Some words in te reo have no parallels in English

Arecent enquiry into the meaning of the Māori word ‘‘ko’’ – particularly when the enquirer advised that he had been told that ‘‘ko’’ means ‘‘is’’ – has prompted reflections on an issue which has been addressed several times in this column but in relation to which some additional clarification, it’s hoped, may not go amiss.

In viewing another language from the perspective of one’s own first language, it may well seem quite logical to assume that a word in the other language must be translatable, even if only approximately, by a word in one’s own.

With closely related languages, as are English, French and German, such expectations can usually be realised. But te reo Māori is so different from English that in some types of constructions, there are words used for which there are no parallels in English.

Base words – nouns and verbs – do have translatable meaning.

For instance, the noun whare usually means (at least roughly) ‘‘house’’ or ‘‘building’’. But particles (the structural words) are by no means always translatable in this manner.

Two words which never match any English words are the personal article – a – and the focus preposition ko.

Thus, in the sentence E haere ana/a Rewi/ki te whare (‘‘Rewi is going to the house’’), the pattern of third phrase has a clear parallel in English.

In the first phrase, the particles E and ana, which enclose the verb base haere, may be explained as marking the tense of the verb (as ‘‘continuous’’). But there simply isn’t any translation for the particle a which precedes the name Rewi.

The word a in this context is called the personal article because it is used preceding personal names when they are the subject in a sentence (as in the above example).

This same word also occurs before names, personal pronouns and location nouns in certain other contexts. The sentence Ko Rewi/te rangatira may be translated ‘‘Rewi is the chief’’, but there’s no parallel between ko and ‘‘is’’; nor in Ko Rewi/ahau (‘‘I am Rewi’’) is there any parallel with ‘‘am’’.

The words ‘‘am’’ and ‘‘is’’ are parts of the English verb ‘‘to be’’ – and it’s one of the greatest differences between Māori and English that there’s no equivalent of this verb in Māori.

The ‘‘focus preposition’’ ko serves to direct attention to what follows. With no English equivalent for Ko, a literal translation of Ko Rewi/te Rangatira. is simply ‘‘[blank] Rewi/ the chief’’ – but if it’s wished to show, in print, some idea of the ‘‘focus’’ which ko supplies, a variant could possibly be ‘‘REWI [is] the chief’’.

David Kārena-Holmes is a New Zealand-born writer currently living in Nelson. A tutor of grammar since the 1980s, his third book on the subject is Te Reo Māori – the Basics Explained (Oratia Books, 2020). He is examining te reo grammar in a series of fortnightly articles.