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New Zealand English is the English spoken in New Zealand.
New Zealand English is close to Australian English in pronunciation,
but has several subtle differences often overlooked by people
from outside these countries. Some of these differences show
New Zealand English to have more affinity with the English
of southern England than Australian English does. Several
of the differences also show the influence of Maori speech.
The most striking difference from Australian English (and
all other forms of English) is the flattened i of New Zealand
English. The New Zealand accent also has some Scottish and
Irish influences from the large number of settlers from those
places during the 19th century.
Maori or Te Reo Maori, commonly shortened to Te Reo
(literally the language) is an official language of New Zealand.
An Eastern Polynesian language, it is closely related to Tahitian
and Cook Islands Maori; slightly less closely to Hawaiian
and Marquesan; and more distantly to the languages of Western
Polynesia, including Samoan, Niuean and Tongan.
New Zealand Sign Language or NZSL is the main language
of the deaf community in New Zealand. It became an official
language of New Zealand in April 2006, alongside Maori and
English. It is the first official sign language in the world.
New Zealand Sign Language has its roots in British Sign Language
(BSL), and may be technically considered a dialect of British,
Australian and New Zealand Sign Language (BANZSL). Like other
natural sign languages, it was devised by and for Deaf people,
with no linguistic connection to a spoken or written language,
and it is fully capable of expressing anything a fluent signer
wants to say. It is linguistically unrelated to American Sign
Language.
It uses the same two-handed manual alphabet as British Sign
Language and Auslan, Australian Sign Language.
It uses more lip-patterns in conjunction with hand and facial
movement to cue signs than BSL, reflecting New Zealand's history
of oralist education of Deaf people. Its vocabulary includes
Maori concepts such as marae and tangi, and signs for New
Zealand placenames. (That for Rotorua references mudpools,
for Wellington, the wind.)
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