Give te reo a chance to survive

For three hours every Tuesday I sit in a brightly lit classroom in central Auckland learning Te Reo Ma¯ori. I can say: “My name is Heather”, ”you should go” and “after this I’m going home”.

I’ve learned virtually all of us — even the try-hards — mispronounce Whangapara¯oa. The word doesn’t end with ro-ah. It’s ra-oh-ah.

I’ve also learned the importance of the little line above the vowels. If you forget the macron in the word ta¯ra, you won’t get the $20 you want. You’ll get 20 vaginas.

My class is made up of a surprising number of Asian foreign students, a Palestinian, a woman I think is German, at least one other foreigner and a smattering of mostly adult Kiwis.

I’m disappointed by the demographics. I wish there were more Kiwis in the class. Even better, I wish they learned the language at school.

Instead, this country treats Te Reo like a hassle. We’re too busy to learn, it’s too expensive to teach, there’s no business case because no one in China speaks it.

That was roughly the attitude this week when residents on the Kapiti Coast got worked up over a proposal to rename the unoriginal Main Rd.

Apparently, there is already enough Ma¯ori about the place and the proposed names are too hard to pronounce.

It’s true the Kapiti Coast has a lot of Ma¯ori place names. Raumati. Paraparaumu. Te Moana Rd.

But you could make the same argument in reverse. There are a lot of English names. Poplar Ave. Manly St. King Arthur Drive.

There is a certain irony in complaining about street names when one is named after a fictional hero in children’s books.

It’s also true some of the proposed names are daunting to pronounce. It takes a couple of attempts to get Rauoterangi and Unaiki properly formed in the mouth.

So don’t worry about getting it right. Mangle the pronunciation.

Who cares if you can say Ma¯tene te Whiwhi properly? As long as people know what you mean.

The militant defenders of Te Reo Ma¯ori will be furious at this suggestion. They’ll tell you it’s insulting to mispronounce the language, but ignore them. Because mangling language is something we do all the time. Mischievous doesn’t actually rhyme with devious. Women should rhyme with blimmin’. A hyperbole should not sound like something you can put your cereal into.

Wellesley should be said wells-lee. Wellington’s Marjoribanks St is pronounced march-banks. And Mainwaring Rd is pronounced mannering.

Are we killing English by stuffing up these words? No we’re not. Are we disrespecting it? No. Do we understand what the speaker means? Yes.

Puritans, you need to ease up on giving people grief for pronunciation.

It’s a surefire way of knocking their confidence and pushing them to give up.

And normal people —

Kapiti Coast

I’m talking to you — stop blocking the language.

We need to give Te Reo a chance. It’s in such a desperate state. Ma¯ori kids were still taking beatings for speaking it at school as recently as WWII. The best progress we can claim 80 years on is weather presenters do a nice job of Ma¯ori place names and some radio reporters sign off with a threeword Ma¯ori sentence. The more we expose ourselves to the language, the more likely it is my Te Reo class will one day be full of Kiwis.