Talk:Māori language

Maori-only speakers

The page currently claims: "Only around 9,000 people speak only in Māori." The citation for this claim is Albury, Nathan John (2 April 2016). "An old problem with new directions: Māori language revitalisation and the policy ideas of youth". Current Issues in Language Planning. 17 (2): 161–178.

I have just obtained the full text of this paper and read it thoroughly, and cannot find anything like this claim anywhere in the reference. Based on that I propose removing the entire sentence unless someone can provide a better source. --131.203.73.86 (talk) 09:44, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

The claim in question, "Only around 9,000 people speak only in Māori", is under the 'Geographic distribution' headline. Also under that headline, the article says "1.4 per cent of the total Māori population, spoke the Māori language only" citing the 2013 census. That seems about consistent with the first quote, but I can't find that fact in the census source either. E James Bowman (talk) 07:12, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

Good to see sources being checked. IMO a surprisingly large percentage of sourced information on wikipedia is wrong because it is not backed by the source provided. The reason why that happens would make for an interesting open discussion at some future time and place. I have no objection to removing the sentence. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 09:56, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

Just seen this section again. If the source does in fact back the claim then the sentence should of course not be removed. Not sure how I missed the user:E James Bowman post. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 07:02, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Māori-Moriori

In the info box under language family is an entry between Tahitic and Māori for Māori-Moriori. I can find no mention of "Māori-Moriori" as a defined name in literature and wonder why exactly it is here and what it is adding. I can understand that this maybe attempting to describe the language that existed before the isolation of Moriori on the Chatham Islands. However the way it looks at the moment can suggest at a casual glance that Moriori existed before Māori rather than being a development from. I think it would be better to remove this entry entirely or if there is a defined split between early and late (my names) Māori and it is useful to make such a distintion an established cited name should be used. Maungapohatu (talk) 23:14, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

An additional note: I have removed Māori-Moriori and replaced it with Māori on the Moriori language page as this was even more bizarre there. Maungapohatu (talk) 23:34, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

I'm sure I remember explaining this more than once before, possibly in edit summaries.

Māori and Moriori are more closely related to each other than either one is to Rarotongan or Tahitian or other Tahitic languages. They split apart from each other after splitting off from the Tahitic proto-language. They form a subgroup of the Tahitic language family. Since there's no widely understood name for this subgroup, it's referred to simply by enumerating the languages within it, which are Māori and Moriori. Hence, "Māori-Moriori".

The Moriori language is not a development from te Reo Māori as it exists today; it is a development from the language spoken in Aotearoa five hundred years ago. Modern Reo Māori is equally a development from the language spoken in Aotearoa five hundred years ago. The fact that only one of those two groups of people migrated at that time does not, in even the slightest degree, imply that the language of the stayers has remained the same as the ancestral language while the language of the migrants has drifted away from it. Both modern languages will have drifted about equally from the ancestral language.

(By way of comparison, American English preserves just as many old features that have been lost in British English as vice versa.)

Since we have to give peoples labels in order to talk about them at all, we use the word "Māori" for the indigenous people of Aotearoa starting from the time they arrived here, which includes at least a large fraction of the ancestors of the Moriori people as well. But labels are dangerous things. We must not allow them to mislead us into thinking that languages and cultures are rigid monoliths that change only at the points where we change the labels.

—VeryRarelyStable 03:24, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Is there any term used in the literature for the proto-language common to both modern Te reo Māori and ta rē Moriori? Like how modern English and Scots both descend from Old English, as an example? Proto-Māori maybe? I suppose it could be a bit niche and linguists might not have settled on anything yet 161.29.216.215 (talk) 00:47, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure. Glottolog now uses the term "Maoric" for it,(see here) but they use a lot of idiosyncratic names that just sound weird or aren't used much. While "Maoric" is the closest we've got to a proper name, I still think Māori-Moriori works better in this case. Also, I hate to be that guy but English and Scots (along with Irish Middle English, which the dialect of the Kildare Poems as well as Fingallian and Yola were part of) were descended from Middle English, not Old English. Arctic Circle System (talk) 03:33, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

@Arctic Circle System I don't think you actually hate to be that guy, haha. But fair enough, my mistake. 161.29.216.215 (talk) 23:45, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, you're right. I was just trying not to come off as rude. Arctic Circle System (talk) 02:17, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

This is a fascinating discussion. Can I add some of the observations from H. W. Williams (1919): "Moriori appears to be further removed from Māori than the dialects of many islands of the Pacific. Peculiarities of both grammar and vocabularies make the language more difficult for one conversant with Māori to read than Rarotongan, and not less so than that of Tahiti, Uvea, or Niue."

Another tidbit from Rhys Richards: "comparison has been made with... the Moriori language... and the old language of Rurutu [of Tahiti]. In short among 257 words considered to be old Rurutuan, there were 129 cognates with Moriori, making about 50%. This suggests... Rurutu might be worth more attention as a likely home place of the first East Polynesians who reached the Chatham Islands and became the Moriori".

