OUR USE OF MAORI NAMES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 171, 21 July 1936, Page 6

OUR USE OF MAORI NAMES.

A criticism of the use of Maori names as "overdone" in New Zealand has been made by the Dominion president of the B.M.A. His complaint is that the frequent meeting with words of similar appearance, such as Waimate, Wairoa, and so on, is very confusing to strangers. Possibly this is true, but the confusion arises largely from carelessness in the use of names and from the habit, common to English people, of clipping or slurring the terminations of Maori words. Pronounced correctly, many of these words have a strange sound because > they are habitually mispronounced. The fault is, therefore, largely in ourselves and in slovenly New Zealand speech. There is need of more care and discrimination in the use of Maori words. Some words, like "tailioa," "kai," "mana," "kia ora" and others are understood by pakelia as well as Maori, and have either a peculiar fitness in that there is no English word equally short which conveys the same meaning, or they are unusually expressive or easy to pronounce. Every language borrows from the native in this way, and the borrowings have been particularly numerous in New Zealand because of the close association of the two races. Some of the pioneers were skilled Maori linguists, but with the passing of time contacts have become fewer, the original standards have degenerated, and Maori names are mutilated in consequence.