Sound change in Maori and the influence of New Zealand English

This article investigates sound change in the vowels of Maori, the indigenous language of New Zealand. It examines the relationship between sound changes in Maori and in New Zealand English, the more dominant language, with which Maori has been in close contact for nearly 200 years. We report on the analysis of three adult speaker groups whose birth dates span 100 years. All speakers were bilingual in Maori and New Zealand English. In total the speech of 31 men and 31 women was investigated. Analysis was done on the first and second formant values, extracted from the vowel targets. There has been considerable movement in the Maori vowel space. We find that the sound change in the Maori monophthongs can be directly attributed to the impact of New Zealand English, however the situation for the diphthongs is not so clear cut. There is some evidence that both New Zealand English monophthongs and diphthongs are impacting on the Maori diphthongs, but so too are the Maori monophthongs. We conclude that although New Zealand English has had a strong influence on Maori, there is very strong evidence that new generations of speakers of Maori are acquiring a phonemic system with its own internal parameters and consistencies.