English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

is the predominant language and a ''

de facto ''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with ''de jure'' ("by la ...

'' official language of

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

. Almost the entire population speak it either as native speakers or proficiently as a second language. The New Zealand English dialect is most similar to Australian English in pronunciation, with some key differences. The Māori language of the indigenous

Māori people The Māori (, ) are the indigenous Polynesian people of mainland New Zealand (). Māori originated with settlers from East Polynesia, who arrived in New Zealand in several waves of canoe voyages between roughly 1320 and 1350. Over several c ...

was made the first ''

de jure In law and government, ''de jure'' ( ; , "by law") describes practices that are legally recognized, regardless of whether the practice exists in reality. In contrast, ("in fact") describes situations that exist in reality, even if not legally ...

'' official language in 1987.

New Zealand Sign Language New Zealand Sign Language or NZSL ( mi, te reo Turi) is the main language of the deaf community in New Zealand. It became an official language of New Zealand in April 2006 under the New Zealand Sign Language Act 2006. The purpose of the act was ...

(NZSL) has been an official language since 2006. Many other languages are used by New Zealand's minority ethnic communities.

Official languages

New Zealand has three official languages: English (''de facto''),

Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...

and

English

is the most common language, spoken by 95.4 percent of those who completed the relevant 2018 national census question. It has long been the predominant language and the ''de facto'' official language. It is the primary language used in parliament, government, the courts, and the education system. Its official status has been presumed and is not codified in statute. In 2018, New Zealand First MP Clayton Mitchell introduced a bill to parliament to statutorily recognise English as an official language. New Zealand English is mostly

non-rhotic Rhoticity in English is the pronunciation of the historical rhotic consonant by English speakers. The presence or absence of rhoticity is one of the most prominent distinctions by which varieties of English can be classified. In rhotic variet ...

with the exception of the "southern burr" found principally in

Southland Southland may refer to: Places Canada * Dunbar–Southlands, Vancouver, British Columbia New Zealand * Southland Region, a region of New Zealand * Southland County, a former New Zealand county * Southland District, part of the wider Southland Re ...

and parts of Otago. It is similar to Australian English and many speakers from the Northern Hemisphere are unable to tell the two accents apart. In New Zealand English the short ⟨i⟩ (as in kit) has become

centralised Centralisation or centralization (see spelling differences) is the process by which the activities of an organisation, particularly those regarding planning and decision-making, framing strategy and policies become concentrated within a particu ...

, leading to the

shibboleth A shibboleth (; hbo, , šībbōleṯ) is any custom or tradition, usually a choice of phrasing or even a single word, that distinguishes one group of people from another. Shibboleths have been used throughout history in many societies as passwo ...

''fish and chips'' sounding like "fush and chups" to the Australian ear. The words ''rarely'' and ''really'', ''reel'' and ''real'', ''doll'' and ''dole'', ''pull'' and ''pool'', ''witch'' and ''which'', and ''full'' and ''fill'' can sometimes be pronounced as

homophone A homophone () is a word that is pronounced the same (to varying extent) as another word but differs in meaning. A ''homophone'' may also differ in spelling. The two words may be spelled the same, for example ''rose'' (flower) and ''rose'' (p ...

s.Trudgill, Peter and Jean Hannah. (2002). International English: A Guide to the Varieties of Standard English, 4th ed. London: Arnold., p 24. New Zealand English exhibits the near–square merger, so ''hair'', ''hare'', ''hear'' and ''here'' are homophones. Some New Zealanders pronounce the past participles ''grown'', ''thrown'' and ''mown'' using two syllables, whereas ''groan'', ''throne'' and ''moan'' are pronounced as one syllable. New Zealanders often reply to a question or emphasise a point by adding a rising intonation at the end of the sentence. New Zealand English has also borrowed words and phrases from

, such as

haka Haka (; plural ''haka'', in both Māori and English) are a variety of ceremonial performance art in Māori culture. It is often performed by a group, with vigorous movements and stamping of the feet with rhythmically shouted or chanted accompani ...

(war dance),

kia ora Kia ora (, approximated in English as or ) is a Māori-language greeting which has entered New Zealand English. It translates literally as "have life" or "be healthy", wishing the essence of life upon someone, from one speaker to the other ...

(a greeting),

mana According to Melanesian and Polynesian mythology, ''mana'' is a supernatural force that permeates the universe. Anyone or anything can have ''mana''. They believed it to be a cultivation or possession of energy and power, rather than being ...

(power or prestige), puku (stomach),

taonga ''Taonga'' or ''taoka'' (in South Island Māori) is a Maori-language word that refers to a treasured possession in Māori culture. It lacks a direct translation into English, making its use in the Treaty of Waitangi significant. The current d ...

(treasure) and

waka Waka may refer to: Culture and language * Waka (canoe), a Polynesian word for canoe; especially, canoes of the Māori of New Zealand ** Waka ama, a Polynesian outrigger canoe ** Waka hourua, a Polynesian ocean-going canoe ** Waka taua, a Māori w ...