Also from Rhys Richards: "All the surviving 1,200 words from the extinct Moriori language were compared with Maori and Rapanui languages. A Moriori speaker would have understood much said by an Easter Islander as their languages shared at least one word in five, or over 20%, and probably shared many more."

I'm not disputing that Moriori diverged from a proto-Māori language, but I do find the differences interesting and meaningful. Chastaurima (talk) 00:13, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Colors on the Maori language distribution map ??

Please explain, what the light blue and dark blue colors on this map mean?

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Thank you in advance 2A02:8084:983C:EA80:5DDB:6532:1D87:6E24 (talk) 22:06, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

The map doesn't include any explanation. @Fobos92: created the map, but they seem mostly inactive, at least on the English Wikipedia. Compare the map to File:TeReoMaori2013.png, created by @Vardion: and appearing later in the article, which does have a legend, and both appear to be using the same data. The darker blue on Fobos92's map includes areas where less than 5% speak Māori, and the lighter blue presumably has an even smaller percentage. However, Fobos92's map is by territorial unit, but Vardion's map is by much smaller census area units, which makes a detailed comparison difficult. As both maps are now quite dated, it would be useful if someone could produce a more current version. The 2023 census data should be available in a couple of months, so we could wait until then. In the meantime, I suggest we remove Fobos92's version as being less useful than Vardion's.-Gadfium (talk) 22:30, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

No one who is Māori calls the language “Māori”

Only foreigners and pākeha in New Zealand call it Māori. The language is called Te Reo Māori. The article should be renamed to “Te Reo Māori.” Also South Island Te Reo isn’t dead, there is still differences used that you learn about in like your first language class if it’s authentic. Ka pai otherwise. Reikosakura (talk) 01:42, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Common name is 'Māori Language' Te Reo Māori is common in NZ (not the entire world itself). Alexeyevitch^(talk) 02:36, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Not sure this makes sense

“These ways of hearing have given rise to place-name spellings which are incorrect in Māori, like Tolaga Bay. (Teraki in Māori).”

I don’t see how it’s incorrect to spell (in English) words the way they sound to English speakers. In a sense isn’t it more accurate to have an l and a g in “Tolaga” because in English orthography that’s closer to the true sound of the name Transient Being (talk) 07:17, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

The article says "spellings which are incorrect in Māori," but you specifically said "in English." It does make more sense to give them an English spelling, and that is done often, which changes the spelling, so it would be incorrect in te reo, which is what the sentence means. ―Panamitsu (talk) 07:26, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

that makes sense, maybe would be better to say "english place-name spellings" then Transient Being (talk) 07:46, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

I agree with the comments above. user:Transient Being, you have raised an important area of confusion about NZ place-names. There are numerous English language place-names that had their origin in a foreign language and New Zealand is full of them. As part of the assimilation process the spelling and sound of the foreign word is adapted to fit better with English. That adapted and assimilated English word is spelled and pronounced correctly in English. It is only spelled or pronounced incorrectly if the English speaker is using the original foreign word, which is rarely done. How many English speakers say 'Pa-ree' instead of Paris? The distinction in NZ has become totally mixed up, with people in general thinking that all place names originating in Maori should now be treated as Maori language words again and not the assimilated English words. That leads to changing the spelling and pronunciation of English words to comply with the Maori words. Anyway, this is a bit of a hobby-horse with me, so I am glad to see someone else has brought it up. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 08:23, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

I agree that this sentence is badly phrased, and should be either amended or deleted.

It's not that the English speakers had bad hearing (though that's not to say they may have made mistakes in some cases), it's that the English transliterations they came up with for some Māori words/place names have ended up being inconsistent with the standardised orthography that was developed for the Māori language.-161.29.216.215 (talk) 05:18, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

@User:161.29.216.215 Why should the transliterated word be consistent with the standardised Maori orthography? Roger 8 Roger (talk) 09:37, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

I didn't mean to imply any position as to whether it should or shouldn't be. Merely that they may have developed separately, and that can be a reason for the differences.

Though, if you were asking my opinion, I have no issue if people decide that they want words or placenames borrowed from Māori into English to be written per the modern standardised Māori orthography. However, it does annoy me slightly when people imply that the early Europeans who recorded Māori placenames had some sort of malicious intent and spelled them "incorrectly", when no "correct" spelling yet existed.-161.29.216.215 (talk) 11:41, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

@Transient Being: (Stop me if you know this already, but while it's background knowledge in New Zealand I'm not sure how well-known it is elsewhere, and a glance at your user contributions suggested you came to this article from a linguistics standpoint rather than any New Zealand connection.)

The use, spelling, and pronunciation of Māori words in English is a live and chronically inflamed political issue in this country. Last year it rose to the point of becoming an election issue, and there is some reference to that in the article. However, secondary sources for the broader cultural discourse are harder to find. (Primary sources are not, but by the nature of the situation they're all contentious and non-neutral.)

Roger 8 Roger (talk · contribs) above gives one side of the debate. As demonstrated, this side tends to insist that the debate is not political at all, and that their opponents are making an issue of a non-issue for the sake of having something to fight over; a position somewhat belied by the fervour of their very insistence.

