Citizens Say-—

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 920, 13 March 1930, Page 10

Citizens Say- —

(To the Editor.)

FINANCIAL CYCLES Sir. — Mr. Davies is wrong when he says, vido his letter in ydur valuable issue of March 6, “that £ 1 invested for ;i----thousand years and one thousand £l’s for one year are much on a par.” £ 1 invested for even 150 years at compound interest, 5 per cent., would amount to over £824, while. £l5O invested for one year would amount to only £157 10s, and the longer the original £1 compounded the more rapidly would the debt increase, until in less than a thousand years, if the whole world w r ere made of solid gold it would be insufficient to pay the debt Surely this is a sufficient reason for the necessity of periodical losses to balance matters. The truth is that exactly the same law applies to the compounding of money, as Malthus showed existed to check the multiplication of species beyond the bounds of subsistence. Malthus showed that this tendency to multiply in a geometrical ratio, was being perpetually checked by wars, famines, disease, vice, etc., and it can be as clearly shown that the perpetual compounding of money is only checked by constant and periodical losses all over the world. In America it is said that only five persons in every 100 permanently succeed. No doubt the same law holds good all over the world. Almost every day I come in contact with persons who have lost money in one way or another. I maintain that the only way to remedy this state of affairs is to compel all persons who have amassed a fortune to convert the bulk of their wealth into a life annuity, or failing this, leave it at death to the whole community. C. P. W. LONGDILL. RELIGION IN RUSSIA Sir. — A fortnight ago I was listening-in on a friend’s wireless set on Sunday evening and I heard a preacher of the gospel (who shall be namele. s), fulminating on “the iniquitous persecution of our Russian brothers and sisters,” to use his own phraseology. What a satire it is upon our so-called civilisation when ministers of the gospel can so far forget the spirit of the Master, whom they are supposed to serve as to broadcast such statements without first making an exhaustive effort to ascertain whether nr not they are true! “Judge not that ye be not judged,” says the scripture, “for with what measure ye mete it shall be measured to ye again.” By whose or what authority do these men constitute themselves both judge and

jury in the absence of definite evidence either for the prosecution or the defence J.M.J. Whangarei. MAORI PRONUNCIATION Sir. — “Waipapakauri” has requested some information regarding the pronunciation of Maori, and as I have long regretted this “brutal clipping” of native names I shall endeavour to explain as clearly as possible. In the first place it is all > a matter of vowel sounds, every vowel being pronounced, and no two consonants being together. In the Maori alphabet we have: Vowels, A, E, I. O. U; consonants, 11, K, M, X, R, R, T, W, Ng and Wh. The Xg and Wh represent sounds for which there are no equivalents in English. The vowels are pronounced as correctly as I can explain thus: A, ah; E, eh; I, ee; O, a short sound is in or; U, 00. The accent is nearly always on the first syllable, but when the accent is in the middle or the rear of a word the vowel is usually doubled as in Mata-atua, pronounced in Eng* lish as Ma-tar-tooa. There are reallv no diphthongs, but the following ar* examples of vowel combinations wrongly regarded as such:—AE is pronounced Ah-eh; AI, as ali-ee (as “eye” in English); AO, as ah-or; AU, as ah-oo; El, as ehr-ee (like “neigh’ in English), and OU, as or-00. The above represent long sounds. There are short sounds, but as it may confuse the beginner one example will suffice Let us take the word Wai-te-mata, which represents in the first letter A. the long sound, and in the second A. the short sound. In English it is Wah-ee-teh-mutta. The letter E in Maori must be carefully pronounced. It must never be said as A in the English word “pay.” Such a sound in Maori is represented by two letters, El, which when pronounced correctly, eh-ee, gives ns A. as in “pay.” All the above may be mastered with a little practice, but with the Xg and the Wh sounds comes the real difficulty. As mentioned before, both sounds are wanting in English. Ng is pronounced as X, except that the tongue must be kept in the back of the throat to produce a nasal sound. We get it in the word “singing” (si-ngi-ng). Xg is always coupled with a vowel, as Nga, Xge, etc., and we must be careful when writing Maori never to break a word between the Xg and the vowel. The Wh is often said as F, but this is not quite correct, although much better than treating it as a W. It is more correctly rendered by emitting the breath sharply through the te*nh when using the letter H. This sound is rather difficult to explain and is

best learned by listening to some Maori. While talking of the letter H it would be as well to note that there are no silent letters in the language, and the II must be always aspiratedNo real progress can bo made in the study of Maori until the ear is taught to determine the value of every vowel, and the tru sounds of the vowels in this ton.*yt;. are subject to no c! ange. There is one other thing that may b* mentioned and that is the practice ot spelling some place r.ames as two words when in reality they should be printed as one. Kuwa Kawa should be Kawakawa, Kohe Kohe should be Kohekohe. etc. Like “Waipapakauri X regret the mispronunciation of our native names, and it would seem that some people have gone out of the way to invent weird and wonderful ways of pronouncing quite simple words. Neaf here is a place called Wai-kouk:u, )« us say "Why-cocoa” in English. n is locally known as * Why-goo -goo. Then again we have Ihu-matao pronounced with a letter S, as "Ishumatter.” 1 think the difficulty could he overcome if Maori pronunciation was made a subject in our schools and once learned, the spelling of the,"west formidable-looking native nact/. * s quite easy. There is one person 4) beware of, and he is the one who ima-xmes we are putting on airs when w-e enciahvour to pronounce Maori names correctly. Needless to say ho is the one who will discourage the children from learning it, for they, like ours«lv«J>t are very sensitive to ridicule. L. G. KELLYHelensville.