Kōrero: Speech and accent

Arnold Wall was a literary scholar at the University of Canterbury. After his retirement in 1932 he wrote a series of columns titled 'Our mother tongue' for the Press newspaper. Wall was highly critical of New Zealand pronunciation in these columns and in his book New Zealand English (1938). Later scholars were careful not to judge New Zealand pronunciation – they had an objective interest in the origins of New Zealand speech and how it evolved. Wall himself even moderated his stance and later repositioned himself as an non-judgmental recorder. Listen to some observations about New Zealand pronunciations which he recorded in 1951.