I met another Kiwi I was shocked at her (and probably my) accent.
My old man was Scots but I thought he had no accent till I phoned home one day and some strange Scotsman (my dad) answered it.
Same bro. But in oz.
Went back home was in a pub out in the sticks got a bit tiddly and could hear it. Crack up. Sounded like a drunk Welsh pirates. Dats us aye don't change
Incorrect at 6:49. It is not whether or not it begins with a vowel, but whether or not it begins with a vowel sound. One would say 'thuh' uniform. But 'thee' honour.
BZZZZTT!!! Thanks for playing :-/
I think that mass communication has revealed that whenever English speakers have travelled to other parts of the world and lived in obscurity, their accent has changed over time due to lack of influence from where they came from and increased influence from others around them. The general Australian accent is just a New Zealand accent with the vowel sounds intact, although many English speakers in Melbourne have al and el sounds reversed, ie. Malbourne, elbum, etc. Perhaps that also drifted in from across the ditch.
this is something i have always thought about such as what did our accents sound in the past compared to now and what will it be in the future and why we sound different
I'm an Aussie & appreciate the explanation of the differences between the ways we and Kiwis form vowels. However, the video doesn't explain why our vowel sounds diverged. This aspect of the two accents fascinated me when the first big wave of Kiwis migrated here in the early 80s, and still does!
Diverge? They have different histories, NZ English didn’t develop from Australian English
@@MichaelTavares The guy in the video used the term diverge, as in, the two accents diverged from the various British English accents, but the vowel sounds became different. I wasn't having a go at Kiwis.
@@FionaEm Well... ...it's the same reason why the estuary English from which both nation's English originated also diverged.
I think it suggested since New Zealand was slightly newer than Australia the vowels had not risen in the mouth as much. Thus Australian vowels were "higher"?. Ozzies: Feesh (high) Kiwis: Fush (lower) etc
It may be because of the influence of the Maori accent on pakeha NZers? Just a guess.
I’ve been friends with a kiwi gentleman for twenty years. I recently listened to Jane Harper’s “The Survivors” on audio. It takes place in Tasmania and is read by an Australian actor. Yes, I know NZ is not part of Australia, but the accents are similar.
It took a while, but my mind transitioned from “huh?” to “translating” words from their accent to my American accent.
I traveled with an aussie from Melbourne ,was surprised to find he wasn't from NZ,,didn't have the twang, soft spoken like kiwi , also lived in the east end London, and recognized aussie sound (east coast ),
That is the old pre 1804 Union Jack. By the time of the treaty in 1840. It had the modern red diagonal lines which it has now.
this also has implications for period drama shows as well, the accents need to be in context to the era involved... well done on the video btw
An Aussie here. Although I've met Kiwis who have strong New Zealand accents, for the most part I feel like our accents are quite similar, like the cousins we are. Admittedly, not similar enough to stop Aussies doing the "fush and chups" joke. Sorry about that. I've demonstrated to my children with old ABC recordings (as in our national broadcaster) that the very strong (so-called "ocka") Aussie accent was far less common when I was young. And never from a newsreader, who all spoke with a very "Oxbridge" plum. My wife and I both have what would be regarded by the average Aussie as a "cultivated" accent, not strongly ocka. Our children have all been homeschooled so their exposure to very ocka accents has been limited. Amusingly, after taking phone calls from locals (very drawling-accented farmers - we live in a rural area) I've actually heard my children complain that they "couldn't understand half of what they said" because the accent was so strong. I've often wondered why the Kiwi and Aussie accents have differences so I enjoyed your video, thanks. I had assumed that the Kiwi accent was strongly influenced by Scottish immigration because, to my ears, the Scots have vowels clipped in a similar way to Kiwis. Back in the 1980s there was an Aussie comedy show where in one of the episodes there was a reference to New Zealand as the place that vowels go to die (I think this was a reference to what used to be said of New Zealand as "the place that baby Austins go to die"). One last thing. There are still large pockets of plummy accented Aussies. If you go to South Australia for instance, particularly around Victor Harbour, the accent is very posh. They say "plahnt" and "dahnce" and words like "holy" are said like hoe-lee as opposed to hole-ee. Very posh.
I would agree when I was living in Oz I didn't really see much of a difference in our accents I found them quite similar.
Yep, kiwi accents are definitely heavily influenced by Scottish migrants. I've heard the exact same strange vowel sounds. Aussie accents are more south east england derived: cockney, estuary etc.
All other Englishes I’ve encountered pronounce the word “says” as “sez” but New Zealanders often rhyme it with “days”
Most kiwis don't pronounce says like that. I've met people from the north of England who do.
