The New Zealand Dictionary : Second Edition

The ready acceptance of the first edition and the up-dating of parts of the research database, plus generous comments and suggestions for improvement allowed the prompt completion of the second edition of this unique dictionary only 15 months after the release of the first. This is now available in a sewn limp-covered edition. The jacketted Library Edition is now out of print. This is the first comprehensive dictionary of distinctive New Zealand English which is one of the youngest regional dialects of English but equal in status with such older regional dialects as those of Britain, North America or Australia. It is obvious that its differences from these other varieties of English must be much fewer than the similarities. However, dialect study tends to focus not on the vast common ground but rather on the distinctive differences in the broad area of spelling, grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary. Most readers rely on the differences in the last two - pronunciation and vocabulary - to indicate the existence of a really distinctive New Zealand dialect. In this respect the special contribution of loanwords from Maori is most noticeable. The dictionary includes the most frequently used words and phrases which are in some way distinctively, and often exclusively, part of the spoken or written language of English-speaking New Zealanders. The dictionary makes the further obvious point that New Zealand English is a national language, one of two recognised by New Zealanders as their own.