Nelson Evening Mail SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1935 THE KING’S ENGLISH

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 16 February 1935, Page 6

Nelson Evening Mail SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1935 THE KING’S ENGLISH

RECENTLY a distinguished visitor from England expressed the opinion that New Zealanders, taking them by and large, speak more correct English than do their fellow-countrymen. At first thought that may seem to.be an attempt at flattery, but those who have lived in England, and are acquainted intimately with people of its towns and villages, will know the reason of the opinion expressed by the appreciative Englishman who thus complimented the people of tfcis country on their speech. True, the best English is spoken in England—those wlm hoard the Duke of Gloucester speak will know what it is like—but it must be remembered that there are spoken in England almost as many dialects as there arc- counties. For instance, ■i certain New Zealander who was staying at Wigan, ju Lancashire, Was asked by his hostess to call at her poulterer, and fetch a fowl which she had ordered. When ho gut to the shop, lie was told, “If '<: laid it, 'e must tide’ it wick.” Fie repeated his request, but only got the same reply, which he could not understand. When he returned without tin.' fowl, and repealed wlnit the poulterer had said, his hostess laughingly explained, "'.rite man meant that you would have to bring the fowl alive. There is not much doubt that Hie pioneers who came out to New Zealand, and founded Wellington and Nelson, spoke a mixture of dialects, for they came from many different parts of England, and the same may be said of the founders of Christchurch and the Canterbury settlement, but Dunedin, Otago, Invercargill, and Southland are a little bit of Scotland transplanted in New Zealand, so far as speech is concerned ; therefore it will be seen that in the early years of Now Zealand’s sell le - nient the pioneers represented all parts of Great Britain, and doubtless retained the dialects spoken in the parts of the countiy from which they had come. Tims, there was at New Plymouth a community which retained strong recollections of Devon and Cornwall. Mention has been made of the Scotch settlements in the south of New Zealand. Christchurch and Canterbury began as a Chqrch settlement, and were intensely English. In these different communities, composed of people drawn from different parts of the Old Country and speaking various dialects, there were a large number of highly-educated people who

spoke the English of the university and professional classes. So that during the first decade or two after its colonisation, there was to be heard in New Zealand much the same speech as was to he heard in the counties and countytowns of England. But in the ’sixties the discovery of gold in Otago and on the West Coast of the South Island brought into this country;a large number of foreigners as well as diggers from tile Australian goldfields, aud these must have had a considerable influence in altering the standard of English spoken in this country. Probably the greatest alteration was made in the ’seventies by Sir Julius Vogel’s immigrants. That statesman was of Jewish extraction, and, as his surname indicates, his family hailed originally from Germany. He was obsessed with the necessity for increasing the white population of New Zealand, and his famous immigration scheme was the result. With the aid of emigration agents in England, scores of thousands of people were induced to come to this country. A complete volume could be written on that remarkable but, in some ways, illadvised project for filling New Zealand's empty spaces. The emigration agents operated in areas where they could most easily enroll emigrants, and found London, and especially its eastern part, the easiest . field for recruiting. Now, there was then, and had been during the two previous decades, a great influx into London from the eastern counties and especially from Essex, with the result that in East London what is known as the Essex twang became prevalent. This ugly form of speech is characterised not only by uncertainty in relation to the letter “h,” but by a perversion of vowel-sounds. Thus, “a” becomes “ai,” the resonant dipthong “ou” becomes a nasal atrocity consisting of the blending of “e” with “on,” the hearty aspirate vanishes from its honourable position at the beginning of words, “o” loses its purity, and the general tendency is to speak from behind the front teeth instead of from the sounding-board of the palate. This degeneracy in speech was strongly in evidence in New Zealand in the ’eighties (though the “h” managed to maintain itself here very well), and it seemed as if the Cockney argot was to become the standard of. speech with the bulk of our people. A change came about through tho assiduity of the teachers in our public schools and colleges. For instance, forty-five and fifty years ago, the teachers of the Nelson schools used to meet regularly for the purpose of reading Shakespeare, and a point was made by them of correct pronunciation, with tiie result that a high level of speecn was attained, and much good was done to their pupils. The same thing was going on in every education district of New Zealand, and , has continued ever since, with the result that a visiting Englishman is warranted in complimenting the people of this country on the correctness of their speech. It must not bo thought that there is no room for improvement. Any educated person who moves about freely, and converses with, all and sundry people in New Zealand, knows how many there are whose speech is far from perfecl. Alost of these spoilers' of good English come from abroad, but many are New Zealanders born and bred; so it is evident that the schools, excellent as is their work, have still a great deal to do before it can be said that m this country all imperfections of speech have been eradicated.