On shear markets and sharing sheep: The merger of EAR and AIR diphthongs in New Zealand English

A social dialect survey of a New Zealand community documented a change in progress in the pronunciation of the vowels in words such as air and ear . The data support a tentative interpretation that a shift to the variant with the closer onset for AIR words was initiated by middle-aged Pakeha women. This was not followed in any strength by other social groups. More recently there has been a change in the opposite direction, with EAR words being realized by a variant with a more open onset. This is being led by young, working class Pakeha speakers, possibly the women. For some speakers, merger of the two diphthongs is close to completion. The change thus seems to have begun in the past 40 years, but its direction has been reversed in the past 20 years. With the strong following among young speakers for the downward shift toward [eə], this seems the likely direction in which change will continue.

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