Dictionaries
The first comprehensive dictionary dedicated to New Zealand English was probably the Heinemann New Zealand dictionary, published in 1979. Edited by Harry Orsman, it is a 1,300-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 many terms found in New Zealand English but not elsewhere, such as "haka" (1827), "Boohai" (1920), and "bach" (1905).
In 1997, Oxford University Press produced the Dictionary of New Zealand English, 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. It has published several more dictionaries of New Zealand English, culminating in The New Zealand Oxford Dictionary in 2004.
A more light-hearted look at English as spoken in New Zealand, A personal Kiwi-Yankee dictionary, was written by the American-born University of Otago psychology lecturer Louis Leland in 1980. This slim volume lists many of the potentially confusing and/or misleading terms for Americans visiting or emigrating to New Zealand. A second edition was published during the 1990s.
Read more about this topic: New Zealand English
Famous quotes containing the word dictionaries:
“We never say so much as when we do not quite know what we want to say. We need few words when we have something to say, but all the words in all the dictionaries will not suffice when we have nothing to say and want desperately to say it.”
—Eric Hoffer (19021983)
“You evidently do not suffer from quotation-hunger as I do! I get all the dictionaries of quotations I can meet with, as I always want to know where a quotation comes from.”
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (18321898)
“At painful times, when composition is impossible and reading is not enough, grammars and dictionaries are excellent for distraction.”
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (18061861)