NicholasW said But it is striking that NZ is ethnically very Scottish, yet has no trace of Scots in the accent. A simple explanation in terms of regional origin of settlers obvously isn't quite enough.
Actually the Scottish influence was very slight. They only arrived en masse in Dunedin, and then in one main tranche with a few extra odds and sods arriving in the next few years. Probably the majority of the immigrants between the first group, in 1848 and about 1860 would have been English, although the Scottish influence remained strong for a while, then waned. Things might have been different except that 13 years after the Otago colony was founded, a bloody Australian came over and found gold. The population went from a few hundred mostly rural settlers to tens of thousands from all over the world in a little more than two years.
Some of the Scottish traditions remained in a small way. It was a bastion of Presbyterianism until about the turn of the 20th century. Most of the Scots stuff is modern revival, though.
I agree that Zild is based on Brit English, of course. I have to go to my approximation of RP when I'm in the States. They can't understand Zild easily. But, unlike you, I do not hear echos of Zild in any particular English brogue or accent. Certainly not in saaf Lunnon, which is almost as foreign to us as it would be to, say, belMarduk. Essentially, it must be homegrown. Why we got what we have is the mystery!
