TACKLING TE REO MĀORI

As Peter Calder confesses to sometimes doing, I occasionally reach for the wrong word when my te reo Māori vocabulary draws a blank (“A long time coming”, July 14). I started learning te reo at school, more as a timetablefiller than anything else. And there it has remained.

The mic-drop moment of Calder’s piece was where he wrote, “As a nation, we pay lip service to the idea of biculturalism, but, in my experience, few Pākehā have the faintest sense of what it means. Māori have been living biculturally, year in, year out, for more than two centuries.”

Accepting that te reo has much to teach us about our country, our history and our lives, it will rightly become more popular among Pākehā.

When I’m asked why I did te reo at school – a question never asked of my other subjects – I defer to some variation of Calder’s “because it’s there”.

We squabble over how to achieve wider fluency, debating whether making the language compulsory in schools would be viable. I would say no: that in which we have choice holds far greater meaning over that in which we have no choice.

But I have renewed hope that we will achieve national fluency.

Fergus Byett (Rainbow Point, Taupō)

Te reo Māori makes us unique, yet many of us will never speak or understand it. Couldn’t we at least begin to say a few words correctly?

How about starting with that most popular of letters, “e”, as said in there or their, which produce the correct te reo sound. So, Te Papa or Waitākere should be easy.

Let’s give it a try in Māori Language Week from September 10-16.

Michael Dally (Levin)

were killed at war.

In some cases, they did not even know where they are buried. In other cases, there is a grave, but whether the remains of the body match the name on the headstone will never be known. In addition, not having one’s father, husband or son returned home is a pain that never quite goes away.

I am “fortunate” in that my father is buried in a war cemetery in the Netherlands, so I am able to visit when I can afford to do so. My husband’s father is buried in Myanmar, so until this year, a visit to his grave has been impossible. When we get there, we will still not know if his remains are actually there because they were moved at least twice, according to the War Graves Commission.

The Pike River families know where their men are. They have been allowed a grieving process and they can visit the site whenever they wish. Their men are together, not in lonely graves overseas.

Pike River is a modern-day tragedy, not war, but the principle remains – do not disturb the dead. Remember the miners, grieve for them and let them lie in peace.

Robin Peirce (Marton)