You sometimes have to smile at the confusion that can result from misguided attempts to display cultural sensitivity.
Many New Zealanders (me included) long ago dropped the “s” from the plural
form of Maori names and words, since there’s no “s” in the Maori language. Hence
Maoris became Maori, tuis became tui, pauas became paua and so forth – this despite
a valid argument that as long as the words were being used in English, the
English practice of adding the “s” should be followed.
Where it starts to get a bit silly is when people become so locked into the
habit of dropping the “s” that they reflexively start doing it with non-Maori
words too. There’s an example in a story about native birds in today’s Dominion Post, which quotes a Te Papa
bird expert as saying that “morepork were
common around Wellington”.
Hello? Morepork is an English word (onomatopoeic, since you
ask – the same bird is found in Tasmania, where it’s called the mopoke). Ergo,
the same practice should be followed as with the plurals of other English bird
names – for example, thrushes, seagulls, hawks. So, moreporks and fantails, though not tuis and wekas – or rurus or piwakawakas, come to that.
Because the morepork in this instance was mentioned in the context of birds that are commonly known by their Maori names, either the bird man or the reporter (I don't know which, because the bird man was quoted using reported speech) apparently couldn't see the distinction.
8 comments:
We are well along the way to developing a unique form of pidgin with simplified vocabulary and virtually no grammar which will become a curiosity for linguists and anthropologists to study, but which will be unintelligible to the rest of the world. It's all pert of the narrowing of the New Zealand mind which has been a neo-Marxist project in our universities and government for some decades.
Trev1 appears to me to draw a long bow when, as I take him to do, he sees a link between lazy language and “neo-nazism”. I understand that expression to refer to an ideology that encourages hatred, especially of selected minorities. My immediate struggle is with making a connection between aspirations of that kind and a dumbing down of language. Overshadowing that struggle is my inability to identify evidence supporting the wider proposition that New Zealand is the victim of a, pervasive of tertiary education and government at (presumably) national level, endeavour to promote “neo-nazism”. I would be grateful if somebody could point me to any such evidence.
Whoops! Trev1 of course referred to a “neo-Marxist” project not, as I wrote, “neo-nazism”. My carelessness! I would, however, have raised a like point as regards “neo-Marxist”. That because I see no connection between lazy language and any form of Marxist philosophy. Nor, for that matter, am I aware of any evidence of the “project” of which Trev1 speaks.
@Ruaridh: language is fundamental to our identity and culture. It constantly evolves as we can see from English with its readiness to accept words from other languages with which its speakers come into contact. Vocabulary is one thing, but grammar and syntax are in my view another. They are a language's deep structure and enable us to share ideas clearly and precisely. Fifty years or so ago the study of Latin in schools was a useful vehicle for conveying these concepts as well as being intrinsically valuable in itself. Today, not so much. In my working life I encountered many functionally illiterate newly minted graduates. The dumbing down of our educational system has been widely commented on. It has been accompanied by the denigration of Western civilization of which the English language is a pre-eminent expression. All part of the "long march through the institutions" of neo-Marxism in the past forty years.
While I agree with your comments, Karl, I think “morepork were common around Wellington” is easier on the ear than “moreporks were common around Wellington.”
I think this is because, in standard English, we say "we are eating pork tonight" not "we are eating porks tonight."
It's like sheep. And a number of other Old-English words with 1400 years of history. They stay the same in their plural.
Trev1: Thank you for your response. I am certainly with you in mourning the damage done to the English language- more specifically, perhaps, to education in its proper expression and use. I studied Latin at school and Roman Law at university. That taught me the importance of language structure. A much more recent experience as (for over 20 years) a part-time academic in a university faculty certainly confronted me with students studying for a career which has language at its centre who struggled to express themselves with clarity. And in a “retirement” occupation relating to standards of professional practice I all too often find myself confronted with well nigh unintelligible submission material. If we part company at all it would be on account my simply ascribing these deficiencies to the significant demographic changes we have seen over recent times (which in themselves I welcome for their diversity) and a general “dumbing down” of core elements of our education system.
You're right...it's an interesting influence we've absorbed from Maori. And what David said above, it 'fits' with English useage. 'All the deer' is another example. What trips off the toungue is important in modern useage.
...that should read 'tongue'. I tripped!
Post a Comment