General Debate 08 May 2025
I have posted quite often on changing language usage and why I think this will continue to make Maori less and less useful. This has been based, mainly, on my experiences with Zulu and Xhosa.
Last night I watched an interesting interview of an Ndebele officer in the Zimbabwean Army about some operations in DRC.
Ndebele is close enough to Zulu that I can understand almost all of what he is saying.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNkDX9GFj-A
What I found interesting: * Zulu and Ndebele are very similar with the same nouns and verbs for common day to day speech that is unchanged for centuries. For example, house, tree, water, run, hit, … These are concepts that have been with humans a long time so you can expect the same words to be used as the languages evolve. The word for goat is the same in Tanzania and Xhosa even though the languages split well over 1000 years ago and they exist thousands of km apart. * The languages diverge in their borrow words. For example the Ndebele for boat is 'boata' (obviously from 'boat') while for Zulu it is isikebhe (which derives from 'schip' – the Dutch word for ship). This makes sense since the borrow words get into the language via different routes, so you can expect differences like this. * The Ndebele words for numbers are the same as Zulu. This is a cumbersome system. The Ndebele have done what the Zulu do and flip over to using English numbers for anything beyond very small numbers (1, 2, 3, 10). Thus numbers are generally transplanted.
* As soon as he started speaking about any military concepts he flipped over to speaking in English, even if he just dropped in a word or a phrase into a sentence. Makes sense since these are concepts that don't exist in the Ndebele cultural vocabulary and training on military doctrine is all in English.
Thus we can basically split the language components into three parts: * The historic, original, host language. These are the words, grammar and concepts that go back centuries. * The borrow words. By my definition (I am not a formal linguist), borrow words are foreign words which have been adapted to fit in with the host language when the host (ie. borrowing) culture encounters them for the first time. They are then used as new words in the host language. Examples are pirihimana (policeman) borrowed in to Maori or kumara, Taupo etc borrowed in to English.
* Transplanted words and phrases (again, my unofficial definition) . The distinction between borrow words and transplanted words and phrases is that borrow words are modified to fit into the host language grammar etc while transplanted words and phrases are not. Transplanted words and phrases are bits of English (or whatever) spliced in.
To now extrapolate this into Maori in NZ: * There is really no solid Maori cultural/social life – as distinct from modern western life, so we can expect common historic/host language usage to continue to shrink and be replaced with transplanted phrases. * Borrow words are only useful where the predominant language being used is still the host language. No doubt Maori would very seldom even use the word pirihimana and would likely use 'cops' or such. ie. even borrow words are being replaced by transplanted words.
* Once you use more than 50% transplanted phrases, you have, effectively, switched over to the new language.
It would appear that what we have passing for common Maori now is actually a flip of that – it is English with the odd Maori word or phrase transplanted into English. This is no longer really Maori at all, but rather a local English dialect.
Ndebele has 4 million people using it as a primary language every day. That will likely keep it going for the foreseeable future. Maori has probably less than 10,000 who could comfortably use Maori as a home language and probably less than half that who would actually choose to do so.
To resurrect a language like Maori is surely close to impossible. If it not in common use then it really has no chance at all beyond a historical curiosity.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Otago Daily Times
12 hours ago
- Otago Daily Times
Perhaps we should wait a bit before changing road signs
"Kia ora" — and that's about it when I chance my arm with a bit of Māori. I grew up in a small South Island city with little Māori presence, although one house was called "the Māori house" simply because of the family who lived there. In 11 years of schooling, only one Māori boy featured at roll call and the only word we heard much of was "haka". I now realise that at least one other Māori word had enriched my vocabulary although at the time I assumed it was just another old English saying. It was often use by older blokes seeking a break from work and it sounded something like "tie ho". The recent brouhaha (yes, my French is OK) over road signs in Māori in Hawke's Bay reminded me that the word I remembered from boyhood was actually taihoa, a Māori word meaning something like "wait" or "by and by". Without waiting, I dived into the word's history and found it was one of the earliest Māori words to find general acceptance among Pākehā settlers. In those days it was a less than complimentary term among the go-getting newcomers. Of his early days in Auckland Sir John Logan Campbell wrote of "detesting the procrastinating ways of Māori workmen who kept on saying 'Taihoa – wait, all in good time, there's no hurry'." Some of his contemporaries, delving into the language, insisted that taihoa was used rather with regard to debts which were owed by Māori rather that postponing any duties they were expected to carry out. The word could be applied to Pākehā as well. One chief requested in 1857 that the government would allow him to sell land, complaining that the head of the Native Land Purchase Department, Donald McLean, would fob him off with "'taihoa (by and bye)' until he was tired." He then applied to the Governor who also said "taihoa". During the rest of the 19th century taihoa was commonly used by both races and among Pākehā began to be used as something of an insult to Māori, rather along the lines of the deplorable use of "Māori time" to mean "late" or "any old time". One flax mill owner complained, "no dependence whatever can be placed on their promises to do anything within a given time. 