Given the Act, under s3, has -
- the lazy approach referred to above will continue.
By that I mean the random inclusion of Maori words in what are substantially English language texts. This seems to be a one-way phenomenon at present. If one compares the language of the empowering legislation, the Plain Language Act, it is in English throughout. The intention is clear, namely to communicate the provisions of legislation in a coherent manner complying with the grammatical requirements of the language to ensure precision and certainty. In summary the legislation is written with the integrity of the language to the fore.
Another example of this feature of legislative clarity is found in the Maori Language Act 2016. That Act is presented first in the Maori language (applying what I presume are the factors ensuring the integrity of the text in Maori) and followed by the English language version.
Our bureaucrats would be well advised to follow these examples from our legislature. When communicating to the public those communications have to be done with the integrity of the medium to the fore. Not all New Zealand citizens have English or Maori as their principal and primary language. For many, English is a second or third language. Again this is recognised by our bureaucrats as many of their missives are provided in multiple languages. The distinguishing feature of these alternative (from Maori or English texts) is that they do not include random words from a third language.
To mix Maori and English, as is becoming a common practice, is to bastardise both languages for the benefit of neither. In correspondence with the Human Rights Commission on this point I was advised that this practice was acceptable because everyone is doing it.
That argument is wrong. Not everyone is doing it as the script of the two pieces of legislation I have referred to demonstrate. Those unfamiliar with either English or Maori are not doing it. Dyslexic people are not doing it. Rather it is a current fashion with the “woke” in positions of influence that see this practice as acceptable.
The provisions of the Plain Language Act should be brought to their attention for the sake of both the English and the Maori language, namely, to benefit and improve communication between government agencies and the public, not between minority “woke” sectors and their like counterparts within the bureaucratic environment and their acolytes.
No doubt this article will be viewed scathingly by the proponents of the woke behaviour above. It will be subject to a reflex response viewing these comments as reactionary, racist, ageist, and plenty of other ‘ists'.
An appropriate application to the Human Rights forum of the United Nations would be of more interest to me as, looked at holistically, the combined effect of the two Acts mentioned is to impose, at least in part, a legislated racist system on New Zealand as a whole, with no real discernible benefit. Rather, the impact is divisive.
Such an application would provide a truly independent objective assessment of the regime we now suffer under.
Dennis Gates is a lawyer and company director, who continues to hold a practicing certificate as a barrister. This article was first published HERE.
“The purpose of this Act is to improve the effectiveness and accountability of public service agencies and Crown agents, and to improve the accessibility of certain documents that they make available to the public, by providing for those documents to use language that is—
(a) appropriate to the intended audience; and
(b) clear, concise, and well organised”
and further, under s6 (3) –“Nothing in this Act prevents or restricts a reporting agency from including te reo Māori in any relevant document.”
- the lazy approach referred to above will continue.
By that I mean the random inclusion of Maori words in what are substantially English language texts. This seems to be a one-way phenomenon at present. If one compares the language of the empowering legislation, the Plain Language Act, it is in English throughout. The intention is clear, namely to communicate the provisions of legislation in a coherent manner complying with the grammatical requirements of the language to ensure precision and certainty. In summary the legislation is written with the integrity of the language to the fore.
Another example of this feature of legislative clarity is found in the Maori Language Act 2016. That Act is presented first in the Maori language (applying what I presume are the factors ensuring the integrity of the text in Maori) and followed by the English language version.
Our bureaucrats would be well advised to follow these examples from our legislature. When communicating to the public those communications have to be done with the integrity of the medium to the fore. Not all New Zealand citizens have English or Maori as their principal and primary language. For many, English is a second or third language. Again this is recognised by our bureaucrats as many of their missives are provided in multiple languages. The distinguishing feature of these alternative (from Maori or English texts) is that they do not include random words from a third language.
To mix Maori and English, as is becoming a common practice, is to bastardise both languages for the benefit of neither. In correspondence with the Human Rights Commission on this point I was advised that this practice was acceptable because everyone is doing it.
That argument is wrong. Not everyone is doing it as the script of the two pieces of legislation I have referred to demonstrate. Those unfamiliar with either English or Maori are not doing it. Dyslexic people are not doing it. Rather it is a current fashion with the “woke” in positions of influence that see this practice as acceptable.
The provisions of the Plain Language Act should be brought to their attention for the sake of both the English and the Maori language, namely, to benefit and improve communication between government agencies and the public, not between minority “woke” sectors and their like counterparts within the bureaucratic environment and their acolytes.
No doubt this article will be viewed scathingly by the proponents of the woke behaviour above. It will be subject to a reflex response viewing these comments as reactionary, racist, ageist, and plenty of other ‘ists'.
