English
is the predominant language and a
de facto
official language of
New Zealand
. Almost the entire population speak it either as native speakers or proficiently as a second language.
[1]
The
New Zealand English dialect
is most similar to
Australian English
in pronunciation, with some key differences. The
M?ori language
of the indigenous
M?ori people
was made the first
de jure
official language in 1987.
New Zealand Sign Language
(NZSL) has been an official language since 2006. Many other languages are used by New Zealand's minority ethnic communities.
Official languages
[
edit
]
New Zealand has three official languages: English (
de facto
),
M?ori
and
New Zealand Sign Language
.
[2]
[3]
Otago
Law Professor Andrew Geddis explains the context of official languages:
English is already a de facto official language, which may be used in any or all public or official contexts. (...) [W]e legislated te reo [M?ori] and sign language as being "official languages", in order to affirmatively grant the right to use them in particular, specified situations where they otherwise could not be used. This is not the case with English. It's simply a general, background cultural presumption in our particular society that this is the language of our government. (...) English is so much an "official language" that our law actually specifies in various places it must be used in place of any other.
[4]
English
[
edit
]
English
is the most common language, with 95.4 percent of the population having conversational fluency, according to the 2018 census.
[1]
[5]
It has been the dominant language since
P?keh?
became the majority in the 1860s.
[6]
It is a
de facto
official language,
[7]
and the primary language used in parliament, government agencies, the courts, and the education system.
[8]
Its official status is presumed and not codified in
statute
,
[4]
the same as in Australia,
[9]
the United Kingdom
[10]
and the United States.
[11]
In 2018,
New Zealand First
MP
Clayton Mitchell
introduced a bill to parliament to statutorily recognise English as an official language.
[12]
[13]
New Zealand English is mostly
non-rhotic
with the exception of the "southern burr" found principally in
Southland
and parts of
Otago
.
It is similar to
Australian English
and many speakers from the Northern Hemisphere are unable to tell the two accents apart.
In New Zealand English the short ?i? (as in kit) has become
centralised
, leading to the
shibboleth
fish and chips
sounding like "fush and chups" to the Australian ear.
The words
rarely
and
really
,
reel
and
real
,
doll
and
dole
,
pull
and
pool
,
witch
and
which
, and
full
and
fill
can sometimes be pronounced as
homophones
.
[18]
New Zealand English exhibits the
near?square merger
, so
hair
,
hare
,
hear
and
here
are sometimes homophones.
Some New Zealanders pronounce the
past participles
grown
,
thrown
and
mown
using two
syllables
, whereas
groan
,
throne
and
moan
are pronounced as one syllable.
New Zealanders often reply to a question or emphasise a point by adding a
rising intonation
at the end of the sentence.
New Zealand English has also
borrowed words and phrases
from
M?ori
, such as
haka
(war dance),
kia ora
(a greeting),
mana
(power or prestige),
puku
(stomach),
taonga
(treasure) and
waka
(canoe).
[22]
[23]
M?ori
[
edit
]
The
M?ori language
of the indigenous
M?ori people
has been an official language by statute since 1987, with rights and obligations to use it defined by the
Maori Language Act 1987
.
[24]
It can, for example, be used in legal settings, such as in court, but proceedings are recorded in only in English, unless private arrangements are made and agreed by the judge.
An Eastern Polynesian language, M?ori is closely related to
Tahitian
and
Cook Islands M?ori
.
[25]
After the Second World War, M?ori were discouraged from speaking their language in schools and workplaces and it existed as a community language only in a few remote areas.
[26]
As a consequence of this, many M?ori came to view te reo M?ori as a language without purpose and chose not to teach their children. Since the 1970s, the language has undergone a process of revitalisation and is spoken by a larger number of people.
[27]
[28]
Of the 185,955 people (4.0 percent of respondents) who claimed they could hold a conversation in M?ori in the 2018 census, 86.2 percent identified as M?ori, but, conversely, only 18.4 percent of M?ori-identifying spoke te reo M?ori.
