Ele Ludemann: Language doesn’t work like that

The outgoing government didn’t appear to see the irony in its Plain Language Act :

. . . 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. . .

The irony is that while requiring all that, many of its MPs and the public service, were also misusing Māori in a way that was not appropriate to intended audiences and in a way that was not clear, concise or well organised.

English has absorbed words of many other languages, including – at least in New Zealand – Māori. But it has done it over time, by a process of osmosis so that words from other languages are gradually and unconsciously assimilated into our own vocabularies.

That is how language works. It doesn’t work by imposition and it doesn’t work by inserting words and phrases of a second language into sentences primarily in another which is what Labour, the public service and far too many in the media have been doing.

My farmer and I often greet each other in Spanish: ¿Hola, cómo estás? ¿Muy bien gracias y tú? Muy bien gracias. (Hello, how are you? Very well thanks, and you? Very well thanks.)

One day when we met after being apart, without thinking, I did the greeting in Spanish and he replied in the same language. I then looked at the friend who was with my farmer and realised he was uncomfortable because he didn’t understand what we had said. I apologised and translated.

It is inconsiderate, even rude, to speak a language those to whom you’re speaking don’t understand and it butchers both languages when using one if you insert words and phrases from another into what you’re saying or writing.

Language don’t work like that.

We can, and do, use words from other languages, that have been absorbed into English but that is very different from what some media, MPs from the outgoing government and the public service have been doing.

New Zealand English has been enriched by the absorption of Māori words that we’ve come to understand through context over time. That’s very different from using them in a manner that gets in the way of clear communication.

It is politically motivated and rather than helping people understand Māori, it sabotages the comprehension of what is being said or written.

As Joe Bennett writes:

. . . Languages exist for one reason only — to communicate meaning. To this end they evolve with time and what is useful endures and what is not withers. And that’s it. That’s the inevitable, immutable, blind process, and nothing we say or do will alter it.

Languages cheerfully borrow from each another. English has adopted hundreds of Maori words, largely to describe things that exist here and nowhere else — pukeko, rimu, mana and so on. And Maori has taken on board no end of words from English to describe the materials and ideas that settlers brought. But having borrowed them a language makes them its own. It fits them into its own structure. So while there is some overlap of vocabulary between te reo and English, there is none of grammar or syntax. The languages remain grammatically distinct.

The RNZ National announcer appeared to be speaking a new and hybrid tongue, part te reo, part English. In reality she was speaking English — the language she used to convey meaning — and she was dropping in chunks of te reo for a moral or political purpose. And language evolution scoffs at moral or political purposes.

In short, she was wasting her time. In doing so she was alienating Ms Plum, educating noone, patronising Maoridom and barking up a barren linguistic plum tree.

Learning a second language, unless you’re totally immersed in it, takes a lot of effort, a long time and must used regularly or it will be lost.

I spent two years studying Spanish at university and three and a half months at a language school in Spain. By the end of that time I was able to hold a reasonable conversation but the sentence I use most often when with Spanish speakers now is lo siento, mi español es muy oxidado (I’m sorry, my Spanish is very rusty).

Māori is an official language. So too is New Zealand sign language but you wouldn’t have people stop talking and drop signed words and phrases in the middle of speaking English.

However, for most of us, inserting te reo into communications in English has much the same effect – it gets in the way of understanding what is being said or written.

It’s a misguided attempt to educate but you don’t learn a language by having it thrust into official communications and news items.

That comes across not as communication or information but indoctrination which does a disservice to listeners, readers and both languages.

Ele Ludemann is a North Otago farmer and journalist, who blogs HERE - where this article was sourced.