MUTILATED MAORI.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 280, 26 November 1928, Page 6

MUTILATED MAORI.

A suggestion has been made tliat the popular mispronunciation of New Zealand place names and other Maori words, such as the names of trees and plants, could be corrected by lessons "liven in the various teachers' training colleges., and in that way passed on to the young generation. Another suggestion, put forward by a Wellington newspaper letter writer, is that lessons in the necessary diction could be given over the air. This correspondent complains of the frequent inexcusable mutilation of well-known place names in the broadcast announcements per radio. The broadcasting: people certainly have the largest of all audiences, and it is most essential that the pronunciation should be accurate. The radio people are greatly in need of instruction in the elements of Maori pronunciation. Some excruciating; examples were listened to on election night. Motueka was one, I remember. The radio announcer invariably pronounced it "Mo-chew-eeka." Another name so treated frequently is Muritai. The popular version «ives it a "Mew." About the most curious example of this sort of thing I have come across lately is "raddiky," which was recommended in an official notice poster up in the Wellington Zoo as a food for some of the small animals. The article of diet mentioned is our "rauriki," the excellent vegetable miscalled sow-thistle. Again, a newspaper par not long: since referred to the "gigi -, that grows in the forks of forest trees. Kiekie surely ought to be a sufficiently well-known nan e among us. Fortunately the kaka parrot has not been called the "gawgaw" lately so far as my daily reading goes. The old timers rang sorrc curious changes on Maori place names and trees. Looking thromrli some early records to-day I observed that the kahikatea pine was variously written "kaikatm." "kaikatuah," "kiketua'h" and "krycatera" in official reports to the New South Wales authorities over a hundred years ago. The last quaint version occurred in the report of Captain R. Elives, of H.M.s. Coromandel, in IS2O. The same naval officer also reported on the qualities of the "'cowdee" and the "remoo" trees. But that was a century or more ago. Yet "raddiky" to-day, and "hunger" for ponga indicate that some people are just as wide of the mark in their mishandling of the New Zealand language. —J.C. °