'Taihoa' being one of the first words the meaning of which a stranger learns to his cost who may have trusted to their punctuality." Thankfully, in later times, the word was used inoffensively to indicate "wait a bit" and became popular from the 1900s when James Carroll, the native minister, aimed to slow the sale of Māori land and this gave rise to the phrase "the taihoa policy" which can still be applied to politicians slow to honour their promises. Think, "Minister Brown's taihoa policy has delayed building Dunedin's new hospital." Taihoa can be found in many contexts. In 1950 the Northern Advocate, enthusing about a new-found rugby star, 18-year-old Peter Jones, suggested the All Black selectors "taihoa" on account of his youth. In the same year a Whanganui magistrate fined Māori farmers for failing to clear ragwort. "Māoris must deal with noxious weeds just the same as Europeans. The taihoa policy will not help you; it will just involve you in very heavy fines," pronounced the upholder of the law. So, it's fair to say "taihoa" is pretty well established among New Zealand speakers and I'm wondering if it may be a better road sign than "Stop". "Stop" is certainly an effective word, but can it be too effective? Taken literally at a compulsory stop, it would oblige the motorist to stop his vehicle. Motorists behind him would also stop and, because the leading car is given no further instructions, it would remain static until the traffic had backed up for about 10km and the resulting traffic rage would possibly lead to serious injuries. However, "Taihoa" at a compulsory stop would simply suggest "wait a bit". The motorist could wait, checking for traffic from either direction, and then move on, thus avoiding rampant road rage. Thus, at road works "Taihoa" is ideal as it suggest a wait rather than a permanent stoppage. The signs in Māori at the heart of the recent debate used "Haere" instead of "Go". "Haere" certainly has a meaning of moving but many motorists would be confused, thinking it was simply a greeting as in "haere mai". The solution may well lie in a comment from Ernest Corbett, Minister of Māori Affairs in the 1950s, who suggested that the opposite of "taihoa" was a term he heard often in his Taranaki base, "kia tore". "It means get on with it," said Corbett. On reflection, I've decided this is all too messy. Let's just use "Stop" and "Go" but hold the pole in a sort of Māori way. — Jim Sullivan is a Patearoa writer.
Otago Daily Times
a day ago
- Otago Daily Times
Dashing marriages forged at Gretna Green
In a small, unassuming village in the Scottish Borders, there's an old blacksmith's shop with an anvil over which countless lovers have pledged their love and commitment. I first visited Gretna Green some 10 years ago, on a daytrip from Edinburgh University. To be frank, I was rather underwhelmed by the sleepy hamlet. I had, of course, encountered Gretna Green in Jane Austen novels and my favourite period drama Downton Abbey, but the true significance of this sleepy hamlet was lost on my 19-year-old self. At the time, I couldn't imagine wanting to marry someone so desperately I'd make a mad rush across the country in order to do so. In 1753, England passed the Marriage Act (aka Lord Hardwicke's Act), which required parental consent for couples under the age of 21 who wished to wed. This legislation was a bid to crack down on clandestine and impulsive marriages, and decreed that all marriages had to be performed by a clergyman in a church after banns were read, or with a special licence. You see, there was something of a moral crisis taking place in England in the mid-18th century — too many young people were marrying in haste, secrecy or rebellion. Fortune-hunters were on the prowl, and far too many marriages were performed without banns or blessings, to the shock and horror of the church. Scotland however was far looser — boys could marry at 14, girls at 12, and crucially, no parental consent was required. Marriage was as simple as a couple declaring themselves husband and wife in front of two witnesses. No church required, no priest, no paperwork, no complications. And so, this quiet little village, the first across the border on the main coach route from London to Edinburgh, came to represent love and freedom for untold star-crossed lovers over the centuries. In Scotland, almost anybody had the authority to conduct the marriage ceremony. In Gretna Green, enterprising blacksmiths set themselves up as "anvil priests", performing thousands of marriages over the anvil in their workshops. The anvil, already connoting union and strength, became the ceremonial centrepiece of the whole affair. One such anvil priest, a fellow called Richard Rennison, charged a fee of £1 per marriage (although was known to earn up to £20 for a ceremony), and married some 5147 couples between 1926 and 1940. There were, of course, several attempts to block the phenomenon of Gretna Green marriages. In 1855, a Newcastle MP complained bitterly about Scotland's marriage laws, accusing the Gretna Green dash of "lowering the habits, injuring the character and destroying the morality of the people of the northern counties of England". He had his way; a year later, Lord Brougham introduced an act which required a "cooling-off" period of 21 days' residency in the parish in which a couple wished to marry. Then in 1940, the institution of "marriage by declaration" was outlawed in Scotland. In 1977, English couples could finally get married without parental consent at the age of 18. Gretna Green's reputation as a romantic frontier flourished in novels, plays and salacious tabloid tales. In Pride and Prejudice, of