New Zealand English (NZE) is the variant of the English language spoken and written by most New Zealanders. Its language code in ISO and Internet standards is en-NZ.en-NZ is the language code for New Zealand English, as defined by ISO standards (see ISO 639-1 and ISO 3166-1 alpha-2) and Internet standards (see IETF language tag). English is the first language of the majority of the population.
The English language was brought to New Zealand by colonists during the 19th century. It is one of "the newest native-speaker variet[ies] of the English language in existence, a variety which has developed and become distinctive only in the last 150 years". The variety of English that had the biggest influence on the development of New Zealand English was Australian English, itself derived from Southeastern England English, with considerable influence from Scottish and Hiberno-English, and with lesser influences the British prestige accent Received Pronunciation (RP) and American English. An important source of vocabulary is the Māori language of the indigenous people of New Zealand, whose contribution distinguishes New Zealand English from other varieties.
Non-rhotic New Zealand English is most similar to Australian English in pronunciation, but has key differences. A prominent difference is the realisation of (the KIT vowel): in New Zealand English this is pronounced as a schwa. New Zealand English has several increasingly distinct varieties, and while most New Zealanders speak non-rhotic English, rhoticity is increasing quickly, especially among Pasifika and Māori in Auckland and the upper North Island.
Dictionaries The first dictionary with entries documenting New Zealand English was probably the Heinemann New Zealand Dictionary published in 1979. Edited by Harry Orsman (1928–2002), it is a 1,337-page book with information relating to the usage and pronunciation of terms that were widely accepted throughout the English-speaking world, and those peculiar to New Zealand. It includes a one-page list of the approximate date of entry into common parlance of the many terms found in New Zealand English but not elsewhere, such as "haka" (1827), "boohai" (1920), and "bach" (1905). A second edition was published in 1989 with the cover subtitle "The first dictionary of New Zealand English and New Zealand pronunciation". A third edition, edited by Nelson Wattie, was published as The Reed Dictionary of New Zealand English by Reed Publishing in 2001.
The first dictionary fully dedicated to the New Zealand variety of English was The New Zealand Dictionary published by New House Publishers in 1994 and edited by Elizabeth and Harry Orsman. A second edition was published in 1995.
In 1997, Oxford University Press produced the Harry Orsman-edited The Dictionary of New Zealand English: A Dictionary of New Zealandisms on Historical Principles, a 981-page book, which it claimed was based on over 40 years of research. This research started with Orsman's 1951 thesis and continued with his editing this dictionary. To assist with and maintain this work, the New Zealand Dictionary Centre was founded in 1997 by Victoria University of Wellington and Oxford University Press. This was followed by The New Zealand Oxford Paperback Dictionary in 1998, edited by New Zealand lexicographer Tony Deverson. It is based on The Oxford Paperback Dictionary, fourth edition, and The Australian Oxford Paperback Dictionary, second edition.
Further lexicographical work culminated in the 1,355-page The New Zealand Oxford Dictionary published in 2005, by Tony Deverson and Graeme Kennedy. The dictionary contains over 100,000 definitions, including 10,000 New Zealand entries and over 10,000 encyclopedic entries. A second, revised edition of The New Zealand Oxford Paperback Dictionary was published in 2006, this time using standard lexicographical regional markers to identify the New Zealand content, which were absent from the first edition. The NZ Dictionary Centre ceased active operations after the retirement of its second Director, Dianne Bardsley, in 2012.
Another source of well-cited New Zealand words and phrases is the Collins English Dictionary, first published in 1979 by HarperCollins. Though this dictionary primarily draws from the Bank of English, a corpus of English literature maintained by the University of Birmingham with HarperCollins' support since 1980, a New Zealand editor informs the content of each edition. The role was filled by Professor Ian Gordon of Victoria University, and then by Professor Elizabeth Gordon (no relation) of the University of Canterbury.
Australia's Macquarie Dictionary was first published in 1981, and has since become the authority on Australian English. It has always included an abundance of New Zealand words and phrases additional to the mutually shared words and phrases of both countries. Every edition has retained a New Zealand resident advisor for the New Zealand content, the first being Harry Orsman. and the most recent being Victoria University of Wellington lexicographer Laurie Bauer.
Historical development From the 1790s, New Zealand was visited by British, French and American whaling, sealing and trading ships. Their crews traded European and American goods with the indigenous Māori. The first European settlers were sailors and traders, and also some escaped convicts from Australia. Most of the earliest European settlers intermarried with and lived among Māori in harmony. They were greatly outnumbered by Māori and relied on them for security and safety. The first missionaries to Māori arrived from England in 1814, bringing formal education and farming skills in addition to Christianity.
