NEW ZEALAND SPEECH.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 188, 11 August 1925, Page 20

NEW ZEALAND SPEECH.

OUR PRONUNCIATION.

A FEW LOCAL FAULTS.

"New Zealand Pronunciation" was the subject of a lecture delivered last evening by Mr. J. W. Shaw, M.A., in St. Andrew's Hall. Professor Segar presided, and ther*was a small, but appreciative attendance. In some respects, said Mr. Shaw, New Zealand was in danger of developing on unpleasant accent. For instance, ho had heard "one and eight" pronounced by a shop assistant in such a way as to sound like "one and nine," while the pronunciation of '"day late" and day liplit" was sometimes indistinguishable. Now Zealand would be out of danger if proper control were exercised by those who knew better, and if a consolidated effort were made by the educational authorities, It was in the hands of New Zealanders themselves whether the language of the Dominion was to be English, pure and undefiled, or a mutilated language. But what wa= to be the standard? The speech of a language was something that depended on natural social intercourse, and the correct form of speech was the form that was used by the majority of educated people. The result was that there were all sorts of changes, as the years passed. There were rival schools of pronunciation in England. It was difficult to say where we picked up our pronunciations. If people were so conservative that they would not change, there was not much that could be done. Every independent people had a right *j express itself in its own speech, in the ,words its used and the pronunciation it gave them. The more distinctive a nation's type, tho more distinctive would its pronunciation be. We spoke of America's debased f-orrn of English, but that form of speech was as much theirs as the language of England. Australia had gone much nearer to producing a type than New Zealand had done. The whole attitude of the Australian towards life, was a sort of devil-may-care pose, and this reflected itself in the free-and-easy, slipshod, informal form of speech used in the Commonwealth. Some people refused to drop the old pronunciations, said Mr. Shaw. He had heard as pure a form of Scotch in Otago as could be heard anywhere. Indeed, the Scotch accent in Scotland had been modified during the last 50 or 70 yeara. by reason of association with English people, but the settlers who came out to Otago had a great pride, ami they refuied to .drop their accent, and there, in the back hilla of Otago, was to be heard an accent no longer heard in Old Scotland. It would be almost impossible to form a county dialect now-a-days, because there was so much intermingling. The affectations of some people, who wished to be thought of the caste of Vere de Vere, did not count seriously, and had no more effect on general pronunciation than the dialect to be heard among the docks at Liverpool. To-day everything tended to annihilate distance, and the world regarded any country that lived in isolation, as a menace. New Zealand stood half-way on the road between the Old World and the new, and from east and west adown the wind, came •whispering voices. New Zealand had no desire to be different in her speech. We were not anxious to cut ourselves adrift from the Homeland. Tho factor of imitation was, however, ■working all the time in New Zealand. Some forms of imitation were more eubtle than others. .Unfortunately we lad corrupted the beautiful Maori language, and its influence on our language Sad been completely lost. Some Maoris now used the corrupted form themselves. Australian forms of speech ■were a subtle menace, but the American form was so obviously different that when we used it we were immediately conscious of the fact. The slang words on the cinema screen were adding a lot of. undersirable words to our vocabulary, and the alarmingly nasal reproduction of cheap gramophones had a slight effect. Why Americans had adopted the nasal tone the speaker could not say. Perhaps it was due to some physical factor, or perhaps it was due to imitation of the Puritan Fathers by early generations. The Puritans had evidently conceived an idea that na.sal tones were particularly pleasing to the Deity, and they had made all their prayers and sermons that way. Was there anything in-the Ne\y Zealand condition of life thai •would alter the vocal mechanism ? Mr. Shaw was sure that there was not. Our voices were generally developed alonw a common line. She slipshod use of the vowel sound, that people deprecated so' much, was simply fine. The great thing we had to fight against was any tendency to go back to the old dictionary forms, instead of using the form used by the majority of educated people. If our form of pronunciation in New Zealand - was to be pure, there were two principles to be followed: (1) No affectations; (2) The form adopted among riAal forms must be the one least liable to corruption.