English is the de facto official and predominant language of New Zealand. Almost the entire population speak it either as native speakers or proficiently as a second language. The New Zealand English dialect is most similar to Australian English in pronunciation, with some key differences. The M?ori language (te reo M?ori) of the indigenous M?ori people was made the first de jure official language in 1987. New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) has also been officially recognised since 2006. Many other languages are used by New Zealand's minority ethnic communities.
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Official status of languages
English
English is New Zealand's de facto official language. It is spoken by 96.1 percent of the population. New Zealand English is mostly non-rhotic with an exception being the Southern Burr found principally in Southland and parts of Otago. It is similar to Australian English and many speakers from the Northern Hemisphere are unable to tell the two accents apart. In New Zealand English the short i (as in kit) has become centralised, leading to the phrase fish and chips sounding like "fush and chups" to the Australian ear. The words rarely and really, reel and real, doll and dole, pull and pool, witch and which, and full and fill can sometimes be pronounced as homophones. Some New Zealanders pronounce the past participles grown, thrown and mown using two syllables, whereas groan, throne and moan are pronounced as one syllable. New Zealanders often reply to a question or emphasise a point by adding a rising intonation at the end of the sentence. New Zealand English has also borrowed words and phrases from M?ori, such as haka (war dance), kia ora (a greeting), mana (power or prestige), puku (stomach), taonga (treasure) and waka (canoe).
M?ori
An Eastern Polynesian language, te reo M?ori is closely related to Tahitian and Cook Islands M?ori. It is only recently that te reo Maori has gathered widespread support. After the Second World War, M?ori were discouraged from speaking their language in schools and workplaces and it existed as a community language only in a few remote areas. However, since the 1970s, the language has undergone a process of revitalisation and is spoken by a larger number of people. Te reo M?ori now has official status, with rights and obligations to use it defined by the Maori Language Act 1987. It can, for example, be used in legal settings, such as in court. Of the 148,395 people (or 3.7 percent of the total New Zealand population) who could hold a conversation in te reo M?ori in 2013, 84.5 percent identified as M?ori.
NZ Sign Language
New Zealand Sign Language also has official status by virtue of the New Zealand Sign Language Act 2006. It is now legal to use it and have access to it in legal proceedings and government services. In 2013, 20,235 people reported the ability to use New Zealand Sign Language.
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Immigrant languages
New Zealand has immigrants from European, Asian and Pacific Island countries who have brought their languages with them. According to Ethnologue (as of 2017), the largest groups are Samoan (86,400), Hindi (66,300), Mandarin Chinese (52,300), French (49,100) and Yue Chinese (44,600). In the 2013 census, about 87,534 people did not include English as one of their spoken languages.
The number and proportion of multilingual (people who can speak two or more languages) has continued to increase since the 2001 census. In 2013, the number of multilingual people was 737,910, or 18.6 percent of the population. The highest numbers of multilingual speakers lived in the Auckland, Wellington, and Canterbury regions.
Statistics
In the 2013 census, the following languages were reportedly spoken by more than 0.1 percent of the population. People could report more than one language, therefore percentages do not add up to 100.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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