(canoe).

Māori

The Māori language of the indigenous

has been an official language by statute since 1987, with rights and obligations to use it defined by the

Maori Language Act 1987 The Māori Language Act 1987 was a piece of legislation passed by the Parliament of New Zealand that gave official language status to the Māori language (), and gave speakers a right to use it in legal settings such as courts. It also establish ...

. It can, for example, be used in legal settings, such as in court, but proceedings are recorded in only in English, unless private arrangements are made and agreed by the judge. An Eastern Polynesian language, Māori is closely related to Tahitian and

Cook Islands Māori Cook Islands Māori is an Eastern Polynesian language that is the official language of the Cook Islands. Cook Islands Māori is closely related to New Zealand Māori, but is a distinct language in its own right. Cook Islands Māori is simply c ...

. After the Second World War, Māori were discouraged from speaking their language in schools and workplaces and it existed as a community language only in a few remote areas. As a consequence of this, many Māori came to view te reo Māori as a language without purpose and chose not to teach their children. Since the 1970s, the language has undergone a process of revitalisation and is spoken by a larger number of people. Of the 185,955 people (4.0 percent of respondents) who claimed they could hold a conversation in Māori in the 2018 census, 86.2 percent identified as Māori, but, conversely, only 18.4 percent of Māori-identifying spoke te reo Māori. No adult Māori alive in New Zealand today does not also speak English.

New Zealand Sign Language

, the main language of the

deaf community Deafness has varying definitions in cultural and medical contexts. In medical contexts, the meaning of deafness is hearing loss that precludes a person from understanding spoken language, an audiological condition. In this context it is written ...

in New Zealand, has been an official language by statute since 2006, by virtue of the New Zealand Sign Language Act 2006.Governor-General gives assent to Sign Language Bill
Press Release: Governor General, 10 April 2006. Retrieved 11 April 2006. It is legal to use it and have access to it in legal proceedings and government services. In the 2018 census, 22,986 people (0.5%) reported the ability to use New Zealand Sign Language.

Immigrant languages

New Zealand has immigrants from European, Asian and Pacific Island countries who have brought their languages with them. According to Ethnologue (), the largest groups are Samoan (86,400),

Hindi Hindi ( Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...

(66,300),

Mandarin Chinese Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language ...

(52,300), French (49,100) and

Yue Chinese Yue () is a group of similar Sinitic languages spoken in Southern China, particularly in Liangguang (the Guangdong and Guangxi provinces). The name Cantonese is often used for the whole group, but linguists prefer to reserve that name for ...

(44,600). These minority foreign languages are concentrated in the main cities, particularly Auckland where recent immigration groups have settled. In the 2018 census, 115,830 respondents who spoke at least one language did not include English as one of their spoken languages. The number and proportion of

multilingual Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all E ...

(people who can speak two or more languages) has continued to increase since the 2001 census. In the 2018 census, the number of multilingual people was 946,275, or 20.6 percent of respondents who spoke at least one language. The highest proportions of multilingual speakers lived in the

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The most populous urban area in the country and the fifth largest city in Oceania, Auckland has an urban population of about ...

(30.9%) and

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by metr ...

(21.2%) regions.

Statistics

In the 2018 census, the following languages were reportedly spoken by more than 0.1 percent of the population. People could report more than one language, therefore percentages do not add up to 100. Statistics include those who spoke no language (e.g. too young to talk).

Regional breakdown

According to the 2018 census, English is the most-spoken language in every district of New Zealand. Māori is the second-most spoken language in 60 of the 67 cities and districts of New Zealand. The second-most spoken languages in the remaining seven cities and districts are: * Samoan is the second-most spoken language in

and

Porirua city Porirua, ( mi, Pari-ā-Rua) a city in the Wellington Region of the North Island of New Zealand, is one of the four cities that constitute the Wellington metropolitan area. The name 'Porirua' is a corruption of 'Pari-rua', meaning "the tide s ...

. * French is the second-most spoken language in

Wellington city Wellington City Council is a territorial authority in New Zealand, governing the country's capital city Wellington, and ''de facto'' second-largest city (if the commonly considered parts of Wellington, the Upper Hutt, Porirua, Lower Hutt and ...

. * Tagalog is the second-most spoken language in the Ashburton district. * German is the second-most spoken language in the

Tasman district Tasman District () is a local government district in the northwest of the South Island of New Zealand. It borders the Canterbury Region, West Coast Region, Marlborough Region and Nelson City. It is administered by the Tasman District Council, ...

. * Spanish is the second-most spoken language in the

Mackenzie Mackenzie, Mckenzie, MacKenzie, or McKenzie may refer to: People * Mackenzie (given name), a given name (including a list of people with the name) * Mackenzie (surname), a surname (including a list of people with the name) * Clan Mackenzie, a S ...

and Queenstown-Lakes districts.

Footnotes

Bibliography

* * * *

External links

Languages of New Zealand
at '' Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Languages Of New Zealand