NEW ZEALAND SPEECH

New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 275, 29 September 1944, Page 5

NEW ZEALAND SPEECH

Sir-It is natural, since none of us cares to have his manner of speech criticised, that letters on this subject are coloured by prejudice. It is even to be expected, since most ears are tuned to the prevailing sounds, that the aesthetic aspect is also so coloured. After four years in England an encounter with New Zealand speech produced exactly the same effect which "standard" English produces on the indigenous New Zea-' lander. It sounds sheepish and emasculated. The transformation of "you" and "yes" into "ee-yew" and "ee-yees" seemed extraordinarily weak and ugly. Here, these sounds are so well established that they pass unnoticed. A note on our speech in the theatre may be added. Dramatically our impoverishment of vowel sounds and neglect of consonants makes for inaudibility, monotony, and a sort of flattening-out of the dialogue. To any audience but an indigenous one, the _lines would often be incomprehensible and for any play but an indigenous one, the manner of speech as unsuitable as Gallic gestures in a performance of Journey’s End. The teleghone gives a reasonable test. I have worked in a hospital office. Almost every telephone inquiry had to be repeated and that to regular operators who were well tuned to the dialect. : It is, perhaps, not a question of . whether we should develop a dialect but of whether the dialect we develop is clear, serviceable, trenchant and flexible, or muffled, limited, feeble and monotonous. To argue about this is to argue about taste, which is to argue for ever.

NGAIO

MARSH

(Christchurch).