The Maori language is everywhere here. Not only are most of the place names Maori, but some official signs are bilingual ('smoking kills'; 'do not tread on the native plants;' etc), the government agencies all have Maori names alongside the English ones, and there's a Maori language television station. How's a linguist going to pass the time on those long winding ascents if not by trying to figure out something about this excellent language? Of course, if she were in a city, she could buy a book -- but then she'd have to carry it up the hills. And if there were internet access at the frequent roadside fruitstands, instead of all those fine kiwis, pears, apples, and peaches, she could look at the wiki(kiwi?)pedia entry. But in the absence of reference materials, here's a first installment of what your roving linguistic reporter thinks she's figured out. She reserves the right to correct anything and everything when she gets home and looks it up.
Like many Oceanic languages in the Pacific (for instance Hawaian, to which it is pretty closely related), Maori does not have a whole lot of consonants. There are 9: p, t, k, h, m, n,ng, r, w, and a mysterious 10th one that is spelled 'wh'. (By comparison, English has over 20). Our first night in NZ, our hosts at the Herons Nest B&B explained to us that everyone (meaning, I think, New Zealanders of European descent) used to pronounce this mysterious consonant 'w' so that 'waka' (canoe) and 'whaka' (act like a), for instance, sounded the same. But now "we are supposed to pronounce 'wh' as 'f'." So 'whaka' is pronounced 'faka'. I hear non-Maori New Zealanders doing this about half the time. Haven't gotten to talk to any Maori speakers about it yet. Now, as the linguists reading this blog will tell you, it would be pretty weird for a self-respecting consonant-shy language to choose 'f' as its 10th consonant. (Try getting your Korean-native-speaking friends to pronounce an 'f'. And Korean has twice as many consonansts as Maori.) 'f' is a pretty lousy excuse for a consonant --hard to hear, rare even among languages with plenty of consonants. If a language is going to have one single noisy 'fricative' consonant, I always learned it'd be an 's' or maybe an 'sh'. Something you can hear across a crowded room or when the kids are scraping a stick along the side of the road as you walk. So my question of the day -- feel free to speculate in the comments section -- what the heck does 'wh' really represent in the Maori language? Was 'f' chosen as a compromise that English speakers could manage?
Since Maori doesn't have all that many consonants, it relies on two things to make its words different from eachother: vowels (more in the next linguistic post) and long, long words. You are not allowed to put two consonants next to eachother in Maori, but as you can see from the name of the language, you can put two vowels next to eachother. And you can make nice long words. In the last few days, we have been in Whangamata, Katikati (more about those reduplicated forms yet another time), Whenuakite and Whiritoa, and tomorrow we hope to reach Whakatane. The longest place name in the world is reputed to be this one from the east coast of the north island: Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu*. You have enough info now to check on me -- did I leave any consonants off the list?
*Our guidebook says this means 'The brow of a hill where Tamatea, the man with the big knees, who slid, climbed, and swallowed mountains, known as land-eater, played his flute to his brother.' There's a really sad story associated with the place, as Tamatea's brother was killed in battle here and he's playing a lament.
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