Hazelnut Herald (from Aotearoa)
www.hazelthenut.jimdo.com
New Zealand has 3 official languages: English, Te Reo (Māori) & NZ Sign Language. There is also disagreement in Aotearoa about whether English words (or parts of English words) should be incorporated into the Māori language; this is less of an issue for English speakers as many English words are derived from other languages, and several words / phrases from Te Reo are commonly used by many New Zealanders nowadays (e.g. kia ora, hui, kai, puku)...
1. English - NZ accents give a unique flavour to the English which is spoken here:
2. NZ Sign Language only became one of NZ's official languages in April 2006, and has been in the news regularly since the 2011 general election. One of the Green Party's list MPs, Mojo Mathers, is profoundly deaf. After the election it took several months before the NZ parliament finally agreed to fund the electronic note taking equipment which Mojo needs in order to do her job. Whatever happened to equal rights for people with disabilities?
(Subsequently the 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic games took place in London. There was very little media coverage of the Paralympic games in NZ, despite the achievements of the small team of 24 NZ athletes, who brought back an impressive haul of 17 medals (more medals than were won by the much larger NZ team in the Olympic games, and a much better medal return per athlete than the Olympic athletes). Sophie Pascoe, a 19 year old swimmer from Christchurch, was particularly notable as the best overall NZ paralympian athlete in London - she won 3 gold and 3 silver medals! Kiwis were unable to view these events live - events in which our countrymen and women did us proud. What a contrast with the extensive coverage of the Olympics! Obviously the media learned nothing from Mojo's treatment a few months earlier.)
3. I attended an evening class in Te Reo Māori, which kept me busy on most Wednesday nights in 2012. The course didn't make me fluent in Māori, but I hope that my improved understanding will help me to be more culturally sensitive.
Did you know that the Māori alphabet only has letters and two digraphs (a combination of two letters representing one sound)? The 13 letters are: a, e, h, i, k, m, n, o, p, r, t, u and w; the 2 digraphs are ng and wh. The vowels have short versions (a, e, i, o, u) or long versions ā, ē, ī, ō, ū [which are sometimes written as aa, ee, ii, oo or uu]. If you forget to use a macron or mispronounce a word its meaning can change dramatically: e.g. keke (cake) becomes kēkē (armpit)!
I have attached below some soundfiles taken from Radio NZ's "Summer Nights" programmes in January 2013, which explain some more about how to use and pronounce Te Reo Māori:
Relationships are very important to Māori people, who place considerable stress on whakapapa – people’s genealogy. Essentially whakapapa means knowing about who you are and where you come from. At gatherings people introduce themselves orally through their whakapapa. The content of these varies but they usually include specific geographical features associated with the individual’s home area including their maunga (mountain), awa (river) and moana (sea). They may also identify their waka (ancestral canoe), hapū (sub tribe), iwi (tribe), marae and some ancestors.
An example follows:
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Ko (name of your waka) te waka My canoe is (name of your waka) Ko (name of your mountain) te maunga My mountain is (name of your mountain) Ko (name of your river) te awa My river is (name of your river) Ko (name of your tribe) te iwi My tribe is (name of your tribe) Ko (name of your sub tribe) te hapū My sub tribe is (name of your sub tribe) Ko (name of your chief) te rangatira (Name of your chief) is the chief Ko (name of your marae) te marae My marae is (name of your marae) Ko (your name) ahau I am (your name) |
Ko Tinana te waka My canoe is Tinana Ko Whangatauatea te maunga My mountain is Whangatauatea Ko Karirikura te Moana te awa My river is Karirikura te Moana Ko Te Rarawa te iwi My tribe is Te Rarawa Ko Patukirikiri te hapū My sub tribe is Patukirikiri Ko Pōroa te rangatira Pōroa is the chief Ko Roma te marae My marae is Roma Ko Haami Piripi ahau. I am Haami Piripi. |
The whakapapa which I prepared for my course had some similarities to the one above, but I've updated it subsequently to reflect my current circumstances:
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Ko Tam Tain tōku maunga
Ko Pentland Firth tōku moana He paihikara tōku waka (!) Ko Kōtimana tōku iwi Ko Agnew tōku hapu Ko Orwell Street whare karakia tōku marae |
The Forth is my river The Pentland Firth is my sea My vehicle ["waka" also means this!] is a bicycle My tribe is Scottish My clan is Agnew Orwell Street Church is my marae |
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Nō Oamaru au |
I am from Ōamaru |
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Ko Patrick tōku pāpā |
Patrick is my father’s name |
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Ko Meryl tōku māmā Ko Ann tōku whaea whāngai Ko Stephen tōku teina Ko Tim, rāua ko Ben, ko Sam aku irāmutu Ko Hazel au |
Meryl is my mother’s name Ann is my stepmother's name Stephen is my younger brother Tim, Ben and Sam are my nephews
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A weekend spent on a marae is a key part of many Te Reo courses, as it exposes course participants to parts of Māori culture which would otherwise be difficult to experience - e.g. the role of men and women on the marae, and the procedures which are followed when guests (manuhiri) are welcomed onto the marae by the hosts (tanagata whenua). I spent a weekend on a marae in Ruatoki in the Bay of Plenty at the end of June 2012: this was the first time I had stayed on a marae. I have subsequently stayed on other maraes - an unforgettable experience on each occasion, although my knowledge of Te Reo is still rudimentary!
4. Linguistic dilemmas: can English co-exist with Te Reo Maori?
In July 2012 Whakatāne’s cinema was renamed Whakamax. The new owner said that it meant “to act to the max”, and based this on the meaning of Whakatāne [whaka -“to act like”, tane - a man]. The name change was controversial. Some Māori speakers claimed that creating a new word by combining the two languages showed disrespect to the Māori language; other people embraced the new name and believed that this reflected the mixed cultures of the local community and showed that the Māori language is developing and is becoming more inclusive of English.
سلام, Salam, Peace, Aroha, Kia Kaha
