In particular, they say that older Southland women and rural Southland men have together been a key driver of the accent as it is spoken today. Ask a New Zealander to describe the Southland accent and they’ll say "they roll their Rs.” But this is only true for some Rs. Our ‘car’, for example, sounds like ‘cah.’More than half of Southland’s early European settlers were of Scottish descent, which had a strong influence on the Southland accent. Photo: RNZ / Alison BallanceLynn and post-doctoral researcher Daniel Villarreal’s work is building on earlier research about the Southland accent. Listen to the audio version of this story above to hear examples of the Southland accent, including several archival recordings of older Southland men that were kindly supplied by Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision.

Source: Otago Daily Times May 23, 2019 00:41 UTC