When the New Zealand Company announced in 1839 its plans to establish formal colonies in New Zealand, this and the increased commercial interests of merchants in Sydney and London spurred the British to take stronger action to establish British sovereignty over New Zealand. Captain William Hobson was sent to New Zealand to persuade Māori to cede their sovereignty to the British Crown and on 6 February 1840 Hobson and about forty Māori chiefs (rangatira) signed the Treaty of Waitangi at Waitangi in the Bay of Islands.
New Zealand became the Colony of New Zealand on 1 July 1841. From this point, there was considerable European settlement, primarily from England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, but also from the United States, South Africa, and parts of continental Europe. Some 400,000 settlers came from Britain, of whom 300,000 stayed permanently. Most were young people and 250,000 babies were born.
After the Treaty of Waitangi, the next few years saw tensions grow over disputed land purchases by settlers as well as some communities refusing to accept British rule. Conflicts escalated into what became the New Zealand Wars from 1845 to 1872. The colonial government summoned thousands of British troops from Britain and Australia, as well as locally recruited pro-British militia forces, to mount major campaigns to overpower the Māori and Māori-allied separatist movements, eventually resulting in the defeat of the rebel forces.
Despite the wars, gold discoveries in Otago (1861) and Westland (1865) caused a worldwide gold rush that more than doubled the New Zealand population from 71,000 in 1859 to 164,000 in 1863. In 1864–65, under the New Zealand Settlements Act 1863, thirteen ships carrying citizens of England, Scotland, Ireland and South Africa arrived in New Zealand under the Waikato Immigration Scheme. According to census data from 1871, around half of the early settlers were English, one-quarter Scots, one-quarter Irish and 5% Australian.
The European population of New Zealand grew explosively from fewer than 1,000 in 1831 to 500,000 by 1881. By 1911, the population of New Zealand had reached one million, of which 49,844 were Māori. 702,779 were New Zealand-born. The largest foreign-born demographics were those born in England and Scotland, followed by Australia and Ireland.
A distinct New Zealand variant of the English language has been recognised since at least 1912, when Frank Arthur Swinnerton described it as a "carefully modulated murmur". From the beginning of the haphazard Australian and European settlements and latter official British migrations, a new dialect began to form by adopting Māori words to describe the different flora and fauna of New Zealand, for which English did not have words.The Story of English by Robert McCrum, William Cran, and Robert MacNeil. London: BBC Publications and Faber and Faber, 1986.
The New Zealand accent first appeared in towns with mixed populations of immigrants from Australia, England, Ireland, and Scotland. These included the militia towns of the North Island and the gold-mining towns of the South Island. In more homogeneous towns such as those in Otago and Southland, settled mainly by people from Scotland, the New Zealand accent took longer to appear, while the accent was quick to develop in schools starting from the 1890s.
Since the late 20th century, New Zealand society has gradually absorbed influences from all over the world, especially in the early 21st century when non-British immigration increased, leading to a more multicultural society. The Internet, television, films and popular music have all brought international influences into New Zealand society and the New Zealand lexicon. Americanisation of New Zealand society and language has subtly and gradually been taking place since World War II and more significantly from the 1970s.
As of 2026, English is a statutory official language of New Zealand alongside the Māori language and New Zealand Sign Language. For a long time, English was a de facto official language, which may have been used in any public or official context. In 2018, MP Clayton Mitchell of New Zealand First put forward a bill for English to be recognised as an official language in legislation. During the 2023 New Zealand general election, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters promised to make English an official language of New Zealand, and in 2026 the English Language Act 2026 was introduced to put this into effect. This bill passed into law on 30 July 2026.
Phonology
+ Variation in New Zealand vowels Lexical set Phoneme Phonetic realisation Cultivated Broad , ,
Not all New Zealanders have the same accent, as the level of cultivation (i.e. the closeness to Received Pronunciation) of every speaker's accent differs. An identifiable feature of New Zealand English is its chain shift where the vowel has moved up to the place of the traditional vowel, which in turn has moved up towards the traditional vowel, which in turn is centralised. This makes "bat" sound like "bet", "bet" sound like "bit", and "bit" sound like "but" to foreign ears. For example "six" is in New Zealand English but in Australian English. General New Zealand English is non-rhotic, however Southland/Otago is semi-rhotic due to the accent's Scottish influence.
Vocabulary New Zealand English has a number of dialectal words and phrases. These are mostly informal terms that are more common in casual speech. Numerous loanwords have been taken from the Māori language or from Australian English.