Roger uses Paris as a comparison, and indeed it would be non-standard for an English-speaker to pronounce it /pa'ʁi/ rather than /'pærɪs/. It must be noted, however, that relations between the English and French peoples are on a rather different footing than relations between Pākehā and Māori in New Zealand. For all the cultural rivalry between the English and the French, I have never heard of an English person objecting to French people calling them anglais; whereas it is hard to find a Pākehā on the "let us speak English, can't we just all be New Zealanders?" side who doesn't object to being called Pākehā.

There is a fundamental asymmetry between the anglicization of French place-names (and words generally) and the anglicization of Māori place-names (and words generally): France has not been colonized by England. English people in England saying /'pærɪs/, or even English-speakers in France saying /'pærɪs/, make no impact on French people in France saying /pa'ʁi/ and being understood.

There is no movement in France to make everybody speak English in the name of "can't we just all be Francers?" No-one in France is mocked as "politically correct" or "woke" for speaking French, or even for saying /pa'ʁi/ rather than /'pærɪs/ when they happen to be speaking English.

The other side of the debate, I need hardly say, sees things rather differently. To many Māori people the question "Can't we just all be New Zealanders?", when used (as it invariably is) as an objection to the promotion, celebration, mention, or existence of Māori culture and identities, sounds something like "We took your land, we changed its names, we stopped you from telling its stories. We made you dress like us, pray like us, talk like us. We signed an agreement with you and then we broke it and now we want to throw it away. Now, so that we can all be equal in this country, and everything can be perfectly fair, what we need you to do is shut up about it forever."

And yes, "we're going to use your words the way we want" is read, on this side of the debate, as one way of saying "shut up about it forever".

—VeryRarelyStable 12:06, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Hmm, I'm worried I may have helped stir up something I didn't mean to. We seem to be drifting off topic...

I have attempted to amend the sentence in question. What do people think?-161.29.216.215 (talk) 13:07, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Extended content

@ the IP.. I was just curious to know if that was the reason behind the switch from English spellling to Maori spelling. If it were, it would still mean the assumption is the word has always been written as a Maori word, just incorrectly spelled. I agree with your last comment. A consequence of the aggressive promotion of Maori language and culture is that what it relegates to second place, often the English language, is seen as somehow wrong. That is especially true with people who cannot see what is happening. The clearest example of that positive discrimination is TVNZ and RNZ. An outsider would think the language used is how New Zealanders actually talk normally or that most Maori people all have tattoos on their face. (People being interviewed are told to use certain Maori words instead of the English word.) I don't have an issue with promotion of the language and culture, but I do with the way it is being done. I have heard numerous people express the same view. Anyway, I digress. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Roger 8 Roger (talk • contribs) 12:27, 2024 June 28 (UTC) Well, a commendable and lengthy post by user:VeryRarelyStable which I partly agree with. A better comparison would be with Welsh, or Irish, than French. The main issue facing the Maori language is its precarious position, one that requires forceful promotion. I want there to be an English TV channel and a Maori TV channel, as there is. The problem is so few people will watch the Maori one because so few people can understand it. That is not the case in Wales where a seperate Welsh station functions very well (because Welsh is an actively used language across half the country) So, the promoters of te reo are caught in a bind - promote it sepately from English with its own TV radio and newspapers and nobody will take notice, or use te reo in the established English TV radio and newspapers, as is happening, and you p*** people off by ramming it down their throats. In my view, the second method will ultimately not work and be counter-productive. About the history of 1840 and afterwards, I think you are being selective with the facts, possibly not intentionally. What has happened has happened and cannot be changed. The simplest response, blunt though it is, is to say 'Get over it and move on'. This country has dropped from 4th wealthiest per person in the 50s to hovering just about third world level now, partly because it is bogged down by circular arguements about the treaty and academics telling Maori they should have hurt feelings. Anyway, this is off topic, but I'm just replying to your equally off topic poat. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 13:22, 28 June 2024 (UTC) Not in international sources - this is almost exclusively in NZ. Anyways, this discussion isn't appopriate on WP. There are many NZ forums disscusing this stuff elsewhere. Alexeyevitch(talk) 02:58, 1 July 2024 (UTC) There is only one language which has ever been rammed down people's throats in Aotearoa, and that language is English. As for the Paris example - I would think it would be quite normal for an Anglophone living in France to call the city "Paree" and not "Parriss". Likewise it would be quite normal for an Anglophone living in Aotearoa to call the city of Whangārei, Whangārei, and not "Wongguray". It's not compulsory; anyone is at liberty to keep on referring to Whangārei as "Wongguray", even if they've had the correct pronunciation explained to them; but freedom to mispronounce does not include freedom from mockery. Daveosaurus (talk) 05:49, 1 July 2024 (UTC) I think it’s still more “normal” to hear Fongguray than Whangārei to be honest. And honestly, that just reflects the phonetic set of the language being spoken; even in the heart of Paris, while wearing a mime costume and carrying a baguette, you very probably still say the S while speaking English, and you certainly don’t use a French R. All of this is way off topic though, so I hope no one minds if I just top-and-bottom this little aside. — HTGS (talk) 09:15, 1 July 2024 (UTC)