PapaBear
Member posted 09-12-1999 11:19 PM
Glad to see you admit that, PapaBear. BTW, did you realize that your first posting in this thread throws you squarely into the group to which you say BigRoryG and I belong.
And you call me petty. Sad, very sad.
What? The passage you quote discusses Kiwi English’s ‘Britishness’ relative to Oz English’s (and I wouldn’t dispute it). It doesn’t say that Kiwi is ‘similar’. You may think this is mere semantics but rest assured that to anyone with any kind of British accent the difference to Kiwi English is vast.
I hope this is meant as a joke.
Bíonn caora dhubh ar an tréad is gile (there is a black sheep even in the whitest flock).
Hello everyone - I’m a New Zealander!
Just thought I’d throw in my NZ$0.02
New Zealand has not been colonized very long - only 160 years officially, maybe 200 unofficially. The people here are almost exclusively Scots and English origin, here for the Gold, with many Scot terms in our language, but an English influenced accent.
Australia is about 100 years older than NZ in terms of European settlement, and as everyone knows, the first settlers were criminals, who I would guess had a very lax, loose approach to their language.
While Australia was viewed as a prison, New Zealand was viewed as a haven, and so attracted slightly more sophisticated (but only slight) people, those that had a higher regard and respect for the Royals and their ideals.
I’m guessing a lot of this.
Anyhoo, NZ accents are more to the front, bottom of the mouth. Australian is the front, top. English is at the back, bottom. US is at the back, top.
Feel free to disagree with me 
Guano, I’ve been impressing the office with a variety of utterances here thanks to your post. I think you’re onto something.
Go All Blacks!
So, judging from people who’ve been/are from thereabouts:
NZ and Oz have accents distinct from one another, and each has their own [internal] variations. NZ has a strong Scots influence.
Was there a Scottish influence in Australia ? And might the Scottish accent (or dialect, or language, no wish to offend) account for the root of the difference between today’s Kiwi and Aussie accents ?
Sounds like the Scots are the troublemakers. It’s they who are responsible for the single vowel difference between US-Speak (General American) and Canadian English, right? I. E., /au/ as in ‘out’.
Ray
I don’t think I’d say NZ has a strong Scots influence. And I’m not too sure Australia has any connections to Scotland at all. (Except for Mel Gibson in Braveheart, and that’s a tenuous one)
New Zealand’s links to Scotland tend to be exclusively based around the settlers in my hometown, Dunedin and the Otago province. A lot of placenames and family names (and some phrases) are Scottish, but not the accent.
And also, don’t forget Maori having its own accent that undoubtedly played a part.
GuanoLad: I, as a criminal, take strong exception to your statement. Many criminals, including myself, take great care to avoid slang terms and poor grammar and use only the proper Queen’s English. It is stereotyping such as yours that has given criminals a bad name.
If you want to see a great site about Kiwis go to http://www.angelfire.com/bc/simont/Bloke.html
Well, the criminal of today is indeed a more sophisticated soul, I would tend to agree.
However, Australians on the other hand…
Konrad
Member posted 09-15-1999 05:56 PM
(Bolding mine)
Konrad: including me or me included would be “proper Queen’s English.” “Myself” is not the objective case of the personal pronoun. Perhaps a better choice of words would be “such as I.”
Just struck by an awful thought: an earlier post in this thread
might have been misinterpreted as directed at PB & RTI. That definitely wasn’t the case. Humble apologies, SDMB.
Note to self: must avoid weak attempts at witty remarks in the future.