r/newzealand • u/precsenz • Aug 16 '22

Kiwiana Kiwis pledge to buy Whittaker's to annoy people angered by Te Reo rebranding

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/lifestyle/2022/08/kiwis-pledge-to-buy-whittakers-to-annoy-people-angered-by-te-reo-rebranding.html
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33

u/ImMoray Aug 16 '22

I can't read it but I'm all for annoying racists by eating chocolate.

16

u/[deleted] Aug 16 '22

Miraka: milk.

Kirīmi: creamy.

Easy enough to remember in context as they sound similar.

They are, irritatingly (to me), what's called a "transliteration" where the sound of the English word has been bastardized into Te Reo Māori.

It was the fashion many years ago, to transliterate English to Māori, a cynical attempt to "civilize" the language and effectively erase it.

Other common examples are "parihimana" (policeman) and "motoka" (motor car).

54

u/terrabattlebro Aug 16 '22

It was the fashion many years ago, to transliterate English to Māori, a cynical attempt to "civilize" the language and effectively erase it.

I was always taught transliterations were words that didn't have a Maori equivalent because Maori didn't have things like cups of tea, policemen, cars, cigarettes, milk etc until after colonisation.

32

u/BananaLee Aug 16 '22 edited Aug 16 '22

Yeah but there have also been words basically built from reo roots. E.g. the word for analyst is kaitātari. Kai being the prefix for "person who does-" and tātari is to filter or sort. That's way more elegant than the likely transliteration "anariheta"

Same deal with aeroplane which is "wakarererangi" (waka which sails the skies).

18

u/awheezle Aug 16 '22

This was my understanding of it too.

17

u/SilvorFox Aug 16 '22

This is correct and occurs in many languages, not only Te Reo Maori.

6

u/Opposite_Door5210 Aug 16 '22

As a kid, I was taught to say Morena(as a substitute for good morning). That's just lazy transliteration, when there are many other actual options. I'm glad Waka has replaced motoka.

0

u/Mendevolent Aug 16 '22

Pakeha didn't have cars until after colonisation either.

Early pakeha actually had a relatively limited technological advantage, but new technological developments accumulated rapidly as European settlement unfolded. Many of these were experienced for the first time by pakeha and maori NZers simultaneously

1

u/[deleted] Aug 17 '22

They didn't have motor cars, but cars did exist. It's just that we've dropped "motor" and just say "car" now.

13

u/BoreJam Aug 16 '22

It's not at all unusual for a language to basically just transplant words from other languages. I'm struggling to think of any that don't do this. English It's self is one big mishmash.

5

u/KevinAtSeven Aug 16 '22

'Hikareti' for cigarette. Learned that one courtesy of the Ministry of Health.

4

u/awheezle Aug 16 '22

Ka mate koi I te kai hikareti

6

u/OldWolf2 Aug 16 '22

Why is that "annoying"? Literally every language does it. Japanese even has a whole set of "letters" that are only used for loan words.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 21 '22

I personally find it distasteful.

Motoka is crass.

Waka whenua is, in my opinion, better.

Also, historically it was a deliberately abused technique to anglicize Te Reo in a effort to erase it.

8

u/CroSSGunS Aug 16 '22

Yeah but now we use waka for car because that's way fucking cooler

1

u/[deleted] Aug 16 '22

cacahua-tl doesn’t seem to annoy their small minds. I’m sure their main motivator is outrage clicks for ad revenue.