Opinion: The addition of some te reo Māori words to the Oxford English Dictionary caused a stir earlier this year, with charges of assimilation – and worse. Such concern is understandable, given the history of appropriation of Māori culture, art and, of course, land.
However, I believe the concern here is misplaced. The inclusion of Māori words is neither new nor limited to the Oxford dictionary. More significantly for te reo, when words are taken from one language into another, it is the giver, not the taker, who acquires the mana.
“Borrowing”, as it is called, is universal. Whenever two communities communicate with one another, there will be a trade in words for many reasons. It can be an equal trade, but often it has been the result of conquest and colonisation. The majority of English words come from other languages: from the Vikings, from Latin, from the Normans. In each of these cases, English was the inferior language, the conquered people forced to accept foreign words to replace their own or to express new concepts.
The current debate about changing colonial place names back to their original Māori (such as restoring Russell to Kororāreka) reminds us that colonisers sometimes created their own names for places, flora and fauna which already had local names. For example, many fish, such as the blue cod (rāwaru), were given English names because of their resemblance to those found in European waters.
On the other hand, settlers accepted the Māori names of many trees, plants, fish and birds. Nīkau, kōwhai, kea, kākāpō – the list is huge. In the meantime, Māori borrowed a large number of kupu (words) from English. These include names of animals and concepts that the settlers brought with them: nūpepa (newspaper), hipi (sheep), kura (school or learning), kāwana (governor) kāwhe (calf) and so on.
But what happens to a word once it has been borrowed by another language? There is usually a process of “nativisation” in which the word is pronounced like other words in its new language. As a result, a child learning te reo Māori today may learn the words hipi, tēpu (table) and hōiho (horse) without realising that these kupu have been borrowed from English. They don’t sound or behave like English words any more (we don’t say “e toru aku hipis”); they have become Māori kupu.
For English, we call this anglicisation. Many of the Māori words borrowed by settlers were anglicised, so the New Zealand English expression “puckeroo” derives from Māori pakaru (broken). Names were given a similar treatment, such as Ngauranga (the Wellington suburb) pronounced as “NaRANGA”.
A singular bird
Sometimes, however, English retains the form and even the grammar of the original language. This is why we have the plural forms tableaux, fungi and criteria to show familiarity with French, Latin and Greek. These are the only languages that have been accorded this honour. Except Māori. Words of Māori origin in New Zealand English preserve the rule that they do not change in the plural (one kea, two kea).
The word kiwi itself provides an interesting contrast. Referring to the bird, it follows the above rule, but in English it also has a new meaning, “inhabitant of New Zealand”, (which has subsequently been borrowed back into Māori) and when used in this way it is normal to use Kiwis.
Māori words have actually appeared in English dictionaries since the 19th century. Possibly the earliest is kivi-kivi (for kiwi); it appears from the 1860s. Other words appear from the 1890s. Published in 1898 to record words regularly used by settlers, Austral English lists some 490 Māori words. The section of the first edition of the big Oxford Dictionary, published in 1908, had a range of bird and tree names including kea, kahikatea, karamu and kauri (it’s always easiest to search the Ks).
Of course, some readers may find the above information irrelevant, arguing that kupu Māori are taonga Māori and do not belong in English dictionaries. But we also need to consider why we need dictionaries in the first place. Once a language is written and literature develops, the number of words vastly increases. We can be sure that no one knows every English word, so we need some way to find out what an unknown word means.
Imagine a European negotiator reading a New Zealand trade document that contains words of Māori origin. How can they find out what these words mean? They may not even be aware that these words are Māori – only that they are used in an English context.
In addition, we should first be clear what a dictionary is. It is not a museum of looted artefacts, or a collection determined by the attitudes of its editors. A modern dictionary is based on corpora – huge samples of English language mostly from published texts. If a word often appears in an English language text without explanation, it is assumed that most monolingual English readers understand it – and it is therefore English.
A dictionary is a mirror to how we use a language. Requests have often been made to remove certain words or meanings because they are racist or offensive, but a dictionary’s job is not to censor but to explain how and when any word should be used, based on actual usage. Dictionaries simply record the language we use.
As a result, there is in fact no likelihood that Māori (or any other) words or meanings will be removed from dictionaries because they upset some people.
No other word for it
This may be of little comfort: it is just saying that the horse has well and truly bolted. But in fact, there is reason to celebrate rather than deplore the inclusion of kupu Māori in English dictionaries. When Māori borrowed English words instead of creating their own vocabulary, te reo was threatened. But when the borrower chooses to accept loan words, the situation is quite different. Why would anyone, writing in English, choose to use iwi, wahine, whānau, mahi, hapū, tangata whenua, mana motuhake and other Māori expressions? Doing so is an acknowledgment that English is unable to express these concepts in the way that the writer or speaker means them.
Anyone concerned about the treatment of Māori words might want to look up the online edition of the OED (which you might be able to access free through your library). For example, under “whanau” (without the macron) is the definition: “In Māori contexts: a family or community of related families, typically living together in the same area. In extended use: any group regarded as a community, or as having shared interests.” Four references are given: Witi Ihimaera’s Tangi and three newspapers. Is the meaning offered appropriate?
The fact that Māori kupu are now regularly used as part of English is an acceptance that the viewpoint of te ao Māori is different to that of te ao Pākehā and must be acknowledged. The fact that these words are now used not only in New Zealand but also overseas, as part of the most widely spoken language in the world, is evidence that te reo Māori cannot be seen as a language under threat but the voice of an indigenous people who will not be silenced.
No reira, kia kaha te reo Māori.
Marty Pilott is a linguist, author and retired teacher. He is also a collector of dictionaries and lives in Wellington.
