Vocabulary Lesson #1: Vowels, Consonants, and Macrons

Language is central to the cultural identity of both the individual and community, and New Zealand seems to have a very successful way of blending the two national languages, English and Maori, to create a very unique hybrid language that recognizes past and present. My time in this part of the world is an excellent opportunity to add some new words and phrases to my microscopic repertoire of foreign languages.

So, for those of you interested in learning with me, I encourage you to pick up on a few of the language rules associated with vowels, consonants, and macrons (where's a Wheel of Fortune when you need one?!?!). Here goes:


Vowels

Each of the vowels has a long and short form:

short a
a as u in butt
long a
ā as a in father
short e
e as e in pen
long e
ē as ai in pair
short i
i as i in bit
long i
ī as ee in feet
short o
o as o in fort
long o
ō as o in store
short u
u as u in put
long u
ū as oo in boot

Consonants

Maori words are broken into syllables at each vowel or Consonant-Vowel pair.

For example:

Akatarawa
is said A ka ta ra wa
Māori
is said Maa o ri
Paraparaumu
is said Pa ra pa ra u mu
Petone
is said Pe to ne
Whangarei
is said Whanga rei

Macron usage

In written Māori, the long vowels are often denoted by macrons (bars over the letters) or whatever similar characters were available to the typesetter. Sometimes the vowel letter is repeated for long vowels.

Macrons are not normally used when a Maori word has been adopted into English and they do not generally appear on direction signs or maps.

Thus Māori, Maaori and Maori all represent the same word, and usage will depend on the style of the writer and whatever conventions were in place when the article was written. The most recent Māori Language articles will use macron over the long vowels. This will probably only happen in English if the writer is, or the article concerns Maori.

Since this is the first of my vocabulary lesson postings, I thought I'd throw a few useful terms in with the collection of fun ones I've picked up so far.

1) Te Wai Pounamu = South Island (of NZ)
2) Aotearoa = New Zealand
3) Hongi = greeting by pressing noses together, not to be confused with "hangi"
4) Hangi = style of cooking food in an earth oven
5) Powhiri = Maori welcoming ceremony
6) Haka = war dance and song (go All Blacks!)
7) Iwi = tribe; people
8) Moko = tattoos incised on the face, bum, and thighs of men, and the lips and chins of women
9) Waiata = songs
10) Maunga = mountain

Unlike Canada, products in NZ are not required to publish both languages. I find myself looking at products and expecting that one side of the box is going to be in French, and then I realize that there is an entire side of MORE information to read. Makes my morning reading material a bit more lengthy.

More to come,

L.