Bruce Biggs - English-Maori, Maori-English Dictionary

ENGLISHMAORI
MAORIENGLISH
DICTIONARY

BRUCE BIGGS I am grateful to the following for valuable comments and corrections: Margaret Mutu, Mary Penfold, Hillary Pound, Kare Leathem and Peter Ranby. While they are in no sense responsible for those that remain, many errors were eliminated by their careful reading of my manuscript. First published 1990 Reprinted 1992, 1993, 1995, 1998, 2004, 2009 This ebook edition 2013
Auckland University Press University of Auckland Private Bag 92019, Auckland
www.press.auckland.ac.nz
eISBN 978 1 86940 641 7 Bruce Briggs 1990 This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism, or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without the prior permission of Auckland University Press. Typeset by Typocrafters Ltd While the four thousand or so entries in each section of this book leave it far from being a complete English-Maori and Maori-English dictionary, it has advantages over other available two-way dictionaries in that: 1. 2. 2.

Appropriate passive suffixes are indicated for passivable verbs (universals). 3. The quantity of all vowels is marked. 4. Maori words derived from English are included. Maori, like English, is a language that borrows words freely to express new concepts.

The criterion for inclusion in this dictionary is simply whether or not a word is used by those competent in the language. 5. For grammatical particles a reference is given to relevant sections of the grammar book Lets Learn Maori: a Guide to the Study of the Maori Language (rev. ed., 1973) by Bruce Biggs (hereafter cited as LLM).

Maori has ten consonant sounds, which are written as h, k, m, n, ng, p, r, t, w, wh. Like other Polynesian languages, Maori has just five vowel sounds.

They are represented conveniently by the five vowel letters of our English alphabet. Each vowel is either long or short. The distinction between long vowels and short vowels carries meaning and is all-pervasive (every vowel is either long or short). There is an extraordinarily persistent misconception that it is only necessary to mark a long vowel in a word to distinguish it from some other word which differs only by having a short vowel (e.g., papa, papaa). Nothing could be further from the truth. As every Maori vowel is either long or short, it is necessary to indicate the quantity of each and every one.

In this dictionary long vowels are written as double vowels. Single vowels are short. Most early and some contemporary Maori text does not distinguish between long and short vowels. Some recent texts distinguish long vowels by a macron or short bar placed over the vowel. Either convention should occasion no difficulty to users of this dictionary because of the alphabetic order adopted, which keeps Maori words differing only by vowel length in adjacent positions (see the section on Maori-English below). Hyphens are used in two ways in the dictionary: 1.

Before or after a space to indicate an affix (e.g., kite-a). This has no phonetic significance. 2. To join two words considered to be a sense unit (e.g., mata-uu (nipple)). In such cases the hyphen indicates that the components of the compound are pronounced as separate words.

It is not possible to define pronunciation precisely by the written word, but comparison with English words will be helpful to those unfamiliar with Maori. It is not possible to define pronunciation precisely by the written word, but comparison with English words will be helpful to those unfamiliar with Maori.

As the language is spelt phonemic-ally it is only necessary to indicate the pronunciation of each consonant and vowel, and each vowel combination (diphthong). The comparisons are with New Zealand English. For a more detailed discussion of Maori pronunciation see LLM, 54.

Pronounce h, k, m, n, p, r, t, w approximately as in English. Pronounce ng as in singer (not as in finger) and wh as f or as wh in whale. Pronounce short a as in mutt, long aa as in Haas: mata (raw), Maata (Martha), mataa (flint, bullet).

Pronounce e as in merry, ferry, ee as in Mary, fairy: keke (cake), kekee (creak), keekee (armpit). Pronounce i as in pip, ii as in peep: pipi (cockle), piipii (chick), pipii (ooze out). Pronounce o as in port, oo as in porn: poti (boat), pooti (vote), koko (corner), kookoo (parson bird or tui). Pronounce u as in put, uu as oo in pool: kuku (mussel), kuukuu (pigeon), puru (plug), puuru (bull).

Pronounce ae and aae as in sigh, ai and aai as in sighing: pae (perch), aae (yes), kainga (eaten), kaainga (home). Pronounce ao and aao as in cow (New Zealand pronunciation) and au and aau as in cow (Canadian pronunciation), and ou and oou as in low: tao (cook), kaao (no), tau (settle, perch), taau (your), tou (backside, bum), toou (your).

Pronounce ei as in hay and ie as in Russian nyet: kei (at), kiekie (a plant used in weaving). Pronounce eo and eu as in jello and Nehru, leaving out the consonants: reo (language), heu (shave). Rhyme ea with hair, ia with hear, oa with oar and ua with sewer: whea? (where?), whia? (how many), hoa (friend), hua (fruit). Pronounce oi as in boy and oe as in or wet leaving off the t: koi (sharp), koe (you). Rhyme iu with few and io with Rio: whiu (whip, punish), whio (whistle). (Words containing more than six vowels are stressed as two words even if written as one.) 1. (Words containing more than six vowels are stressed as two words even if written as one.) 1.

Stress the first long vowel, if there is one: MAArama, wheTUU, HAAngii, KOOhanga, wikiTOOria. 2. Stress a non-final diphthong if there is one: WAItangi, MAAOritanga, paRAAIhe, kaRAUna, AOtea, kapoREIhana. 3. If there is no double vowel and no non-final diphthong stress the first vowel in the word: WAhine, RAngatira, MArama, KAhawai.

The order of the English-Maori section follows the English alphabet. The order of the English-Maori section follows the English alphabet.

Each entry consists of an English word or phrase followed by a colon (:) and a Maori equivalent. Where there are several Maori words equivalent to the English headword, which is usually the case, each one is separated by a comma. In many cases the part of speech of the Maori word is indicated either by an appropriate passive ending (or parenthesised passive form) indicating a Universal, or by N, A, P, L or Pnl. indicating Noun, Stative-adjective, Participle, Locative, Personal respectively. Universals may be used nominally, and as active and passive verbs; Stative-adjectives may be used as nouns and as verbs, but do not take passive terminations; Participles are a subclass of Stative-adjectives which may not be used as nouns. Locatives are never used verbally and do not normally take an article; Personals take the Proper Article.

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