An appropriate application to the Human Rights forum of the United Nations would be of more interest to me as, looked at holistically, the combined effect of the two Acts mentioned is to impose, at least in part, a legislated racist system on New Zealand as a whole, with no real discernible benefit. Rather, the impact is divisive.
Such an application would provide a truly independent objective assessment of the regime we now suffer under.
Dennis Gates is a lawyer and company director, who continues to hold a practicing certificate as a barrister. This article was first published HERE.
18 comments:
What a travesty and it only underscores the chaotic and idiotic behaviour of this Government. 'Plain language' should be simply that. It most certainly shouldn't be a bastardisation of two languages - with one of those only known and utilised by a very small minority.
What a joke but, given the cost of running Parliament, a bloody expensive one that is yet again all paid for by the taxpayer.
Thank goodness an election looms, and then we can be rid of these goons!
the most painful ones are the new names of institutions & govt departments that don't bear any resemblance to the actual english name. first struggle is to extract the correct segment from the text & then put it in google translate to realise that it doesn't seem to make any sense. then just google around the name and find some obscure link to piece it together what it is refering to. how can this be considered 'plain language'?
may i present exhibit A to the jury?
He Tirohanga Mokopuna 2021 - this is the title of a statement by the treasury. it is unclear if the english text in a much smaller font below stating 'The Treasury’s combined Statement on the Long-term Fiscal Position and Long-term Insights Briefing' is the translation of this title or a subtitle/description.
google translate says 'A 2021 Grandson View'
maori dictionary is unable to translate this - at best it says that 'he' is 'a', 'tirohanga' is 'view' & 'mokopuna' is 'descendant'.
in what world do these words and phrases depict the meaning of the document in 'plain language'?
I agree. It also runs the risk of cultural appropriation whereby non Māori could use Māori names for their various businesses and organisations, which is bound to cause problems. Additionally, most of the new names for our various government departments appear to have been completely made up with no historical meaning, and often so ridiculously long no one can actually remember them. We are a multicultural society where English is and should be our dominant language. Then there is term
‘Aotearoa’ which we know did not come from or, even widely used Māori once introduced to it. So the idea that it should have some legitimacy is farcical. It doesn’t and it shouldn’t. Māori didn’t have a written language before colonisation, and they certainly didn’t have roads, vehicles, education and universal health systems, taxes, libraries, swimming pools, sports facilities or airlines. So for this government to impose the renaming of everything in such economically turbulent times, and without a public mandate to do so, is only ever going to cause more division, especially when those names are given priority over their original English ones; I guarantee all but the wokey idiots in Wellington still search NZTA when looking up WOF and rego requirements.
The te reo exemption almost completely nullified the most beneficial potential of the Act. Many communications are now barely fathomable; the Teaching Council, many council publications due te reo. Where documents used to lapse into woke, vague, obscure words now they avoid the Act and me by adopting te reo (mauri, wairua, te ao etc etc.) Quite apart from many not knowing the translation, it is hopelessly vague when you do.
This Act provides cover for obfuscation and propaganda.
You are quite right, to borrow words ad hoc like this is also quite insincere. Niether are we speaking English or Maori and it is irritating for those where English is a second language, or third even. Not to mention confusing and a little condescending.
I found these on another site as someone had posted them as Government or known Public service departments....
1 …Te Kaporeihana Āwhina Hunga Whara
2 … Āta mātai, mātai whetū
3 … Te Aka Matua O Te Ture
4 … Te Amorangi Mātauranga Matua
5 … Toi Aotearoa
6 … Waka Kotahi
7 … Te Kaunihera o Tāmaki Makaurau.
8 … Tumuaki o te Mana Arotake.
9 … Whānautanga, Matenga, Mārenatanga
10 … Irirangi Te Motu.
11 … Mana Arotake Aotearoa
12 … Manatū Ahu Matua
13 … Te Mana Rererangi Tūmatanui o Aotearoa
14 … Ngā Rātonga Kaupapa Atawhai
15 … Te Komihana Tauhokohoko
16 … Te whatu Ora
17 … Te Tari Ture o te Karauna
18 … Tāhū o te Ture
19 … Te Tari Taake
20 … Nga Pirihimana O Aotearoa
The question was how many did we know?
It is an absurdity that these are renames in a language that barely 2% of the TOTAL population speaks let alone reads......
I see the Human Rights Commission now has a new $450K website that it almost un-negotiable and even the URL is no longer in English.
Winston and Shane will sort it, provided they are not eliminated by maniacal utu conscious brainwashed maori bent on applying decolonisation.
As I do not have a good ear for languages and learn them very slowly only after tremendous effort. I would not mind learning some Maori words that are genuine. I would define genuine as those words that you would find in a 19th century Maori dictionary Hold onto these dictionaries for goodness sake !I refuse to learn Maori words made up by woke academics like words for microwave, library or similar non Maori objects and concepts.English unlike French has been enriched by naturally absorbing the words of other cultures but what is going on now is insanity. Linguistically inept people like me are going to be left out of normal social activities by not understanding everyday documents.I don't see how those with English as a second language will manage at all. Recently it took me a fortnight of practise to lean how to pronounce just one Maori word where the 'r' was said with a 'd' sound unlike English.
