ENGLISH AS IT IS SPOKEN

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21247, 20 August 1934, Page 9

ENGLISH AS IT IS SPOKEN

10 TUB EDITOR OF TUB Pit BBS. • Sir, —Perhaps "Hoani Kai Iriiri" docs not need any help from me in his defence of the correct pronunciation of Maori place names, but I notice that the printer's Taipo has gone against him and has got him in the signature, the second time, putting it down as "Honni Kai Iri Iri." To have "Iriiri" so divided, without even a hyphen, is bad enough, but Honni is a word impossible in Maori. Good luck to "Hoani Kai Iriiri" but some of these words, such as Taitapu, Wakatipu, Kaik. etc., have got a long start, and it looks as if. broadcasting them correctly is the only means of bringing them back to their proper places. As a matter of fact, I think there has been some improvement already, and the hard "g" or rather "ng" is not hard so often in words like Rangiora or Wanganui. In the latter word the "nu" is "noo" and not "new," though this may seem new lo some of our "lovers of English." Of course, these people have for ages been used to the slurring of plnce names at Home, and not even the Americans can teach them how to pronounce Worcester or Kirkcudbright. When the piorieers came hero they did not consider the M-i-ri and his ways very seriously, and I suppose it was a point o£ honour not to spend too much time on his names or anything else of his, while many of the Maoris themselves were just as careless about them. Ideas have changed tremendously since then, and as one who has grown up among these names, I am very pleased to see they are now likely to be more respected and better appreciated. As your correspondent has pointed out. every vowel in Maori is sounded. So is every syllable and though the accent is freely used, no svllable is accented almost out of existence as often happens in cultured English. In his first letter, I think, "Hoani Kai Iriiri" did not do justice to many Europeans who have mastered the Maori language mainly for the benefit of the Maori race, and I would be much stirprised if many of these Europeans did not pronounce quite as well as the Maoris themselves; in face, the Maori would be more hampered by dialect than the European. Perhaps "Loverj of English" has not heard of the Lon--don bus man on his way to one ol : the university towns. He kept calling ; out the names of all the places he { passed, " 'lgh 'Oban," etc., and at last a professor said, "Excuse me, Cabby, but I think you dropped something." The cabby's eyes twinkled as he replied, "I gets you. but we'll pick it hup again when we reaches Hoxford." So rcallv it is London where our lovers of English should start to preserve the accepted usages of pronunciation. —Yours, etc., T A August 19, 1934.