[29]
No adult M?ori alive in New Zealand today does not also speak English.
[30]
New Zealand Sign Language
[
edit
]
New Zealand Sign Language
, the main language of the
deaf community
in New Zealand, has been an official language by statute since 2006, by virtue of the New Zealand Sign Language Act 2006.
[31]
[32]
It is legal to use it and have access to it in legal proceedings and government services. In the 2018 census, 22,986 people (0.5%) reported the ability to use New Zealand Sign Language.
[1]
Immigrant languages
[
edit
]
New Zealand has immigrants from European, Asian and Pacific Island countries who have brought their languages with them. According to
Ethnologue
(as of 2017
[update]
), the largest groups are
Samoan
(86,400),
Hindi
(66,300),
Mandarin Chinese
(52,300),
French
(49,100) and
Cantonese
(44,600).
[33]
These minority foreign languages are concentrated in the main cities, particularly Auckland where recent immigrant groups have settled.
[34]
In the
2018 census
, 115,830 respondents who spoke at least one language did not include English as one of their spoken languages.
[35]
The number and proportion of
multilingual
people (those who can speak two or more languages) has continued to increase since the 2001 census. In the 2018 census, the number of multilingual people was 946,275, or 20.6 percent of respondents who spoke at least one language. The highest proportions of multilingual speakers lived in the
Auckland
(30.9%) and
Wellington
(21.2%) regions.
[36]
Statistics
[
edit
]
In the 2018 census, the following languages were reportedly spoken by more than 0.1 percent of the population.
[35]
People could report more than one language, therefore percentages do not add up to 100. Statistics include those who spoke no language (e.g. too young to talk).
Language
|
Number
|
Percentage
|
Change (2013?2018)
|
English
|
4,482,135
|
95.37
|
0.77
|
M?ori
|
185,955
|
3.96
|
0.22
|
Samoan
|
101,937
|
2.17
|
0.01
|
Mandarin
|
95,253
|
2.03
|
0.71
|
Hindi
|
69,471
|
1.48
|
0.19
|
French
|
55,116
|
1.17
|
0.06
|
Cantonese
|
52,767
|
1.12
|
|
Chinese, not further defined
|
51,501
|
1.10
|
0.02
|
Tagalog
|
43,278
|
0.92
|
0.19
|
German
|
41,385
|
0.88
|
0.04
|
Spanish
|
38,823
|
0.83
|
0.15
|
Afrikaans
|
36,966
|
0.79
|
0.10
|
Tongan
|
35,820
|
0.76
|
0.04
|
Punjabi
|
34,227
|
0.73
|
0.23
|
Korean
|
31,323
|
0.67
|
|
Fiji Hindi
|
26,805
|
0.57
|
0.53
|
Japanese
|
24,885
|
0.53
|
0.02
|
Dutch
|
23,343
|
0.50
|
0.11
|
New Zealand Sign Language
|
22,986
|
0.49
|
0.02
|
Gujarati
|
22,200
|
0.47
|
0.03
|
Russian
|
12,543
|
0.27
|
0.03
|
Arabic
|
12,399
|
0.26
|
0.01
|
Portuguese
|
10,569
|
0.22
|
0.08
|
Tamil
|
10,107
|
0.22
|
0.04
|
Italian
|
9,903
|
0.21
|
|
Thai
|
9,066
|
0.19
|
|
Malayalam
|
9,024
|
0.19
|
0.08
|
Malaysian
|
8,097
|
0.17
|
|
Cook Islands M?ori
|
7,833
|
0.17
|
0.04
|
Urdu
|
7,824
|
0.17
|
0.04
|
Vietnamese
|
7,755
|
0.17
|
0.03
|
Khmer
|
7,551
|
0.16
|
0.01
|
Sinhala
|
7,266
|
0.15
|
0.02
|
Fijian
|
7,143
|
0.15
|
0.01
|
Persian
|
7,002
|
0.15
|
0.02
|
Indonesian
|
6,282
|
0.13
|
0.01
|
Min
|
5,760
|
0.12
|
0.01
|
Telugu
|
5,754
|
0.12
|
0.04
|
Serbo-Croatian
|
5,502
|
0.12
|
0.02
|
Marathi
|
4,770
|
0.10
|
0.03
|
None (e.g. too young to talk)
|
101,751
|
2.17
|
0.47
|
Total respondents
|
4,699,716
|
100.00
|
|
Regional breakdown
[
edit
]
According to the 2018 census, English is the most-spoken language in every district of New Zealand. M?ori is the second-most spoken language in 60 of the 67 cities and districts of New Zealand. The second-most spoken languages in the remaining seven cities and districts are:
[37]
See also
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
c
d
"2018 Census Totals by Topic ? National Highlights (Updated)"
.
