LYCOS RETRIEVER 
New Zealand English: British English
built 613 days ago
Of New Zealand's four million people, roughly three million live in the North Island and one million in the South Island. These islands are among the largest in the world and the combined land area is comparable to the British Isles or Colorado. Along with Aotearoa, another Maori name for New Zealand was Niu Tireni, a transliteration of the English name. Other islands have much smaller populations and cover much less land area.
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Background The Polynesian Maori reached New Zealand in about A.D. 800. In 1840, their chieftains entered into a compact with Britain, the Treaty of Waitangi, in which they ceded sovereignty to Queen Victoria while retaining territorial rights. In that same year, the British began the first organized colonial settlement. A series of land wars between 1843 and 1872 ended with the defeat of the native peoples. The British colony of New Zealand became an independent dominion in 1907 and supported the UK militarily in both World Wars. New Zealand's full participation in a number of defense alliances lapsed by the 1980s.
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The New Zealand accent is somewhat nasalised with flattened vowel sounds and vowel shifting. New Zealanders consider their accent to be markedly different from the Australian one and are often mildly offended when mistaken for or confused with Australians. New Zealand terminology and slang are ... different from Australian usage. Americans find New Zealand accents easy to understand, so do Australians and British. Some European dialects find it slightly harder and Asians may find it rather hard to understand, New Zealanders are quite happy however to repeat what they just said if necessary.
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Over the past 20 years the government has transformed New Zealand from an agrarian economy dependent on concessionary British market access to a more industrialized, free market economy that can compete globally. This dynamic growth has boosted real incomes (but left behind many at the bottom of the ladder), broadened and deepened the technological capabilities of the industrial sector, and contained inflationary pressures. Per capita income has risen for six consecutive years and was more than $24,000 in 2005 in purchasing power parity terms. New Zealand is heavily dependent on trade - particularly in agricultural products - to drive growth. Exports are equal to about 22% of GDP. Thus far the economy has been resilient, and the Labour Government promises that expenditures on health, education, and pensions will increase proportionately to output.
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The common New Zealand pronunciation of the trans- prefix rhymes with "ants" and is likely to be a result of American English influence. This produces mixed pronunciation of the a's in words like "transplant" whereas in northern (but not southern) British English the same vowel is used in both syllables.
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