Sir-A. H. Reed, of Dunedin, asks: * .. If WHANGAREI is correct, how explain the phonetic spelling of the early missionaries -- WANGARE?" I have often wondered if anyone could explain the "phonetic" spelling of the early missionaries. Their spelling certainly gives one no clue to the correct pronunciation of Maori place names. It appears to be a law unto itself. In the first edition of Captain Cook’s journal his spellings of Maori place names, as they sounded to him, are much nearer the mark. If they had been adopted many horrible distortions would have been avoided. It is the same with Chinese place names and other words. The arbitrary spelling of the early missionaries there gives us pronunciations which are very wide of the mark. For instance, in Mandarin (the official language of China from the Manchu conquest until the end of the Empire in 1911) Peking- is pronounced BAYJING, Moa Tse Tung is MOW DZER DUNG, and Chiang Kai Shek is GEEANG KAI SHEK. ARPAD SZIGETVARY (Auckland).
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19540611.2.12.3
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 777, 11 June 1954, Page 5
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166Untitled New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 777, 11 June 1954, Page 5
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