Statistics New Zealand
. 30 April 2020
. Retrieved
2 October
2020
.
- ^
Bardsley, Dianne (7 October 2018).
"English Language in New Zealand - Characteristics of New Zealand English"
.
Te Ara - The Encyclopedia of New Zealand
. Retrieved
11 November
2021
.
- ^
"Language"
.
Stats NZ
. Archived from
the original
on 28 October 2020
. Retrieved
2020-02-14
.
- ^
a
b
Walters, Laura (16 February 2018).
"Analysis: Why English does not need to be made an official language"
.
Stuff
. Retrieved
7 October
2018
.
- ^
Stats NZ
(2018).
"2018 Census: Design of forms"
(PDF)
. p. 87
. Retrieved
12 May
2024
.
- ^
Ballara, Angela
.
"History of the M?ori language"
.
NZHistory
. Ministry for Culture and Heritage
. Retrieved
12 May
2024
.
- ^
New Zealand Government (21 December 2007).
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Fifth Periodic Report of the Government of New Zealand
(PDF)
(Report). p. 89. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on 24 January 2015
. Retrieved
21 April
2015
.
In addition to the M?ori language, New Zealand Sign Language is also an official language of New Zealand. The New Zealand Sign Language Act 2006 permits the use of NZSL in legal proceedings, facilitates competency standards for its interpretation and guides government departments in its promotion and use. English, the medium for teaching and learning in most schools, is a de facto official language by virtue of its widespread use. For these reasons, these three languages have special mention in the New Zealand Curriculum.
- ^
"New Zealand's official languages"
.
Human Rights Commission
. Archived from
the original
on 15 January 2018
. Retrieved
28 November
2017
.
- ^
Ward, Rowena (2019).
"
'National' and 'Official' Languages Across the Independent Asia-Pacific"
.
Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies
.
16
(1/2): 83?4.
doi
:
10.5130/pjmis.v16i1-2.6510
.
The use of English in Australia is one example of both a de facto national and official language: it is widely used and is the language of government and the courts, but has never been legally designated as the country's official language.
- ^
Mac Sithigh, Daithi (March 2018). "Official status of languages in the United Kingdom and Ireland".
Common Law World Review
.
47
(1).
doi
:
10.1177/1473779518773642
.
- ^
Faingold, Eduardo D. (2018).
Language Rights and the Law in the United States and Its Territories
. Lexington Books. p. 8.
The United States has never had an official language and attempts to declare English its official language have been unsuccessful in the U.S. Congress.
- ^
"NZ First submits Bill for English to be recognised as official language"
.
Newshub
. 15 February 2018
. Retrieved
7 October
2018
.
- ^
"NZ First Bill: English set to become official"
.
Scoop
. 15 February 2018
. Retrieved
7 October
2018
.
- ^
Trudgill, Peter and Jean Hannah. (2002).
International English: A Guide to the Varieties of Standard English
, 4th ed. London: Arnold. p 24.
- ^
Bardsley, Dianne (September 2013).
"English language in New Zealand ? Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand"
. Te Ara - The Encyclopedia of New Zealand
. Retrieved
2 September
2017
.
- ^
"M?ori Words used in New Zealand English - M?ori Language.net"
.
