Throwing in Maori substitutes for an arbitrary range of words in English narratives (e.g. 'mahi', 'whanau' and 'motu') will at best lead to many people recognising and perhaps using those few words but remaining completely unable to participate in a Maori language conversation either as a listener or speaker. There will always be a constraint on how many Maori terms can be inserted into an English utterance before it becomes so burdened with te reo it will no longer be intelligible to most of the English-speaking world. We are probably close to that limit already.
Introducing news items etc with ceremonial bursts of reo will leave most listeners no further informed about the meaning of those bursts. The bursts will remain bits of gobbledygook for most New Zealanders. Only those who are keen to learn te reo might go to the trouble of recognising or interpreting the bursts. Many others will feel patronised, alienated or annoyed by such bursts and are more likely to avoid the channel or medium, as indeed we are seeing in media consumer statistics.
Providing Maori names for government departments will only confuse most people who need to identify and use them and indeed who are paying for them to exist. Even when the Maori name becomes widely associated with the department, that likely won't add much to competence in using te reo. Most people know what agency 'Waka Kotahi' refers to. The term 'waka' was long known to most New Zealanders and including it in the name of our land transport agency will not have furthered understanding of te reo. (It might have introduced some amusement at the idea that canoes will need number plates.) However, even after 'Waka Kotahi' has been recognised widely for many years, most people wouldn't be able to interpret the word 'kotahi'. As for many other names, they simply become a mystery that provides for most people no clue regarding the purpose of the beast so named. Even among those few who would know what agencies are referred to by 'Te Tari Taiwhenua', 'Te Tāhuhu o te Mātauranga', 'Te Kāhui Tika Tangata' and 'Ara Poutama Aotearoa', not many would understand the meaning of the actual words used.
No better results for spreading understanding of te reo will likely come from changing street names or naming new streets in te reo. Those who don't speak that language and are not interested in doing so will probably find it a bit more difficult to remember the Maori street names because they will make fewer mental associations with them. Even when someone becomes familiar with the name, it's unlikely (s)he will be able to translate it accurately, even if an accurate translation is possible given multiple possible meanings.
All these ill conceived gestures towards te reo serve little purpose beyond virtue signalling. Rather than promote use of te reo and indeed respect for Maori culture, they are likely to annoy many of a large proportion of New Zealanders who have no interest in learning te reo and who don't really care whether it lives or dies. Many report that even though they were previously kindly disposed to supporting and even participating in the revival of te reo and Maori culture, they now feel turned against it.
What would be an effective program to promote use of te reo? Providing courses for those interested, sure, and few would begrudge that if demand exists and course fees are paid as for any other course. We already have Maori-dedicated television and radio stations; fair enough perhaps to provide some government assistance if they primarily raise income from advertising, thereby subjecting themselves to the marketplace of popularity. Maintaining te reo as an official language, probably fair enough but we need a law requiring any te reo used in official situations to be interpreted into English. That won't extend most people's understanding of te reo though. Encouraging, facilitating and even subsidising the continuation of marae where te reo will be used significantly, that would probably contribute more than anything else to protecting the language. Some people such as myself may well take an interest in a dictionary that lists and translates all the pre-European Maori words and distinguishes them from post-European inventions.
Researching that dictionary would extend knowledge of te reo somewhat but would still be a drop in the ocean towards being able to communicate in that language.
I can't think of any other initiatives likely to make much difference.
A.E. Thompson is a working, tax-paying New Zealander who speaks up about threats to our hard-fought rights, liberties, egalitarian values, rational thinking and fair treatment by the state.
24 comments:
Your commentary definitely describes most of my friends attitude towards Te Reo and the frustration of not being able to understand Government departments anymore. Today’s Te Reo is nothing like the range of words pre Colonisation. Now we see made up jargon to describe things previously unknown to Māori.
A "pidgin" system has been created which will be hard to eradicate.
The law needed is that which states English is an official language of NZ - otherwise it could easily be downgraded and eclipsed. NZ is not far from demanding obligatory te reo competence for posts (such as the public service) - this will bring home to applicants without this skill their second class citizen status.
If you want to learn, there are no barriers today to do so.
Thrusting it upon a populace disconnected to it either maori or non maori is senseless wastage and only incourages resentment.
Utility of a language is key to its usage and thus survival. Utility of te reo is so limited in New Zealand and non existent globally that it poses its own danger.
When so few wish to use it, when dialect is different and those who try are called out for incorrect pronounciation combined with a significant population of maori who do not also wish to learn it then what is left?
My wife went to a bookshop in the Far North and asked the polite Maori lady for recommendations on books to help her learn te reo. The response was, they were all the same, but would only teach wellington te reo. Or down the line te reo as it is put here.
Considering the 100's if not 1,000's of $millions already thrown at this, we really do need to stop and think what we are seeking to achieve, other than a very, very expensive virtue signal that now is turning the majority of New Zealander's firmly off. Just today, I see Te Mana Tatai Hokohoko mentioned in the daily rag. Who, other than those that work or deal with them would have the faintest clue it's the FMA? Certainly, no Maori of 1840 would have been able to provide a fair translation of what it meant. And if you turn on the TV News, you get a patronising brief reo lead-in, which is nothing other than a virtue signal and a complete turn-off and a waste of time and money. If you want te reo, go to that other taxpayer funded channel that specialises in such.
As for the dictionary, a nice idea - but really?? We can't even seem to agree on what Kawanatanga and tino rangatiratanga means these days, so I would suggest that would be another futile effort, other than just adding more opportunity and gravy to that never ending train.
