Māori Language and Culture in New Zealand

I told you in the last post that you would find it interesting how I came across this culture of people. I was watching an episode of a tv show called Lost and found about people in New Zealand looking for Biological family. There were a few that were of Māori heritage.

The Māori people in New Zealand originated from Eastern Polynesia in the 1300's. In the 18th Century arrivals of Europeans to New Zealand, brought changes to the Māori way of life. As other cultures sometimes do the Māori starting adopting some of the western culture into their daily lives.

Information taken from census records from 2000 - 2018 shows there were 939,853 Māori people living in New Zealand, Australia, United Kingdom, United States, Canada and other regions. 775,836 of those are residing in New Zealand, making up 16.5% of the Māori people.

The Māori language also known as te reo Māori or just Te Reo which means "The Language". Before contact with the European people Māori did not have a writing system, it was memorized and taught and passed down through generations. In 1817 they went on a quest to construct a written language for Māori. By 1830 they had a written Language.

The Māori alphabet has 15 letters two that are digraphs. A E H I K M N O P R T U W NG AND WH. The 5 vowels have short and long forms the long forms have a macron above them- Ā Ē Ī Ō Ū . There are so many resoures out there to learn about the Māori. Below I will leave the books that I purchased to read and learn from. Don't forget about your local libraries also they are a great resource. The video below is from YouTube and is a wedding video that took place in New Zealand and both bride and groom are Māori. In the video they also tell you about some of their customs. You will hear a native Māori speaking the language and the wedding party performs a traditional Haka, which the meaning is also explained in the video.

Hope you enjoyed this short look into the Māori people and Language. The topic of my next post will be a mystery to you and me. Don't forget to leave a comment if you have any Language you want me to talk about and I'll see what I can do!

English: Have a great day

Māori : Kia pai to ra

Learning a New Language My First Steps

So far I have only done a few things to start. I have a full time job and some other side hustles working with graphics. So time learning a new language is limited. I have some notebooks ready to use for the designated Languages I want to try. I went on pinterest and printed out different things in each language I am interested in, that way I can practice writing some words or alphabet.

I started with Japanese I feel like it will be a good Challenge. Japanese has 3 writing systems. Hirigana, Katakana and Kanji. So I will try one at a time. As I get more interested in learning the more I do. It's good to practice, practice, practice especially the alphabet. If the languange you are studying is new to you, look up some YouTube videos of people speaking that language to get the pronunciation, Tone, accent. I have a friend that their family is from Puerto Rico. One of the family members lived in Alabama, they said it was funny listening to the kids speak spanish with a southern accent.

I'm sure Japanese will take quite a while Because I do not have 5 hours a day to focus on it. Try to learn what you can about the culture and history of the language you are learning. I believe that learning about the culture helps you in your Language learning journey. Learning Japanese will be hard for some people but not everyone and did you know that Japanese has different ways of speaking? But you don't need to even try to learn this until much later. It's like we do in English. You would speak differently to your friend than you would to your parents and you would speak differently to your boss than you would your parents.

Next blog post I'm going to talk about a Language I learned about recently. You'll get a good laugh on how I found out about this Language. Hope you come back to check it out. As always leave a comment about what language you would like to learn. If you have a Language you want me to research and talk about let me know what it is and I'lln see what I can do! Until next time I leave you with this...

こんにちはお読みいただきありがとうございます

Kon'nichiwa o yomi itadaki arigatōgozaimasu

Good afternoon Thank you for reading

Starting The Journey

This is something new to me especially at my age. I have always wanted to learn anything and everything about a subject I'm introduced to, such as, my work, crafts, people from the past. I am always researching. In the past few years I have been into researching languages and cultures that go with them. I started with French because I took it in highschool and I was really surprised at how much I remembered. I also added Japanese to my list as I find it interesting.

There are so many resources these days that can help you learn. I have found so many resources on Pinterest I made a board and continue to add to new things I find. You can find Language Learning groups on Facebook so far everyone in the groups have been helpful and very kind to newbies.

One thing I never thought about when I started wanting to learn other languages was that for people who do not speak English learn it the way we learn their Language. I have heard from a few people how hard it was to learn English because we have so much slang and words that sound the same but are spelled different and mean different things, such as They're, Their, There. Even Native English speakers have problems with those words.

In the coming blog posts I will share what information I gather along my Language Journey. Right now I'm looking around at Japanese, Spanish, French, German, Icelandic, Swedish and ASL. I don't only look at the Language I look at the countries that speak these languages the history of the language and the people. It's amazing the things you learn about places and Culture. I am researching every country I can find to make a list of what countries speak what languages.

I leave you with a video from a YouTube channel called WikiTongues it shows people speaking different languages and some languages I have never heard of. They also show videos of people speaking languages that are near extinct. I am of the mindset that we should not let any Language die, it's a part of our history.

Please leave a comment below and tell us about your language or what Languages your are looking to know more about or maybe you want to learn a language. Have a great day!

KarenH