No fush thanks, we’re Kiwi . . .

Kiwis are known for our fush and chup vowels but they are disappearing in places.

Those are the signs from a Marsdenfunded research project focusing on how language is changing in Auckland’s superdiverse cityscape.

The big question – one that researchers can’t yet answer – is why.

The Kiwi accent has had its detractors through the years, initially being labelled a colonial twang or word-murder. As for its future, there are predictions of disappearing Ls and regional accents, though not everyone agrees.

Kiwis are known for special vowel sounds, the kind which make Aussies hear ‘‘sux’’ amid their chortling when we are clearly referring to a half dozen.

Ina Flight Of The Conchords sketch, Bret tells an American woman his name. ‘‘Brit? Like Britney?’’ she replies. Other features seen as typically Kiwi include the ‘‘A’’ sound in mate – sounding kind of like moyte – and turning our Rs and Ls into vowels by saying things like ‘‘bettah’’ (better) or ‘‘appuw’’ (apple).

But some young Aucklanders are bucking the trend, Victoria University of Wellington linguistics professor Miriam Meyerhoff said, and it seems to happen in areas with high migration.

‘‘This is the first evidence we have got that suggests that the train – because it was working kind of like a freight train, thundering on, the raising of these vowels – that actually something can stop that,’’ she said.

Meyerhoff got interested in the area

‘‘I absolutely think there are regional differences emerging.’’ Miriam Meyerhoff

after 20 years overseas, when she noticed some Auckland students didn’t sound like Kiwis were ‘‘supposed to – quote, unquote’’.

In 2015, she got a Marsden grant to look how Auckland’s diversity is influencing language, focusing on younger speakers in mostly-Pa¯ keha¯ Titirangi, West Auckland, which has had decades of immigration, and ethnically-diverse Mt Roskill.

‘‘What seems to be coming through . . . is people in Titirangi kind of sound like what everybody has always described New Zealand English as sounding like, in terms of their vowels. But what’s going on in South Auckland, and in particular Mt Roskill, is some kind of retreat away from the really stereotypic vowels in New Zealand English.’’

It’s especially strong on the bat vowel, or the short ‘‘a’’.

What’s not clear is whether young people are trying not to sound like oldfashioned, cow cocky Kiwis, or if they’re just ‘‘averaging out’’ all the accents that they hear around them.

And Auckland might not be the only place to stamp its mark on the accent, she said.

‘‘I absolutely think there are regional differences emerging. I doubt we’ll ever get to the point where they are in the United Kingdom, where . . . people can go ‘No, no. That person doesn’t come from Liverpool, they come from just outside of Liverpool’.’’