It is preposterous that, on the basis that their primitive very limited stone age language was defined as a taonga* by the artful Tribunal, a huge industry is established inventing and promulgating a vast new vaguely related extension in a desperate futile attempt to ape the practical utility of English with its thousands of years of post stone age refinement. (* the interpretation of taonga itself an invention). The name of many govt departments is now completely unmemorable with no hint of function. Names have to be forever tediously written down with minute attention to uinstictive spelling then searched on Google. With obscure metaphorical aspect, even a direct translation is usually unhelpful.
I too would be interested in a dictionary showing date of invention of post 1840 words, but maori will oppose any such embarrassing document. I recall a Mapua interview where an early Commissioner explained how they spent the first year or two inventing words....!
Pre 1840 and much earlier English writings are easily read and the writers would quickly grasp modern text. But a pre 1840 maori would be utterly confounded by current maori ramblings.
100% agree that much of the use of snippets of this so-called Te Reo is no more than virtue signalling. The two-speed national anthem (where the first Maori part is mouthed by a scattering of people and switches to full throat when we finally get to the English part) is tragic and embarrassing – and what does the Maori part really translate to? It surely can’t rhyme with the English and at the same time mean the same thing. I was once kindly disposed to those who learnt the language and looked at course options myself but got turned off in a big way when He Puapua was unveiled (under OIA!) and am now two years into learning Spanish and German instead. It’s true too that the wholesale switching of government department names to gobbledygook is completely ridiculous and would add that there seems to be a direct correlation with such name change and these organisations completely losing their way – all of course on our dime. The current push is indeed the last gasp of a dying language.
The psyop of a "made up language" knows no bounds. These grifters can't even read, decipher, let alone understand the real tangata Maori language as written down in the Maori text of the TOW.
When addressed in Maori, I reply in Dutch. Then I offer the speaker a deal (in English): let's use a language we both understand.
The obvious retort is that Dutch is not an 'official' language of NZ whereas Maori is. But what does 'official language' mean in this context? Answer: a political stunt not based on the reality of language use in NZ (there is more Mandarin than Maori spoken in NZ households) from a bunch of marxofascist control freaks. And one that I suggest we all vent our opinion of using international sign language in the form of the steeply inclined middle finger.
My position is this:-
I am not deaf
I am not Maori
I am not blind
I am not Chinese
There, I do not use sign language, Māori, braille or Mandarin.
However I fully accept and respect that some people need or prefer to use these languages.
All I ask is that I do not have any of these forced upon me.
If I am greeted with sign language or “Kia Ora” I would normally respond “Bonjour”.
WELL SAID, Barend.
I agree 100%.
Have to agree with Barend on this. The point is communication needs to be understood by both parties.
English is pretty good and widely respected. Why make it harder?
What has not been mentioned above (but a view I have long held considering how my Greek ancestors maintained their language in the face of Turkish attempts to ignore or obliterate it for nearly 400 years), if you want your language to survive, then speak it at home and teach your kids. Don't force non-speakers from other cultures to swallow it (and pay for the force-feeding). It comes down to individual responsibility and self-sufficiency, attributes that seem to be missing among many maoris, including lack of self-respect.
I have just made an unusual for me trip to Auckland city on the train. It annoys me that all announcements are in lengthy Maori. There was not one person on the train, passenger or staff who would have understood any of it. Totally unnecessary and a real intrusion in our lives. Once in the city I then discovered that the current film festival has. Maori name...then look for the English.
I am surprised they have not re named MacDonalds as they are the largest consumer group.
Several years ago I made sure I was late for work to miss the compulsory karakia . That was a few years ago and it is so much more invasive now...to NO positive outcome.
Waka waka waka waka..... is perfectly clear to me / moi..... c'est un helicopter. My French is being rejuvinated with all this crap. Might start on my Latin too!
Try this Welsh next time you’re greeted in token te reo by a plastic, pale Maori in a retail store, or government department office … “duh doe ee thim un day ach”.
Better still, it’s almost pronounced as written.
Stand by for utter confusion.
Why don't we get rid of the English under the Maori names and see who can navigate hospitals, transport and government departments
Or the Klingon language, tlhIngan Hol.
hughvane, please spell your reply in Welsh.. [easier to remember]. The sooner we take the piss out of these fools, the better.
I am encouraging people to learn English phonics to aid in English literacy achievement so they can help Maori children , if they wish to , leave NZ as adults and go to Oz or elsewhere and earn a decent living. More choice than the gangs or welfare.
Learning English phonics is quite a lot of work because of all the variant vowels in spelling patterns in English. But hey English is the World's international language . Primary teachers are being asked to learn Te Reo with yet another set of vowels to learn. Seriously I consider this too much especially when there is all the arithmetic they are being required to become competent in as well with the new workbooks. Changing a decimal to a fraction or percentage and the metric system which many haven't a clue about . It's actually all too much when sport, art and music, Maori science , the haka and flax weaving are what they believed would be what was needed most by students. .
“… even though they were previously kindly disposed to supporting and even participating in the revival of te reo and Maori culture, they now feel turned against it.“
Exactly.
If there is any fear of losing the Maori language, this will not happen. A language is only "Lost" when it is not written in a currently known script, it cannot be translated into a currently used language and the way to speak it is lost. I cannot see the Roman alphabet ever being lost, there are plenty of translations into other languages and there are countless hours of recorded speech, so it's pronunciation will never be lost.
Renewing my passport I receive emails from PassportsPoneke and the govt dept is in Maori above the English. All the usual Kia ora and Nga Mihi, no English at all. It is a bit silly.
I learnt a new word: Tina coco. Not sure what it means....but I've developed a thirst......
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