Every name tells a story
We take pride in watching the haka, or hollering Tutira mai nga iwi. It’s about time we mastered basic placenames, write Rachel Clayton and Brooke Bath.
When Kris MacPherson was a child, she was discouraged from speaking Maori. It wasn’t until her own children made a point of pulling up their mumon her incorrect pronunciation of placenames that she learned the value of New Zealand’s native language.
‘‘That brought a selfconsciousness and a bit of humility about that stuff that I hadn’t had before,’’ the Aucklander says. ‘‘On one level it’s about respect… and it’s about a consciousness of the heritage of our country and the valuing of that.’’
The 60-year-old now attends Unitec’s wharenui, where any shame or articulation laziness is left at the door.
The school has more than 160 people learning the basics of te reo Maori, including the correct pronunciation of placenames, at Kura Po (night school).
Maori has been an official language of New Zealand since 1989. We take pride in watching the haka and during the Lions rugby tour in June, we hollered Tutira mai nga iwi to support our boys on the field.
But when it comes to pronouncing placenames, there’s a persistent attitude that things have ‘‘always’’ been said in a certain way, and that’s the way it should stay.
Mispronouncing names such as Rotorua, Paeroa, Manurewa and Taupo comes out of laziness, a lack of education and generations of adapting to simpler pronunciation.
It turns out we’ve even been singing Tutira mai nga iwi wrong since the 1960s.
Every place name has a story
When Te Whainoa Te Wiata was in school, few teachers could pronounce his name. It’s an issue he still struggles with today as a Maori language teacher at the University of Auckland.
‘‘My name comes from my great grandfather. I remember being in hospital when I was young and one of the nurses kept getting my name wrong,’’ he says.
‘‘Te Whainoa became ‘tee-fanoa’. My grandmother would get annoyed because it’s her father’s name. She said, ‘can you attempt to say his name properly’ and the nurse said, ‘oh no, you know who I’m talking about, it’s OK’.’’
But it wasn’t OK. Te Whainoa is an ancestral name and the sounds the name makes when spoken correctly derive from its meaning and mana.
Many may think it’s not a big issue, that the names of people and places like Te Whainoa, Taupo¯, and Rotorua, are only words and we all pronounce them differently.
‘‘People don’t realise how important pronunciation is to meaning,’’ Te Wiata says. ‘‘I just don’t know how it will change. You have third or fourth generations of families living in a place and they’ve all been pronouncing it wrong.
‘‘There’s a reason for its Maori name. Every placename has a story, every placename. I can’t stress that enough, every placename in New Zealand has a story.
‘‘If you’re not using that communication correctly, then what’s the point of opening your mouth?’’
There are those who will never change
Brooklyn Primary School te reo teacher Matt Breach, from Wellington, says he often comes across people who say they cannot pronounce Maori vowels.
‘‘People who have said it ‘their way’ for so long don’t think change is necessary,’’ he says. ‘‘It’s right and respectful and it’s time to value it.
‘‘People who are non-Maori can still pronounce just fine if the effort is made and there’s a willingness to try.’’ Television presenters, radio bulletins and even politicians pronouncing placenames incorrectly makes other believe it is acceptable, he says.
‘‘There are those people who will never change and never try, maybe because of their personal views of Maoridom as a whole. And there are those who have tried but maybe have not been successful and have been shot down for it and are reluctant to try because of fear of failing or embarrassment.
‘‘There used to be those people who thought, ‘why would you learn Maori, you can’t use it anywhere else in the world’. But those people missed the fact that you can use it here.
‘‘I quite often will use Pakeha words or English sounds to demonstrate that ‘a’ sounds as in ‘car’. Or that ‘nga’ sound is in the middle of ‘singer’. They’re not new letter sounds, people just need to take the time to know their mouths can say those sounds.’’
But there are those who will
For 24-year-old Auckland teacher Kate Cadzow, saying a placename correctly is just as important as getting a pupil’s name right.
‘‘It’s the simplest way of acknowledging Maori culture is important in New Zealand,’’ the Unitec student said. ‘‘When you say a child’s name correctly, you’re acknowledging to that child that they matter.
‘‘When you say a Maori name correctly, you’re saying that Maori community, the Maori culture and all that stuff matters in New Zealand.’’
Air New Zealand flight attendant Jonny Doogan, 23, says he’s ‘‘the first defence’’ when it comes to teaching tourists the correct way to pronounce a Maori placename.
‘‘I’m really proud to be a New Zealander and I’d like to share that and own it, because a lot of people don’t care or don’t take ownership of their pronunciation,’’ he says. ‘‘It’s also about respect… this is our home, our country and this is where we are from.’’
First generation Kiwi Joni Nelson’s parents came to New Zealand from Canada. The 23-yearold acknowledges she still makes mistakes when pronouncing places.
‘‘I feel ashamed of my own inability to pronounce words or names or say this language because I feel it’s an integral part of the space in which we are living.’’
Working to get people on board
How do you change the minds of a nation? The mass media play an imperative role in correct pronunciation, says Tim McCreanor, a Shore and Whariki Research Centre professor and expert in discourse analysis.
‘‘If a lot of New Zealanders are getting their main exposure to the Maori world through the mass media then that becomes enormously important.
‘‘When we get a situation like in New Zealand where society is quite stratified and there are tensions between different groups, the media play a massive role in telling the population who they are, who they’re not, what to think about and what to think.’’
Past movements, like the Native Schools Act 1867, phased out Maori from schools and made English the language of instruction. Many Maori children were punished for speaking their native language at school.
‘‘Up until the 1860s more Maori were literate in te reo than settlers were literate in English,’’ McCreanor says. ‘‘But there will always be diehard old-school folk who say, ‘that’s the way I heard it, so that’s the way it is’.
‘‘We need to work constructively to get people on board with the notion that te reo is a threatened language, if we’re not using it and using it in everyday situations it’s going to really struggle.
‘‘Maori are fighting a tremendous battle and succeeding strongly in revitalising the language.’’
For more information on Maori placenames, including what the names mean, visit NZ History.
"People who are non-Maori can still pronounce just fine if the effort is made and there's a willingness to try." Matt Breach, te reo teacher
"Te Whainoa became 'tee-fanoa'. My grandmother would get annoyed because it's her father's name." Te Whainoa TeWiata