M?ori Language.net
. Retrieved
2 September
2017
.
- ^
"Waitangi Tribunal claim ? M?ori Language Week"
. Ministry for Culture and Heritage. July 2010
. Retrieved
19 January
2011
.
- ^
"Austronesian languages"
. Te Ara - The Encyclopedia of New Zealand
. Retrieved
2 September
2017
.
- ^
Phillips, Jock (March 2009).
"The New Zealanders ? Bicultural New Zealand"
. Te Ara ? the Encyclopedia of New Zealand
. Retrieved
21 January
2011
.
- ^
"M?ori Language Week ? Te Wiki o Te Reo Maori"
. Ministry for Culture and Heritage
. Retrieved
2 September
2017
.
- ^
Squires, Nick (May 2005).
"British influence ebbs as New Zealand takes to talking Maori"
.
The Telegraph
. Great Britain.
- ^
"Maori descent indicator and languages spoken (official and common) by age group and sex, for the census usually resident population count, 2006, 2013, and 2018 Censuses (RC, TA, SA2, DHB, urban rural indicator)"
.
Statistics New Zealand
. Retrieved
2 October
2020
.
- ^
Keegan, Peter (5 June 2018).
"FAQ about the M?ori Language"
.
M?ori Language Information
. Retrieved
4 July
2018
.
All (adult) M?ori speakers can also speak English.
- ^
"New Zealand Sign Language Bill 2006"
. Retrieved
30 August
2017
.
- ^
Governor-General gives assent to Sign Language Bill
, Press Release: Governor General, 10 April 2006. Retrieved 11 April 2006.
- ^
Gordon, Raymond G. Jr., ed. (2017). "Languages of New Zealand".
Ethnologue: Languages of the World
(20th ed.). Dallas, Texas: SIL International
. Retrieved
2 September
2017
.
- ^
Bell, Allan; Harlow, Ray; Starks, Donna (2005).
Languages of New Zealand
. Victoria University Press. p. 271.
ISBN
978-0-86473-490-7
.
- ^
a
b
"2018 Census totals by topic ? national highlights (updated)"
.
Statistics New Zealand
. 30 April 2020
. Retrieved
2 October
2020
.
- ^
"Number of languages spoken and birthplace (broad geographic areas) by age group and sex, for the census usually resident population count, 2006, 2013, and 2018 Censuses (RC, TA, SA2, DHB)"
.
Statistics New Zealand
. Retrieved
2 October
2020
.
- ^
"Languages spoken (total responses) and birthplace (broad geographic areas) by age group and sex, for the census usually resident population count, 2006, 2013, and 2018 Censuses (RC, TA, DHB)"
.
nzdotstat.stats.govt.nz
. Retrieved
2021-09-30
.
Bibliography
[
edit
]
- Crystal, David (2003).
The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language
(2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
ISBN
0-521-82348-X
.
- Hay, Jennifer; Maclagan, Margaret; Gordon, Elizabeth (2008).
Dialects of English: New Zealand English
. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
ISBN
9780748625291
.
- Kortmann, Bernd; Schneider, Edgar W., eds. (2004).
A Handbook of Varieties of English
. Vol. 1?2. Together with Kate Burridge, Rajend Mesthrie, and Clive Upton. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
ISBN
3-11-017532-0
.
- Silva, Diego Barbosa da (2019).
"Politica Linguistica na Oceania: Nas Fronteiras da Colonizacao e da Globalizacao / Language Policy in Oceania: In the Frontiers of Colonization and Globalization"
.
Alfa: Revista de Linguistica
(in Portuguese and English).
63
(2).
doi
:
10.1590/1981-5794-1909-4
.
External links
[
edit
]
|
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Major language
| |
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Indigenous languages
| New Zealand
| |
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Cook Islands
| |
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Niue
| |
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Tokelau
| |
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Sign languages
| |
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Sovereign states
| |
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Associated states
of New Zealand
| |
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Dependencies
and other territories
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