NicholasW said: The original poster showed their NZ origin by saying a stressed /i/ as in England could be a schwa.

I'm no linguist but I if you listen carefully, the "E" is not only unstressed, but it disappears. (I always thought that "schwa" applied to a whole syllable, by the way, not the way one letter of it was pronounced. I stand corrected).

The average New Zealander actually pronounces it "Ngland" and kills the "E" stone dead. Funnily enough, I can't think of any other word which suffers this fate. "Angle", for instance has the "a" stressed, not removed.

It may have something to do with the prevalence of the Maori "nga" structure, but since that is pronounced "ngaaa", probably not.


The idiot also known as Capfka ...