NAMES OF PLACES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 77, Issue 107, 8 May 1934, Page 7

NAMES OF PLACES

SPELLING MAORI WORDS AVOIDING USE OF HYPHEN GEOGRAPHIC BOARD’S LEAD Tho proper spelling of Maori names is a question to which considerable attention is devoted in the bulletin issued by the New Zealand Geographic Board in explanation of its work. It is considered desirable by the board that the uso of hyphens to connect parts of Maori names should be avoided. For instance, Pari-wheru should be written Pariwhero, for, although the name means red «cliff, it should follow English usage, which writes Redcliff. Tho difference is in tho pronunciation as well as in the form. In tho descriptive term both words are accented and there is a slight pause between them. In the name there is no pause and the second word of the pair drops its accent. It. is admitted that in compounded words there are advantages in the use of the hyphen; it is a kind of verbal crutch. Were the hyphen used in the word Wai-whetu (starry water) we might not hear the mispronunciation which accents tho first and last syllables, making the name Waiwe ru (although tho last syllable in this name happens to be long). This alteration of accent leads to disaster in Maori words where there is little accent on any syllable and almost equal accent on all, as in French. Maoris Disown MoeraAgain in Moe-ra (sunny sleep), a suburb in the Hutt Valley, the hyphen division would perhaps prevent the mispronunciation, almost worse then the previous one, Mo-era, now in common use. This name is apparently of pakeha manufacture; the Maori does not recognise it as Maori. Still, says tho bulletin, if intended as Maori, it should have the mellifluous Maori pronunciation. The board recommends that there should be no internal capital in any place-name as ordinarily written, but, when the name is divided by hyphens to show its constituent parts, then the capital may appear, and will be of assistance when it does appear, as in Whanganui-a-Tara, the Maori name of Wellington harbour.

There is another almost parallel question which, fortunately, the bulletin observes, does not trouble the board at present—that is, the form of Maori tribal names. Should the name be Ngati Awa, or Ngati-Awa, or Ngati-awa, or Ngatiawa? If we go to British parallels we have McLean, M’Lean, Mac Lean, Maclean, and there may be others. The board offers its opinion that for uniformity sake it would probably be best to adopt Ngati Awa. No decision on the point has, however, been made. Names like Tokatoka and Hakahaka should not be written Toka Toka and Haka Haka, Toka-Toka and HakaHaka, or Toka-toka and Haka-haka. Those re-duplications in Maori are not separate words but one word —werewcra moaning somewhat warm and wera hot. The division suggests a pause between the parts which does not exist any more than it exists in our own re-duplications papa and mama.

Language Combinations. Another rule adopted is that names consisting of more than one word may be connected by hyphens or combined in one word as may be advisable. Such names are Half Moon Bay, Green Meadows, Green Valley, Black Hill. These are at present usually so written, but may equally well be written as one word with or without hyphen, and will no doubt in time be written in one word in the way that Greenhills, Greenpark, Greenvale and Blackmount already are. There is the occasional euphonious combination of English or Scottish and Maori as in Glenomaru and the beautiful Glcniti. The present Glen Murray will no doubt in time become Glenmurray, the proper name, like the Tara in Whanganui-a-Tara, retarding the union for some time but not preventing it. Greek and Maori are combined euphoniously in Monowai, the name given to an otherwise unnamed mountain lake in Otago. It was fed by one river and the name-giver, James McKerrow, could not remember (or did not know) the Maori word for one, so he used the Greek mono and the Maori wai. In the New Zealand Index for 1921 there is a name Waiawa Wanika Falls, given to the falls 85 feet high near Waimate North. This name is said to mean rainbow, but it is a mistaken spelling as well as a mistaken division, being evidently a corruption and bisection of the single beautiful word Waianiwaniwa. This name the poetic Maori has himself given as a placename —one word (wai, water, and aniwaniwa, rainbow). Original Meaning of Greek. The board considers the term brook or stream preferable to creek for designating small streams, and this will be adopted in cases where the lattZr has not been firmly fixed. The word creek, originally meaning a small arm of the sea, has become so well known in our many-streamed islands as applied to small streams far from the sea, says the bulletin, that many of us have grown up with that name as constantly in our cars as the sound of the creeks themselves coursing over their beds of glacier-shingle.

It is suggested by the board that the initial letters of generic or descriptive parts of geographical names, when used in reports or other documents, should not be in capitals. The west coast of Canterbury, a province whose boundaries originally extended from sea to sea, came to be written West Coast when Westland was intended. and, long after the province divided off from Canterbury was called Westland, people coming from it were called West Coasters or Coasters, the terms being supposedly synonymous with “good fellows” or “good mixers.” Seddon was always known as a West Coaster, not a Westlander. Native Westland Spirit. If, in writing of the West Coast, the west coast of the North Island were intended, the fact had to be specified —still has, in fact, for so übiquitous has the native Westland spirit become that if the West Coast is mentioned it is assumed that Westland is intended. So the East Coast came to oe applied to the middle east coast of the North Island, say, from Hawke

Bay to the East Cape. As knowledge of the coasts and the included country becomes more and more extended, the less meaning have these special capitalisings, which should therefore oe dropped. In order to observe consistency, the words mount, bay, pass, etc., have been printed in the bulletin without capitals. It is explained that in English most of such substantives have long been decapitalised, and, while the habit still lingers on the continent of Europe, it is being broken.