MAORI-ENGLISH

New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 228, 5 November 1943, Page 3

MAORI-ENGLISH

Sir-I wish David Macdonald had gone further in his plea that the teaching of the phonetics of the Maori language be compulsory in our primary schools. I would have the language itself a compulsory subject, not for its own protection, but for the maintenance of pure English by pakehas. Having given the subject some thought, I come to the conclusion that only by the

practice of the Maori vowel ‘sounds can we be saved from the twang which is fast becoming characteristic of New Zealand speech. It is difficult to describe the chief fault of our pronunciation. But hear a Maori pronounce cow. The easiest way to explain what is happening to English in this country is to get someone to shape his mouth into a broad smile, but keep the teeth fairly close together and then speak a sentence; the flat, toneless result will be recognised as typical New Zealand speech if you add the oi and eow sound, The remedy is to acquire a language like Maori, with its lovely open vowels. I often feel if the people who hang on the words of radio announcers, readers and actors in the hope of catching them out in the mishandling of some unusual word or place name, would devote some of the energy to getting Maori spoken from the infant classes onwards, New Zealand might set the standard for musical

English.-

J.

T.

(Avondale).