I used to live in Wellington! It's an adorable city, with great coffee & food, and a highly recommended visit if you're ever in Aotearoa. I appreciate the attempts made to introduce a level of...
I used to live in Wellington! It's an adorable city, with great coffee & food, and a highly recommended visit if you're ever in Aotearoa. I appreciate the attempts made to introduce a level of literacy of te reo into the city & populace, but this is absolutely not going to work (notwithstanding it's the typically inept WCC at the helm of implementation).
This quote stands out:
Whether or not most residents are aware of the policy, their engagement with te reo Māori looks set to increase simply through the steady implementation of these changes.
"Engagement" is used very loosely here. Is it "engagement" if you have an English speaker simply tell another English speaker to "meet at <location in te reo>? How is that engagement meaningful? Replacing english proper nouns with Maori proper nouns has little use, because the speakers are effectively ignoring the nuance behind the word and only care about it as a point in some geographic space. Given how utterly incognizant the majority of the population is, what is the conversion ratio behind someone mentioning a proper noun and actually giving any semblance of thought to its meaning?
I'd say the correct word here is "exposure". Which may be a positive first step, but it certainly doesn't seem like engagement to me.
It's equally pointless if locations continue to have English names too. You take a pre-existing name like "Civic Square" and complement it with "Te Ngākau", people will continue to follow the path of least resistance and choose something they are:
Able to easily pronounce—let's face it, those who are not literate in te reo often face some level of trouble with the soft "nga" or "wha" sounds, with lots of consecutive vowels.
Already familiar with, they grew up with that name.
Is still considered valid and an appropriate name.
And thus, "Civic Square" will continue to reign supreme. When you couple these changes with the stated policy:
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has publicly promoted te reo learning, calling for 1 million new speakers by 2040.
and
Ultimately, the Wellington City Council hopes to make the city bilingual by 2040.
It sounds like we're going to need to provide more than just Maori alternatives or replacements for place names if you're wanting to make one million people literate or an entire city bilingual, and you know what? I'm sick of pie in the sky "aspirational goals" that have no useful policy backing, or funding, to achieve anything close to that.
So why do governments & local councils make shit up? It's just empty promises which have zero hope of being fulfilled while maintaining a short term feel good factor. I support their intentions, but these implementations are woefully lacking and poorly targeted.
I used to live in Wellington! It's an adorable city, with great coffee & food, and a highly recommended visit if you're ever in Aotearoa. I appreciate the attempts made to introduce a level of literacy of te reo into the city & populace, but this is absolutely not going to work (notwithstanding it's the typically inept WCC at the helm of implementation).
This quote stands out:
"Engagement" is used very loosely here. Is it "engagement" if you have an English speaker simply tell another English speaker to "meet at <location in te reo>? How is that engagement meaningful? Replacing english proper nouns with Maori proper nouns has little use, because the speakers are effectively ignoring the nuance behind the word and only care about it as a point in some geographic space. Given how utterly incognizant the majority of the population is, what is the conversion ratio behind someone mentioning a proper noun and actually giving any semblance of thought to its meaning?
I'd say the correct word here is "exposure". Which may be a positive first step, but it certainly doesn't seem like engagement to me.
It's equally pointless if locations continue to have English names too. You take a pre-existing name like "Civic Square" and complement it with "Te Ngākau", people will continue to follow the path of least resistance and choose something they are:
And thus, "Civic Square" will continue to reign supreme. When you couple these changes with the stated policy:
and
It sounds like we're going to need to provide more than just Maori alternatives or replacements for place names if you're wanting to make one million people literate or an entire city bilingual, and you know what? I'm sick of pie in the sky "aspirational goals" that have no useful policy backing, or funding, to achieve anything close to that.
So why do governments & local councils make shit up? It's just empty promises which have zero hope of being fulfilled while maintaining a short term feel good factor. I support their intentions, but these implementations are woefully lacking and poorly targeted.