New Zealand English: Encyclopedia II - New Zealand English - Māori influence

New Zealand English - Māori influence

Many local everyday words are not English at all, being traditional Māori language names for local flora, fauna, and the natural environment, and some other Māori words have made their way into the vernacular.

The dominant influence of the Māori language (te reo Māori) upon New Zealand English is lexical. An 1999 estimate based on the Wellington corpora of written and spoken New Zealand English put the proportion of words of Māori origin at approximately 0.6%; mostly place and personal names.

Another sphere in which Māori is ever present and has a significant conceptual influence is in the legislature, government, and community agencies (i.e, health and education). Political discussion and analysis of issues of sovereignty, environmental management, health, and social well-being rely on te reo Māori at least in part. Māori as a spoken language is particularly important wherever community consultation occurs.

The use of Māori words is increasing, particularly in the North Island, although there are regional variations. For instance, in most of the country the native wood pigeon is called "kererū", but in Northland it is called "kūkupa" and sometimes "kuku", and on the Chatham Islands, "parea".

"Kia ora" literally means "be healthy" but it has also become a standard term of greeting, meaning "hello" or "welcome". It also signifies agreement with a speaker at a meeting. Other Māori greetings, "Tēnā koe" (one person), "Tēnā kōrua" (two people) or "Tēnā koutou" (three or more people) are also widely used. Similarly the phrase for goodbye, "Haere rā", which may also be the origin of the once much widely used NZ phrase for goodbye "Hooray". The Māori phrase "kia kaha", literally "be strong", is also frequently encountered as an indication of moral support for someone starting a stressful undertaking or otherwise in a difficult situation.

Greeting someone on a cold morning is sometimes expressed as "Makariri nē?", (cold isn't it?). This phrase may have spawned the bastard Māori-English word "maka-chilly" which probably started as a joke and is not widely used. The slang word "buggered" is often equated with the Māori word for "broken", "Pakaru", and is synonymous with "Pakarued".

Some hybrid words, part English and part Māori, have developed, the most common of which is probably half-pai (often written half-pie), meaning incomplete or or substandard quality (pai being the Māori word for "good"). Similarly, the Māori word ending -tanga, which has a similar meaning to the English ending -ness, is occasionally used in hybrid terms such as kiwitanga (that is, the state of being a New Zealander).

Intriguingly, several Māori words are used in English as lighthearted, or even slang, equivalents of their more common English counterparts. The term puku for stomach, for example, is more likely to be encountered during a friendly chat than in more formal circumstances.

The common Māori sentence ending nē (meaning literally isn't it?) is thought to possibly be responsible for the exclamational and/or interrogative use of "eh!" at the end of sentences in New Zealand English (as noted below). Evidence supporting this suggestion is the increased prevalence of the usage of eh in areas with a higher proportion of Māori population. It is thus a far more common usage in South Auckland, for instance, than in rural Canterbury.

New Zealand English - Vocabulary

Examples of centuries old Māori names for native birds are the kiwi, kea, kakapo, tui and pukeko, the extinct moa, and the kotuku or white heron. There are also fish such as hoki, kahawai, tarakihi or terakihi and mako shark, and shellfish like toheroa and paua.

Most of the native trees also have Māori names such as the kauri, rimu, totara, kōwhai, matagouri and pohutukawa. Other vegetation with Māori names includes the kumara, a type of sweet potato.

Many Māori words or phrases that describe Māori culture have become part of New Zealand English. Some of these are:

• haka: a chant and (war) dance of challenge, popularised by the All Blacks rugby team, who perform it before the game in front of the opposition
• hangi: a method of cooking food in a pit; or the occasion at which food is cooked this way (compare the Hawaiian use of the word luau)
• hui: a meeting; increasingly being used by New Zealand media to describe business meetings relating to Māori affairs
• iwi: tribe, or peoples
• kia ora: hello, and indicating agreement with a speaker (literally 'be healthy')
• koha: gift
• kōhanga reo: Māori language pre-school (literally 'language nest')
• mana: reputation – a combination of authority, integrity, power and prestige
• Māoritanga: the sum of all Māori culture and existence. "Māori-ness".
• marae: ceremonial meeting area in front of the meeting house; or, the entire complex surrounding this, including eating and sleeping areas
• Pākehā: people of non-Māori origin, especially those of European origin
• puku: belly, usually a big one
• tāngata whenua: native people of a country, specifically the Māori in New Zealand (literally 'people of the land')
• tapu: sacred, taboo; to be avoided because of this; probably borrowed from Tongan tabu
• whānau: extended family

Other Māori words may be recognised by most New Zealanders, but generally not used in everyday speech:

• aroha: love, affection
• haere mai: welcome, come here
• haere rā: goodbye to one who is leaving
• hapū: subtribe; or, pregnant
• hongi: traditional Māori greeting featuring the pressing together of noses
• ka pai: good; well done
• kai: food
• kapa haka: cultural gathering involving dance competitions
• karakia: formal Māori greeting in the form of a prayer, used in opening ceremonies
• kia kaha: literally 'be strong'; roughly "be of good heart, we are supporting you"
• korero: to chat; to speak in Māori
• mauri: spirituality
• mokopuna: literally grandchildren, but more generally can mean any young children
• rohe: home territory - literally the area associated with a specific iwi.
• tangi: to mourn; or, a funeral at a marae
• taniwha: mythical water monster
• te reo: the Māori language (literally, the language)
• tohunga: priest, shaman
• tūrangawaewae: one's own turf, "a place to stand" - also the name of the National Marae
• waiata: song
• wairua: spirit
• whakapapa: genealogy, to discuss family history

New Zealanders also refer to Māori people, in the plural as Māori, not as 'Māoris', and this is often pronounced as 'maw-rri' with a trilled 'r'. Note that the term "mauri" above could easily be confused with this, however (it is correctly pronounced 'moh-rri', again with a trilled 'r').

New Zealand English - Pronunciation of Māori place names

Many Māori place names suffered from a fairly ungainly anglicisation for most of the 19th and 20th centuries, but since the 1980s increased consciousness of te reo Māori has led to a shift back to correct pronunciations. The anglicisations have persisted most among natives of the towns in question, so it has become something of a shibboleth, with correct pronunciation marking someone as non-local.

Examples

• Paraparaumu – para-pram
• Pauatahanui – part-a-noo-ee
• Oakura – okra
• Hawera – hara
• Te Awamutu – tee-a-moot
• Waikouaiti – wacker-wite or weka-what

To further confuse matters, many southern Māori words, which have a distinctive pronunciation that differs from standard Māori, are frequently mistaken for anglicisations and "corrected". These include the pronunciation of Oamaru as Om-a-roo and of Kawarau as Ka-warra.

A mixture of southern Māori speech patterns and anglicisation leads to a third trend, the removal of the final vowel of place names, or the reduction of final vowels to a schwa. This is particularly common in the southern South Island. This pattern also results in local shibboleths, and result in such pronunciations as Lake Wakatipu being referred to as Wakatip, and Otago being pronounced o-taag-uh.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Māori influence", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki