English is the predominant language in New Zealand, spoken by 95.4% of the population. New Zealand English is similar to Australian English, and many speakers from the Northern Hemisphere are unable to tell the accents apart. The most prominent differences between the New Zealand English dialect and other English dialects are the shifts in the short front vowels: the short-''i'' sound (as in ''kit'') has centralised towards the schwa sound (the ''a'' in ''comma'' and ''about''); the short-''e'' sound (as in ''dress'') has moved towards the short-''i'' sound; and the short-''a'' sound (as in ''trap'') has moved to the short-''e'' sound.