Language

New Zealand has three official languages: New Zealand English, Te Reo Maori (the Maori language), and New Zealand Sign Language. In practice, only English is widely used although major efforts have been made in recent years to nurture Te Reo. Numerous other languages are spoken in New Zealand.

New Zealand English

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 and other forms of English (although shared partly with South African 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. According to the 2006 census, English is spoken by 3,673,623 people in New Zealand.

Te Reo Maori

An Eastern Polynesian language, Te Reo Maori 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. The language went into decline in terms of use following colonisation, but since the 1970s mildly successful efforts have been made to reverse this trend. These include a Maori language week and a Maori Television channel. The 2006 census found Te Reo to be spoken by 157,110 people, making it the most common language in New Zealand after English.

New Zealand Sign Language

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). There are 62.5% similarities found in British Sign Language and NZSL, compared with 33% of NZSL signs found in American Sign Language. 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 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. New Zealand Sign Language became an official language of New Zealand in April 2006. A total of 24,090 people in New Zealand use New Zealand sign language.

Other Languages

According to the 2006 census, 174 different languages are used in New Zealand (including sign languages). After English and Maori, the most common are Samoan (85,428 speakers), French (53,757), Hindi (44,589) and Yue (better known as Cantonese, spoken by 44,154 people). The number of French speakers is probably due to the popularity of French as a subject in schools rather than evidence of large scale Francophone immigration.

• English: 98.0%
• Maori: 4.2%
• Chinese: 3.5%
  
  • Yue (Cantonese): 1.2%
  • Mandarin: 1.1%
  • Other Chinese dialects, or not further defined: 1.2%
• Samoan: 2.3%
• French: 1.4%
• Hindi: 1.2%
• German: 1.0%
• Tongan: 0.8%
• Dutch: 0.7%
• Korean: 0.7%
• New Zealand Sign Language: 0.6%
• Japanese: 0.6%
• Spanish: 0.6%
• Afrikaans: 0.6%
• Other European languages: 1.9% (including Italian, Russian and many others)
• North Indian languages (excluding Hindi): 1.2%
• Other South Asian languages (including Malay and Indonesian): 0.9%
• Pacific languages (excluding Samoan and Tongan): 0.7%
• Other languages (including Tamil, Telugu, Arabic, etc): 2.0%

The figures above total more than 100%, because the census counted all languages in which individuals considered themselves fluent; many speakers of minority languages were therefore counted more than once.