Never heard that. What part of the country you in?
@@shboi8103 I’m really surprised you have t heard that. Only really in people under 40. I live in the Auckland region. But you hear it on television and radio too. Listen out for it.
Says does rhyme withs days but kiwis often pronounce it as sez.
What this video doesnt mention is that mixed pronounciation amomgst kiwis has been purposely done for the past 40years. This is simply due to the entertainment kiwis are exposed to. Gen alpha now have a thick american accent when ever they make videos due to youtube. Gen x jumped between aussie, british and american accent due to soap operas
Yeah Says and days rhyme lol
Fantastically interesting!
Thx so much for letting know the reason why ain’t able to get vowels correctly
My parents were English-born - Mum from Surrey (middle middle class) and Dad from upper middle class with posh Mum. So my Kiwi accent was always somewhat moderated by that environment, though not posh Kiwi
2:16 despite living in Canterbury my whole life, and going to UC for 4 years, I still read the professors description and at first thought they were from a British university.
My brain just couldn't accept someone so formal and eloquent in the same place as me
My grandparents were Dutch immigrants, but they decided not to teach the language to my mum, and so I never learned it either. And yet, when I came across an old Italian man one day, he could instantly tell I was of Dutch descent - because my Kiwi accent has a Dutch accent mixed in, despite never learning the language.
Awesome video - great production. I'll be sharing this with my students at the NZ Voice Academy
Born in 03 and I'd say I don't have the standard Kiwi accent, mine is a bit americanised when I speak casually, but I can switch it to kiwi/uk-ish when communicating with people or reading a speech.
Great content. I wish the audio levels were more consistent.
Can we please get more quality videos like this
This is such a great video!! Well done !
My mother, born in Dunedin in1914, first took and later gave elocution lessons intended to get rid of the Kiwi vowel sounds. She then married an Englishman and moved to the UK, where despite all that training everyone immediately picked her out as a New Zealander. She once asked for a ticket to Marble Arch which needed several attempts before she was understood.
t'scool how accents evolve like genres of music
Māori english is totally different
Yeah aye 😂
Chur bro
@@jimmyt5690 what's that ranga ?
And more excellenter. Chur! :-)
Kāo. It's quite similar to Pākehā English. As an Australian they sound very similar to my ear.
There's a clear difference between younger and older in accent and word choice, but practically nothing between Pākehā and Māori of similar age.
So how do you explain the difference between the South Island and north island accent ?
South Island is more pakeha, so we sound similar to Aussies more than North islanders
@@jessb6929 yeah nah.
My understanding is that the south Island had less migration so the original English/Scottish accent is less diluted amongst the European settlers.
I always said people from epsum girls grammar have their own special accent
nz accent originated in central otago, where there were virtually no maori. it's a blend of english, scottish and irish accents. some north island towns with high maori populations sound a bit different. down in otago/southland, it has more of a scottish rolling of "r"s reflecting the scottish settlers.
My family sound more like the associate professor than the general NZ. Idk why.
Kia Ora, Kiwi here. Interestingly, New Zealand also has regional accents that seem to be ignored quite a lot by the videos on Aotearoan accents here on You Tube.
As a kiwi, to me the most obvious difference in vowel sounds between us and the aussies is the "a" especially when used with "n", such as in the words "plant" or "answer". While we might say "ant" very similarly, with the aussies being a bit higher pitch, they keep the exact same sound to say "plant", where as us kiwis will change it to a much softer vowel with more of an "r" sound mixed in.
It depends what part of australia, some say plant our way. And what do you mean with an 'r' sound? we do not make an r sound in plant at all.
@@danieljohn4014 Funny, I don't remember writing this. I guess what I meant by the "r" in "plant" is like the informal way of saying "auntie" as "aunt". Which sounds like we start by saying the word "r" then the "nt" sound, the word "plant" is like "aunt" with the "pl" sound first.
@@Pete856 oh makes sense lol
This is insightful, not only for the Kiwis! But for OOLLL.
My very favourite accent 💚🥝 So lovely and familiar.
I was born early Fifties in Pt Chevalier, a Western suburb, but not what is now called West Auckland. As the narrator says, I grew up with the unconscious thah/thee distinction for consonant/vowel sound beginnings. So much so that in my Thirties I considered "thah" before a vowel sound as a mark of poor education, or a giveaway of someone from an area of high Maori population. An older me knows language shifts and I don't judge anymore.
As an Aussie from Adelaide I used to have people in Sydney think I was a Kiwi, probably because my accent is more rounded and less broad than a typical Sydneysider. Quite an honour, actually 😉
Im a west Aussie and I've been called Irish and Canadian by other Aussies!
