Experts examine dialect mystery

UK settlers moved to New Zealand in the middle of the 19th century

Researchers are starting to unravel the mystery of why New Zealanders came to speak in an identical English dialect.

Physicists in Edinburgh are working with language experts to explain why the unique dialect developed so quickly and uniformly across the country.

It is thought that transport links within New Zealand and the growth of a class system may have contributed to the nationwide dialect.

UK settlers moved to New Zealand from the middle of the 19th Century.

Despite bringing with them their own regional accents, most New Zealanders were speaking in the same dialect within 50 years.

We can never really predict what one person might do, but what we can do is predict what might happen in the population as a whole Richard Blythe University of Edinburgh

The change, and the speed with which it came about, is still not entirely understood.

Physicists from the Universities of Edinburgh and Manchester - working with mathematicians from New Zealand and linguists from the US - have begun unravelling the roots of New Zealand English.

The researchers analysed material, including radio interviews with New Zealand's oldest inhabitants from the 1940s, and used a mathematical model to trace how language changes were passed through the population.

Adapt speech

Richard Blythe, from the University of Edinburgh's school of physics, said: "Most of the immigrants to New Zealand came from the British Isles in the 1850s and they all landed with British regional dialects."

While the first generation of immigrants did little to change their dialects, their children started to adapt their speech in a way which is still not totally understood.

Dr Blythe added: "In New Zealand today there is one dialect, while in countries such as the UK, France and Germany there are many.

"At the time this dialect arose, there would have been between 100,000 and one million people living in New Zealand.

"With that big a number it would be impossible for all the inhabitants to meet each other.

"We can never really predict what one person might do, but what we can do is predict what might happen in the population as a whole."