Don Brash with Kim Hill. RNZ needs a new feature in their app

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Forums › Politics › Don Brash with Kim Hill. RNZ needs a new feature in their app - an optional Te Reo filter

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Networkn
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#1917176 12-Dec-2017 09:51

gzt:
Wikipedia: It is commonly abbreviated to "Para-Param", particularly by longer-term residents of European ethnicity, and simply "Pram" by local youth.

Is that a recent thing?

Well I recall it being used in my late teenage years and early 20's so not particularly.

Used mainly by my friends/associates at the time. Don't recall "adults" using it that much.

MikeAqua

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#1917215 12-Dec-2017 10:34

Varkk:

Paraparam is less of a shortening, more of a lazy anglicizing.

Good term.

Some lazy things happen with European place-names too. For example Han-mer (Springs) is usually pronounced Ham-ner. In Nelson there is a suburb called Enner Glynn, which most people pronounce Inner Glenn.

Both those examples are awkward but not difficult to pronounce as written. Do we have a tendency to revert to sounds that are easy to make?

Are we inherently linguistically lazy - the propensity for contraction and truncation suggests we are - e.g. didn't instead of did not, arvo instead of afternoon.

Is this laziness an inherently English language thing or does it happen in other languages too? I'm not familiar enough with any of them to know.

Mike

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#1917503 12-Dec-2017 15:56

networkn:

gzt:
Wikipedia: It is commonly abbreviated to "Para-Param", particularly by longer-term residents of European ethnicity, and simply "Pram" by local youth.

Is that a recent thing?

Well I recall it being used in my late teenage years and early 20's so not particularly.

Used mainly by my friends/associates at the time. Don't recall "adults" using it that much.

There were several people in the office when I worked in Wellington who referred to it as 'parapram' all the time. Likewise few people over here bother with the awkward extra 'ra' in Wairarapa - most call it "Wairapa".

networkn

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#1917513 12-Dec-2017 16:03

Geektastic:

networkn:

gzt:
Wikipedia: It is commonly abbreviated to "Para-Param", particularly by longer-term residents of European ethnicity, and simply "Pram" by local youth.

Is that a recent thing?

Well I recall it being used in my late teenage years and early 20's so not particularly.

Used mainly by my friends/associates at the time. Don't recall "adults" using it that much.

There were several people in the office when I worked in Wellington who referred to it as 'parapram' all the time. Likewise few people over here bother with the awkward extra 'ra' in Wairarapa - most call it "Wairapa".

Holy moly I have been having such a reading fail all these years, I have NEVER heard the extra pa said, when I look at it it's clearly there.

If I heard someone say the extra pa, I'd have assumed they were having a stroke, or talking about a different place.

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#1937468 12-Jan-2018 07:28

Torpor for Taupo.

6FIEND

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#1937670 12-Jan-2018 13:15

gzt: Torpor for Taupo.

That one gets me every time...

The Maori pronunciation for Taupo (as described to me by Tuwharetoa members) is "Toe" "Paw"

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#1937812 12-Jan-2018 19:12

I like the idea of putting the full name on the road sign: Taupō-nui-a-Tia

Makes more sense.

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#1941218 16-Jan-2018 22:29

and the capital to 'Te Whanganui a Tara'

gzt

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#1941326 17-Jan-2018 10:00

"Te Upoko o te Ika a Maui" seems like a prediction in hindsight.

MikeAqua

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#1941519 17-Jan-2018 13:38

I've been reconsidering this topic lately in light of Paul Moon's comments

http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2018/01/obsession-with-pronunciation-killing-te-reo-m-ori-historian.html

I think he has somewhat of point. Obsessing about diction doesn't get anyone very far.

Ordinarily to teach a language (first or subsequent) one would start with vocab then progress to grammar and syntax to allow simple sentences and aim to improve diction with usage along the way.

If you are over about 35 the mainstream education system didn't teach you very much Te Reo at all. Most non-Maori kids didn't learn how to physically make the correct sounds at an early age, when this would have been readily learn-able. I went to a school with 80% Maori kids in Rotorua but we were taught sod-all Te Reo. About an hour per week in the library/assembly hall where we mostly learned action songs.

By contrast my younger kids have good diction because they started learning at pre-school, when they absorb languages like sponge. This suggests to me that diction will improve continually over time, if people are patient. But this will have zero impact on fluency because they aren't learning language just words.

If advocates are serious about Te Reo becoming a widely used language in NZ, they need to stop scolding about diction and focus on teaching language.

Mike

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#1941546 17-Jan-2018 14:42

Agree completely with that one. Adults who learn another language can, with some effort, achieve reasonable fluency but the accent is often atrocious. Instead of bashing them for that, they should be praised for making the effort at all.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

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#1941615 17-Jan-2018 16:36

He's right.

Also, minor languages need to be used by those for whom they have cultural significance - and even then not everyone will bother. For example, Welsh is a minor language but the number of Welsh speakers even in Wales itself is not high - about 11%. The number outside Wales would be less than 1% by some margin.

If the native speakers wish to save their language, they must see to it. There also needs to be some point to learning it other than 'because we told you it was a good idea".

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#1946490 25-Jan-2018 11:09

Geektastic:

There also needs to be some point to learning it other than 'because we told you it was a good idea".

Agree. I call the "it's good for you" rationale the spinach argument.

At school the spinach argument saw us dragged to the ballet, the orchestra, particularity serious plays, musicals and even the opera. As a consequence I have been thoroughly inoculated against all those things and have visceral negative reaction to all of them.

Learning Te Reo (or any second langauge) would have been good for me at kindy or early in primary school. It would have aided my brain development and made it easier to learn languages later and decreased the likelihood of cognitive impairment in old age. The govt could have enforced it via the curriculum. In hindsight I wish they had. It's too late now - that critical development window closed decades ago.

Mike

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#1946518 25-Jan-2018 12:05

Bad diction applies also to English in this little country. With social media and the world becoming so small English will rule despite what anyone might want.

I agree with compulsory Te Reo up until secondary school only. At this point we must do better at teaching our kids for life, and Te Reo is not part of that.

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#1946589 25-Jan-2018 14:02

MikeAqua: Learning Te Reo (or any second langauge) would have been good for me at kindy or early in primary school. It would have aided my brain development and made it easier to learn languages later and decreased the likelihood of cognitive impairment in old age.

Agree. There may be some benefit for health statistics. Language teaching is a fairly specialised skill. Many preschools and early classes weave it into the curriculum. Imo that works well and can provide some basis for development.

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