I find people from SA and some areas of Vic and even Tas definitely closer to ours than NSW and Qld.
From NZ and living in Sydney, went to the Barossa and was surprised how everyone sounded Kiwi
Very interesting. But why the pre-1801 Union Jack?
It became the national flag in 1840, after NZ became part of the British Empire, until it was change around the 1900s.
@@GS-wz1ud That was the post-1801 Union Jack - the one still in use, with the red St.Patrick's Cross included. The flag in the video is the 1606-1800 version, containing only St.George's and St.Andrew's crosses.
Pretty sure the maritime flag was the first. But I could be all mud🤪
@@xroadwalker the Confederation's flag became the maritime flag after the Treaty of Waitangi. Didn't know the first Union Jack though.
Had to dive far too deep into the comments to find this question being asked! 😂
Yesterday much loved and ubiquitous TV personality Hillary was embarrassed by the translater thinking she enjoyed eating s*men rather than Salmon. The kiwi accent is certainly a novelty that is very quirky and humourous, the famous" gus a chup brew" ad was a cultural phenomena. Anyway be proud as this was voted world's finest and favourite accent ( although with south African coming in second was it satire by some cheeky Aussies?)
Should see the change with the kids growing up now. I call them generation you tube. They grew up watching toy unboxings on unused tablets after the tablet fad died out. A fair few kids now have a kiwi x american accent.
I would say anyone born 70s-80s onwards has probably seen this with people their age as they see American movies or tv shows, children tend to sound like their environment and if they hear American accents a lot, they’ll likely pick up on it.
Brooooo, this is so interesting! Here's to becoming a predominantly bilingual nation again with English and Te Reo Māori! Wooo!
I've only been in NZ about 18 months, but I find my vowels rising. That and starting lots of sentences with an almost surprised sounding 'ah'.
8:41 I know some memphis artists who say "plestic beg" etc
Te Waipounamu/South Islanders, particularly South canterbury, have a more refined way of speaking than the more common sounding Te Ika-a-Māui/North Island dialect/aka Lynn of Tawa...
I lived overseas for a couple of decades - most of that time spent teaching English so l had pretty much neutralised my New Zealand accent - came home on holiday one year during the absolute height of Lyn of Tawa's popularity. She was EVERYWHERE - l was horrified - all l could think was Good God, did l used to sound like THAT? I couldn't believe how everyone was celebrating her and her accent. I didn't find out until several years later that she was/is a comedian and was taking the Mickey. 😂
Lunn's excent dozen sound uxeggerated et orl tummy!
WOOOP WOOP my teachers sisters on here lynn of tawa yayyyy
yeet forever - She was certainly a New Zealand icon. -
This is some good quality content
The one thing that still bugs me, is the shift that has added an ‘r’ sound to some words which really shouldn’t have it... like On and Off being vocalised as Orn and Orff.
There is 5 or 6 different New Zealand accents so there is more to it....
Git the did hin in the shid and fid it to the peg. Someone actually said that to me once on a farm near Glenorchy.
Glad you think so ( that the NuZilund exsunt is suxxy) but to Australian ears it just sounds agrarian downmarket.
Probably ms.Susan Maitland knows someone whose name is Mr mike Maitland.
When I worked in call centres in the UK, I used to get picked for a South African all the time. I have a very clipped phone voice 😅
Kiwis in Mount Roskill have Indian accents!
My princible sounds literally says nu zulund
I was born in Nz but my accent is so mixed cause I grew up watching so many videos and shows in American English lmfao
Honourable mentions to unknown / unknowun and off / orf. And also the Southland accent in general - those guys are special 😀
We seem to have real problems with consecutive consonants: "assem-bu-lee", "ath-a-lete". It's interesting that some languages make them impossible (e.g. making every syllable a consonant followed by a vowel sound).
@@thromboid Sounded out both and got "as-sem-bly" (bu and lee mixed) and "ath-lete" (skipping the "a").
Beautiful Lynn
Yep! I'll just head off and get some of NZ's favourite fast food, *fush & chups!* LOL
Yes fush and chups - ut us good usn't ut?
@@Bobby-fj8mk Yus! LOL
I was born in 1975 and growing up - the only people saying"thee" for the and the 2nd "the" were older people. never have I used "thee" sounding for the.
I actually think it sounds closer to South African accent than Australian.
Some words, definitely.
@@Nienpet When doing my OE in London - often got mistaken for South African. (many years ago)
I've been saying that for over 20 years.
At least: ANGLO-South African.
