Kōrero: Speech and accent

'Colonial twang' was a pejorative term applied to New Zealand pronunciation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. New Zealand speech was seen as departing from the gold standard of British pronunciation, though in reality the speech of New Zealanders simply reflected the make-up of the Pākehā population, which was largely derived from England. The writer of this column published in 1897 describes the twang as an infectious disease affecting people of all social classes.