Dear Matua, I do have 2 TOW-related questions I'd like to run past your wisdom so please let me know how to contact you. I can't find a link on the website. Thank you.
Feel free to ask here 🙂 I’ll be upfront though, I’m no expert on the Treaty of Waitangi and I usually try to avoid that discussion, but someone in the community here may be able to help you.
Well, maybe the vouchers will pop up outside polling booths at the next election, handed out by bemoko-kauae'ed wāhine wearing Te Pāti Māori T shirts. Just sayin'.
I do have to say, Matua, that your invention and use of the words "whūk, whākd’" and other iterations of the same is truly inspired. May these fabulous spellings long continue to be used and propagated. And continue to safely bypass automatic deletion by algorithm-empowered automated keyword matching online!
I’m hoping whākd’ and whūk get added to the Māori dictionary one day. I’ve always wondered who actually invents new te reo Māori words. Something new comes along and suddenly boom, it’s in the dictionary. I’ve already added a few to Urban Dictionary myself.
When I was studying Te Reo in the 80's the Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori (Maori Language Commission) would send me a monthly list of brand new words they had coined during the preceding month. They'd do it by categories - I recall one month it was names of chemical elements. In English some of these come from Greek mythology and so they would study related myths in Māori history to invent new words that harkened back to their own mythology. Of course the resultant words were incredibly hard to memorise! The obsession not to simply Maorify/transliterate (E.g. motokā for motor car) the existing internationally-used terms makes everything more obscure. I doubt whether anyone outside say chemistry class in a Kura would know and use these words. Anyways, for all I know, chemistry and science might be banned there because these are "Pakeha constructs".
That’s actually pretty interesting how they go about it. Some of the translations you can’t help but laugh at. Your motokā example is a classic. Butter becoming pata is another good one. I had a quick look and it turns out Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori plays a major role in adding new words to the language.
For some reason, I don’t think whūk is getting the official tick anytime soon.
I use a fair bit of te reo Māori in my everyday life and I genuinely enjoy the language. Maybe one day, when I have a bit of spare time, I’ll set aside an hour a day to really study it and aim for fluency. That’s the problem with life though. There just aren’t enough hours in the day.
Do I think it should be compulsory in schools? Not a chance, but it should be a choice. Te reo Māori can only really be used in one country, and that’s New Zealand. Plenty of Kiwis end up living or travelling overseas, and a language like Spanish is far more versatile and useful once you leave the long white cloud.
Dear Matua, I do have 2 TOW-related questions I'd like to run past your wisdom so please let me know how to contact you. I can't find a link on the website. Thank you.
Feel free to ask here 🙂 I’ll be upfront though, I’m no expert on the Treaty of Waitangi and I usually try to avoid that discussion, but someone in the community here may be able to help you.
Well, maybe the vouchers will pop up outside polling booths at the next election, handed out by bemoko-kauae'ed wāhine wearing Te Pāti Māori T shirts. Just sayin'.
I do have to say, Matua, that your invention and use of the words "whūk, whākd’" and other iterations of the same is truly inspired. May these fabulous spellings long continue to be used and propagated. And continue to safely bypass automatic deletion by algorithm-empowered automated keyword matching online!
I’m hoping whākd’ and whūk get added to the Māori dictionary one day. I’ve always wondered who actually invents new te reo Māori words. Something new comes along and suddenly boom, it’s in the dictionary. I’ve already added a few to Urban Dictionary myself.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Wh%C5%ABk%20wit
When I was studying Te Reo in the 80's the Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori (Maori Language Commission) would send me a monthly list of brand new words they had coined during the preceding month. They'd do it by categories - I recall one month it was names of chemical elements. In English some of these come from Greek mythology and so they would study related myths in Māori history to invent new words that harkened back to their own mythology. Of course the resultant words were incredibly hard to memorise! The obsession not to simply Maorify/transliterate (E.g. motokā for motor car) the existing internationally-used terms makes everything more obscure. I doubt whether anyone outside say chemistry class in a Kura would know and use these words. Anyways, for all I know, chemistry and science might be banned there because these are "Pakeha constructs".
That’s actually pretty interesting how they go about it. Some of the translations you can’t help but laugh at. Your motokā example is a classic. Butter becoming pata is another good one. I had a quick look and it turns out Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori plays a major role in adding new words to the language.
For some reason, I don’t think whūk is getting the official tick anytime soon.
I use a fair bit of te reo Māori in my everyday life and I genuinely enjoy the language. Maybe one day, when I have a bit of spare time, I’ll set aside an hour a day to really study it and aim for fluency. That’s the problem with life though. There just aren’t enough hours in the day.
Do I think it should be compulsory in schools? Not a chance, but it should be a choice. Te reo Māori can only really be used in one country, and that’s New Zealand. Plenty of Kiwis end up living or travelling overseas, and a language like Spanish is far more versatile and useful once you leave the long white cloud.