@@danieleyre8913 Totally agree. When I arrived in Auckland I picked it up immediately as I thought from listening to cricket and rugby commentators and meeting a few Kiwis in South Africa over the years that Kiwis had a 'toned down' version of an Aussie accent. Moreover South Islanders have a more British accent depending on where they're from and Maoris and Islanders have their own accents as well.
Ask a South African to say "Fighting" that's when you know there's a very large difference
similarities with the south african accent
Nooo no way. I could hardly understand any kiwis when I moved here, couldn't make heads or tails of what they were saying because of their accent. We make consonants flat, and vowels round. Kiwis do the opposite
I’ll have a family meal with 2 fush fillet and 2 quarter pounder, steam bun, Fanta please bro, chuur bro
brings back memories for me
Kiwis sound more like South Africans than anyone else ay.
even polynesian kiwis have their own accents too
I think they have different accents
1:12 He sounds like he's talking gibberish
This is kind of irrilavent, but I have a story
One of my relatives, was nicknamed Wild Bill.
He had to flee Scottland because he was doing the dirty with someone else's wife, and he somehow ended up in Nz
Pretty shit story
"feesh and chups" is more Aussie than NZ. We say it more like literally how it's spelt - "fish and chips"
Its a matter of perspective, because the vowels are shifted for Australian and Kiwi accents. Its like how Australians think we say 'sux' instead of 'six' but we think they say 'seex' instead of 'six'. A lot of it is exaggerated though, because I have never heard anyone say 'chups' in NZ.
Everything thinks their own accent is the way it’s spelt 😂😂 but I live in Wellington and my community is internationals and we all found it hard to understand the way kiwis pronounce vowels. Its more “fesh and cheps” than fush and chups. Or for example Benjamin to us sounds like binjamin when a kiwi says it, as well as yes sounding like yis.
Na. I think the majority of this interpretation isn't right. And dont agree with how we say chips as chups. Kiwis simply eliminate the letter i in the most words:
chips = chps
in = nnn
clip = clp
Pig dog and pug dog sound totally different in kiwi slang, we dont replace an i with a u, we just tend to delete it.
And disagree with the Oz interpretation as well. We say bet as b-eh-t, aussies say bet exactly how we say bat. We say s-eh-x, they say it how we say sacks. We say Sdnee, they say sed-nee.
That's how I hear it anyway...
What in the Vox
Our 'i' sound doesn't remotely sound like 'u' (fush), stop speling it this way. It's a slightly different sound that you can't put an existing letter on, accept it instead of trying to match it to another vowel like 'u'.
The way we say tuck, is the same as general Americans do, and we say it vastly different to 'tick'.
Strange thinking that the British have the correct accent?? I lived two years in Britain (Somerset) and found so many different accents in Britain that were harder to understand for British people in other regions than my New Zealand speech. Another Kiwi I knew got a job teaching English as a second language to immigrants in Birmingham ahead of local teachers because it was realised that his accent was easier for foreigners to pick up and make themselves better understood by all other English speakers.
3:35 the changes named are very true but they sound funny and unnatural with kiwi accent. He’s virtually saying Pat, pit, and pet instead of Pat, pet, and put in standard accent.
It’s Lyn with one N!
Had no idea there was a rule about ‘the’. English is weird.
Neither, but I imagine that's one of many language rules we subconsciously picked up growing up.
I didnt understand anything you said
fish and chups
I-
What about how people from the South Island have a stronger R. Probably because they had less contact with Maori and Polynesian immigrants. Or central New Zealand sounds more stereotypical Nu Zuland. Central North Island and Central plateau farmers tend to sound more Australian
I've never heard an Aussie say FEESH instead of FISH.
I'm Scottish and I only 'thee' the 'the' when I'm being sarcastic. 😉
All the american TH-cam and TV has influenced my little siblings pronunciations a bit and its so weird to hear
As an australian i can assure everyone in the world that noone australian has ever pronounced 'pit' as 'peet', or 'fish' as 'feesh'. The word 'pit' might come out sounding like the t sound at the end is in between a t and a d sound if an australian is speaking fast, and you'll also notice the australian nasal sound as with every other word. the worst thing about being an australian is hearing people who cant do our accent but think they can, ive only ever seen one non-australian do it right. People trying to become good at accents are gonna see this video and think that 'fish' and 'pit' are actually feesh and peet for us and then they're gonna try to impress an australian and make themselves look like idiots.
"iccint".
Very interesting. I really hate the sound of that old posh English that broadcasters used. Aunt Daisy sounds much better and far more relatable. And young people in Mt Roskill saying cat and bat that way today, is the Australian way of saying those words.
Yeah, when that came up I thought "that's the way I say it." I'm Australian and have a very standard "middle class" city Australian accent.