The Daily News. MONDAY, JANUARY 23, 1905. COLONIAL PRONUNCIATION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 7719, 23 January 1905, Page 2

The Daily News. MONDAY, JANUARY 23, 1905. COLONIAL PRONUNCIATION.

'J he criu'cisins of New Zealand pro- | nuncialion, which, aft-.r being thrown j on' 'jy Dr. Her/., of Christchurch, i have boomeiiingcd buck on him in F.nglish, are not without much jus- ■ tilication. Let it be suiid in tho. j iiist place that though it may at | first sight seem rather p.csuinplu- , lons for a foreij.n.'r to coniinent ad-| versuly on our i»ronuncvat ion of our 'own language!, he is, if ut all an I educated person, really bettor titled i us a judge th.in one whose ear and [mind, have become bias-ed for or against any given form of speech by long usU'gv. With the usual fault of a geneiialiser lh-. llerz often asserts to-j much; and he must meet jwiih unqualified contradiction wh'en lie asserts that persons with any IjirelVn'sion tocultuic speak of " am ' land eggs." On the olh.'i- side it ' niay be admitted that when he finds the New Zealandcr speaking 'with a twang which to the ear is horrible," he has filed a parUy true j bill. New Zealanders, with many exceptions, aie growing more and more into the habit of speaking with a twang—a characteristic in which | they are second otily to the bulk 'of the nutive-born of Australia. With regaid to the effect of this on l-Dr. Herz's ear there can l/e no clis- ' j pule—only Dr. lie.z hears with that : partidular organ. Hut we are ajfraixl that juost New /inlanders find i tho throaty tones of a German quite las trying'in their turn, and the one Iprejudice may well baiuncu the other. 11 is of no practical avail for ■ I young colonials to deny their growing characteristic;*—they a re not coinpe- , tent lo judge their own case, and simply cannot certainly know how I their voices sound lo others. in ' our experience the great majority of I" coilonfal:-'.'" do speak with , A twang . hvhich was absent from the speech ■of their mothers', or at all events of their grandmother. 'i'lvis, how- : 'ever, is after all merely a matter j I of tone), and 'is jirobably due to ' ; climatic or uthe'.' causes largely beiyond our own control. More far- ] reaching than this change of tone is the further tendency alluded to by ! Pr, Heiz, namely, that which eviden- . ccs itself in the actual change of vowel sound. Many New Zcalanders I and Australians do say ' heoiuc," or , sbmetfhiing which may be approxi- I niately represemtod by that group of ! ■'letters, and many, very many, more ' say 'keow" for '■'•cow" and "gcout " > for "gout." So common is this I mispronunciation that it is certainly within rcasonab|' | e distance of becom-. ing the standard of correct ness iiu t virtue of generud usage. Tliese, are ' only illustrations of the common custom 0 f thinning or pinching out , the broader and more open vowel . sounds of what for the time being ! - was regandid as ulauchird English. As a matter of fact, in any living , language there never can be -an ab- j sjlute stuiKlard of correctness of j pronunciation. The tendency to ' change—chiefly in the direction of greater ease—has been one o( the real causes for the dfffcrenliatiion of lan- ' frua.gcs. its ojieru-tions have been I partly reitricted by the in*; of printing and the attempted establishment I . of i\ fixed standard ; that they have I not been wholly so is clue to the . fciot that English is a living tongue. Even Latin and (Ireek, long since dead as spokin tongues, have in England slipped away from the Continental pronunciation. Quite recent- . ly we have had a very Kiiperior lecturette from u learned professor on '■(.lreekless New Zealand," illustrate! by fables of absurd pronunciations by ignorant persons. Rut was the professor aware that his "English" Greek is not ''tlie-'k" (Ireek ? Anl if lie is why does he set up an artificial standard to depart fiom " which is wholly shocking ? If pronunciation then is a tiling of growth with vast powers of accommodation to new conditions, there is no sense in Pr, Hprz's condemnation of colonial tendencies, J)i so far as the spoken tongue of New Zealand and 6 AuslraVia varies from any givoi) j form used in ilrilain we may claim j it as of organic growth, and not come without a rca s on- It may even be a poor thing, and not wholly our own, but if it has gripped the speech of the people it has come to - stay—or to stay for a season longer than -the life of man. The quality of a vowel sound, which makes it pro- " (viable lo another in n certain po- ' sjtion, is nothing iii itself. Mince the day of Shaki.'spenie the language las changed .vastly ii» pronunciation', and there are no two couutj.es ic> England where the jieoplc are in c-|unijn,<)ii agreement as to what Is slniKlard English, llut still we ail! rend Shakespeare, aiwl, I'ven good "Aimiri-icans" » speak a .vaifet.v of F.ngHsh. Wh.v shoii'ld we not have a New Xc.ilaiid (icc::nt ? Whether we want to or not we shall have it in a few ,\oars, so ? what is the use of aiming to imitate ix-ji<le at the other ride of the H eaiih, who among theinsOlves- - iliavc no coiiunon agreement as to correct quality .and accent, and certainly do not speak as did their not very dislaail relations. Till; "a," which J)r. llerz chargets JJew Ziealanders with sounding like German r "■ai,"'is the sound which IVtt, Ridge and other exponents of cockney dia- , Ject print as "i" in "biby." 'As a matter of phonology the doctor is ) the more correct, and the change,, if duly-limited in its application:, would j have been accepted as true. If, us looks likely, it occurs that babies tome to be called ''.bihics" in New ' 'Zealand, it will really matter little j —so Jong as there are enough of . them, and- they will no n e tho less continue to be ".mammy's- darlings" with every cndeanjng quality of infancy. ■■ _