New Post
Search
Help[Facts] Maori or Māori?
I noticed this website typically uses the name Maori (a not ā) to refer to the Indigenous people of NZ (and language/culture/etc) and was curious if there's a reason for this? Māori is definitely more correct, and there is a notable linguistic difference when a short vowel is used instead of a long vowel in Māori. E.g. papa and pāpā have very different meanings. If you were to write the latter without access to the macron character, it would be more correct to say paapaa.
1
Replies
I try to use the most common English form. In this case I suppose it could go either way, but I would like to use just one spelling consistently. Similar arguments could be made for Hawaiʻi and Guaraní, and probably a number of other terms appearing on this site.
1
I can't answer for the website, but my personal problem with Māori is the difficulty, especially on the Internet, of achieving that long ā. Here in South Africa one of our official languages has an assortment of diacritics, and many people modify their keyboards. We are also privileged to welcome Maori rugby teams, and All Black sides with Maori players, and I've never heard anyone pronounce Maori with a short a, including New Zealand commentators. Nobody intends to be discourteous, but convenience also matters.
1