Well said all you posts above.
From my own perspective, working as a practicing pharmacist for the past 50+ years:-
A great deal of pharmacy work, with the public, is explaining rather technical medical and pharmaceutical terms in plain, clear English.
Plain. Clear. English.
NOT jargon or borrowed words from a Stone Age culture.
With this mindset I find it very confusing to read an article or hear a (politician's) speech which includes multiple random Maori words sprinkled throughout, which makes the precise meaning very confused.
The point I am making here is that most of these words do not have an exact meaning, and even if they did, an ordinary reader like myself cannot translate them or understand them. Which actually destroys the validity of the message.
What this bastardisation does is create a kind of pidgin. I am/was (a bit rusty now) a fluent user of two Melanesian pidgins. They are fine in the marketplace or for small talk but run into problems when complex issues have to be discussed. Their overreliance on 'imported' terms means that people are using words they don't know the meaning of a lot of the time. Street slang in some US urban areas just about qualifies as a pidgin language. I wonder whether that's the direction we're headed in here in some rural areas and some slum urban areas.
Bastardised language and culture is even compromising the medical world and procedures - example :
I couldn't wait for Te whatu Ora to remove my kowhatu kouawai because of the queue of 58,000 others on the "elective" surgery list.
Translation :
I couldn't wait for Health NZ remove my gallbladder because of the queue of 58,000 others on the "elective" surgery list.
Many years ago, as a young woman walking on the Left Bank Seine Promenade in Paris, I was harassed by a young man who seemed to think I would find him irresistible. When I couldn’t get rid of him, I spoke - aggressively- the words of Pokarekare Ana to him. The effect was dynamic and gratifying. I have had an affection for the song ever since.
A couple of years back (early 2021) I made a Media Council complaint about the New Zealand Herald’s overuse of untranslatable Maori language references.
I was dismissed as follows by the high and mighty of the Media Council:
“It is hard to sustain any argument that they are "unnecessary Maori flourishes" or to describe them as "untranslatable distractions and therefore irrelevant" when their meanings are widely understood or readily discoverable.”
As is usual with most Media Council complaints their finding was: Insufficient Grounds to Proceed.
Later I commented to a certain Dominion Post columnist. My question to him regarding the “widely understood or readily discoverable” wording was, had he ever seen anyone on a bus or train reading a newspaper and at the same time referring to a Maori/English dictionary?
What is this nonsense about two languages? There is only one. The assembly of words trying to pass as a language is largely a collection of garbled English words in flax skirts. Once a source of hilarity, the continued use of non-language words and titles is insulting the majority of our population and confusing the purpose of language. For example, what contortion of logic equates road transport with canoes? Maori did not have the wheel, much less roads and vehicles. To be interested in Maori words and try to "Maorify" modern concepts is commendable as a pastime but to force it upon the majority of the population and waste the time of our young indoctrinating them with it
is irresponsible and unacceptable.
I admire the Maori language and its rich heritage to the South Pacific. I agree that every NZ school child should be taught to respect the language by properly pronouncing our many Maori place names. I would love to be able at least do do that if not be a fluent speaker. ( probably too old to learn this or any other language)
It is a simple case of good manners and respect. And for that reason I am intensely angry at the now common practice of interspersing a few Maori words or phrases into an otherwise English discussion. I imagine Maori find this practice insulting tokenism, and I would certainly agree. In the same manner, in past years our "intellectual betters" inserted French or Latin phrases, intending mainly to showcase their supposed superiority.
By all means attach a full translation to important government publications, but please, cut the pseudo "Manglish" it just demonstrates arrogance.
As someone used to listening to Radio New Zealand, I have recently decided against certain programmes. The reason being a "diatribe" of Te Reo Maori at the introduction and then throughout, with Europeans greeting Europeans with Maori expressions, before then continuing in English. When he first took on the portfolio for Broadcasting, Willie Jackson said himself on RNZ that he knew of no Maori who listened to RNZ. I rest my case. Too much chat and not enough music would have been my complaint a number of years ago. Now it is too much Manglish which serves absolutely no purpose, but to underline a graduated appropriation of the airwaves to advance Maori culture when most listeners are non Maori-speakers. Let's get our English right, by the way.
As a Maori friend said to me 2 weeks ago. It's insulting to Maori people because it suggests Maori can't pronounce real English words.
I think it's also divisive. I need to ask the BBC for a plain English weather forecast that's not muddled up with distracting Maori phrases, I don;t understand (and are not translated) just so I can find out about the weather forecast in New Zealand.
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