course, the fickle and flighty Lydia Bennet elopes with the dastardly George Wickham, ostensibly to Gretna Green, although later the naughty couple is found cohabitating in London, having failed to travel to Scotland. Interestingly, Austen wrote the first draft of Pride and Prejudice in 1797 (although it wasn't published until 1813); clearly, she did not feel the need to explain to her readers what the phrase connoted. Gretna Green became a firm fixture in the public imagination, representing youthful rebellion, the power of love over law and custom, romantic risk and a sense of urgency. Eloping to Gretna Green wasn't all sunshine and rainbows, however. Some couples fled there to escape arranged marriages, scandal or even legal trouble. For others, the elopement brought down a heap of shame and disgrace on their families, and it wasn't uncommon for angry fathers to set out in pursuit of the couples, ready to kill or be killed in order to reclaim their daughters' honour. For many young women, the promise of Gretna Green never eventuated. Lured by promises of eternal love and marriage, they were seduced in roadside inns and abandoned before reaching the border. Those couples that did successfully wed at Gretna Green often returned with stained reputations; their wedding vows deemed as grubby as the soot-covered blacksmith who had officiated the ceremony. Quite a few notable marriages took place at Gretna Green. One such pairing was that between Sarah Anne Child and John Fane, 10th Earl of Westmorland, which took place on May 20, 1782. Sarah Anne's irate father, Robert Child, pursued the couple all the way from London to Gretna Green, but was unable to prevent the marriage. When questioned by her parents as to why she wanted to marry John Fane, Sarah Anne said: "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." (Honestly, she sounds hilarious). Unfortunately for Sarah Anne, her father cut her off completely, and directed his fortune to his eldest granddaughter, Sarah Child Villiers, Countess of Jersey. Gretna Green is still a cherished wedding location, although not as a refuge for desperate teenagers, but for couples who want their wedding to mean something more. I've always joked that if I were to get married, my ideal wedding would take place in Las Vegas, under flickering neon lights, in front of an Elvis impersonator. But increasingly, the idea of a quick elopement to Gretna Green attracts me — the charming simplicity of pledging eternal love and faithfulness over an anvil, far from the madding crowd is something quite pleasant and peaceful. I'm chronically single, so it doesn't matter anyway. But who knows what the future holds? I'll be sure to let you know, but don't expect an invitation. — Jean Balchin is an ODT columnist who has started a new life in Edinburgh.
NZ Herald
24-05-2025
- NZ Herald
Pastures Past: Butter churning in New Zealand in the 1930s
Butter Making To the editor. Taranaki Herald, May 5, 1886 Sir,—A good churn is such a luxury that you will kindly permit me to say that the new barrel churns manufactured by the New Plymouth Sash and Door Factory supply a long felt want. I got one a short time since from them, and I am splendidly satisfied with it. It churned 91lbs. at one churning in three-quarters of an hour; there was no waste, no splash, and with the little glass panel that I had inserted in the side, one can tell the exact moment to put in the salt and water without opening the lid and looking in. These churns are good, and cheap, and by purchasing them one is supporting a local industry, instead of sending the money to America for little churns that require from 1 to 12 hours' turning, according to the state of the weather, and then only turn out 20lbs. of butter.—I am, &c., W. R. Wright. New Zealand butter New Zealand Herald, October 20 1930 Sir, —I read with interest the letter of Mr. Hartley on Danish butter and New Zealand butter. Has distance from the market no bearing on the situation? The Danes are a matter of hours, while we are weeks away. It is a matter of solemn fact that we have the finest pastures in the world of English grasses and clover, etc., and no feed is more suitable for the production of butter, cheese, milk or cream. A man told me that he worked in a butter factory in the Old Country and that when they ran short of their own butter they made a practice of putting New Zealand butter in their churns with their own buttermilk, giving it a little rolling in the churns and finally selling it as finest English farmers' butter, a butter which always brings a higher price than even Danish. CREAM FARMER. Churns too large Pahiatua Herald, December 15, 1931 'I'm rather afraid of those big churns,' remarked Lord Bledisloe, when inspecting the butter making room at Te Rehunga dairy factory, where the 'small' churns deal with a ton of butter at a time and the larger one with a ton and a half. 'The Danes don't use any of larger capacity than 9 cwt.,' he explained. 'They think the great weight being dashed about tends to break up the fat globules, and in New Zealand butter that is done.' Outsize in churns Largest in world 100 boxes of butter Advertisement Advertise with NZME. (Special to the Herald.) Poverty Bay Herald, October 12, 1937 AUCKLAND, this day. Made in Christchurch for a Waikato dairy factory, what is described as the largest butter churn in the world was unshipped at Auckland from the steamer Waimarino yesterday. Its barrel alone weighs more than nine tons, and its gear box weighs three tons 6cwt. In one churning it can produce 100 boxes of butter or 5600lb, and for each full churning it takes 1400 gallons of cream. The churn was made almost entirely in Christchurch by the engineering firm of Andersons, Limited, who have been making churns since 1918. In that time the sizes of churns manufactured have increased from those producing 22 boxes or 160lb of butter, to this latest one producing 100 boxes or 5600lb, and enough butter for 56,000 persons for one meal.
