Re: REAL newb question

On Tue, 2002-04-30 at 20:51, BP Jonsson wrote:
> At 18:41 2002-04-30 +1000, Tristan wrote:
>
>
> >you'd represent the NZer's pronunciation
> >as [gIt] or [get] or something (it's about in between the two, I think).
>
> It's [g@t], according to my literature.
Well, let's get into another of those Christ.-versus-Christ.* threads
then, shall we? ;)

I've heard it, I know it's not [g@t]! ;)

You're probably mixing up /E/ and /I/. Kiwis have basically done the
Great Vowel Shift onto the short front vowels, moving them all up. [I],
being the highest lax vowel that English likes,** was moved to [@].

So we basically have
/I/ = [@]
/E/ = [I]ish
/{/ = [E]ish

I say 'ish' because it's not quite. Ut sounds weird, but uf I use my /I/
end /E/ to mumuck a New Zillender, ut sounds prutty uthintuc.

Of course, before [ks], the schwa sounds more [E]-like to your average
Australian schoolboy. But basically, putting 'six', 'New Zealander' and
'sheep' in the same sentence has rather interesting connotations...

(The other common lets-bag-Kiwis thing is, of course, their
pronunciation of 'fush 'n' chups'... errr... 'fish 'n' chips'.)

*No reference to the Christ intended; it was just so that I couldn't be
accused of being biassed towards one or the or the other.
**Ignoring any dialect of English that might have a higher lax vowel

Tristan