New Zealand

[GUEST2008]

Hi

Are there any New Zealanders here?

I'd like to ask about these two phrases:

1. Kia Ora
2. Ka kite ano

shall I read the first one: (kaja ora?) and the second one (ka kajte ano?)

what do they mean exactly?

thanks

[Raymott]

Originally Posted by GUEST2008

Hi

Are there any New Zealanders here?

I'd like to ask about these two phrases:

1. Kia Ora
2. Ka kite ano

shall I read the first one: (kaja ora?) and the second one (ka kajte ano?)

what do they mean exactly?

thanks

If Stuart_NZ is around, he can correct me.
Maori vowels (like all Polynesian vowels) are the pure /a/e/i/o/u/ vowels of, say, Italian.
The pronunciation is phonetic /kia ora/, /ka kito ano/
i is /i/ as in English "me, ee, be".
Also look here:
Kia ora - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[stuartnz]

Originally Posted by Raymott

If Stuart_NZ is around, he can correct me.
Maori vowels (like all Polynesian vowels) are the pure /a/e/i/o/u/ vowels of, say, Italian.
The pronunciation is phonetic /kia ora/, /ka kito ano/
i is /i/ as in English "me, ee, be".
Also look here:
Kia ora - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nothing to correct there, Raymott. Your use of Italian as a comparison for the vowels was spot on, by the way. When I was in San Marino, I asked some Sammarinese and Italian friends to say "kia ora" and "ka kite ano" after I had written them out, and they all pronounced them both perfectly. Apparently Māori soldiers serving in Italy during WWII found Italian easy to pick up because of the vowels and because of Italian's preference for ending words with vowels.

The thing to remember, as Raymott pointed out, is that vowels are not diphthongs. "kia" has TWO vowel sounds, and so Aotearoa has six separate vowels, not three diphthongs. It's a quite fun mastering the art of saying the vowels separately but together in the Māori fashion. Māori does have long and short vowels, the long being indicated with a macron, as in Māori. There is a truly excellent Māori-English dictionary online now at
Māori Dictionary. Noho ora mai!

[Raymott]

Originally Posted by stuartnz

Nothing to correct there, Raymott.

That's a relief.
Actually I'm doing a linguistics paper at the moment on regional differences in AusE and NZE. /əts sta:təng tə sɪnd mi bɛtty/

[stuartnz]

Originally Posted by Raymott

That's a relief.
Actually I'm doing a linguistics paper at the moment on regional differences in AusE and NZE. /əts sta:təng tə sɪnd mi bɛtty/

That sounds interesting. If you come across any papers online that deal with this subject, I'd love to add links to them to my list of links. Currently I have only one link on the subject, to a Wikipedia page. So I'd love some more reputable references if they are available online. Oh, and no matter how many languages I dabble in, I don't think I'll ever bother with IPA.

[Raymott]

Originally Posted by stuartnz

That sounds interesting. If you come across any papers online that deal with this subject, I'd love to add links to them to my list of links. Currently I have only one link on the subject, to a Wikipedia page. So I'd love some more reputable references if they are available online. Oh, and no matter how many languages I dabble in, I don't think I'll ever bother with IPA.

My sources are mainly academic journals from my University's free online journal subscriptions - not many webpages. But here's one I found:
NZ English

[stuartnz]

Originally Posted by Raymott

My sources are mainly academic journals from my University's free online journal subscriptions - not many webpages. But here's one I found:
NZ English

Thanks, I have that one. I'm always on the look out for publicly available online resources that could help educate non-Anzacs on the differences between our flavours of English.

[stuartnz]

The Wikipedia article does not mention that "kia ora" is the standard way of saying "thank you" in Māori. As for "ka kite ano", the dictionary I linked to frowns on it as an informal and incorrect abbreviation of a longer phrase of farewell. Prescriptivist ire notwithstanding, "ka kite ano", or even more concisely "ka kite", is a VERY common way of saying "see you" in Māori English and is growing in use in standard NZ English.

[Raymott]

Originally Posted by stuartnz

The Wikipedia article does not mention that "kia ora" is the standard way of saying "thank you" in Māori. As for "ka kite ano", the dictionary I linked to frowns on it as an informal and incorrect abbreviation of a longer phrase of farewell. Prescriptivist ire notwithstanding, "ka kite ano", or even more concisely "ka kite", is a VERY common way of saying "see you" in Māori English and is growing in use in standard NZ English.

Well it is Wikipedia, and you can correct it if you want.

[stuartnz]

Originally Posted by Raymott

Well it is Wikipedia, and you can correct it if you want.

I could, but I'd rather mock it from without than improve it from within. As Ford Prefect once said, ""My doctor says that I have a malformed public-duty gland and a natural deficiency in moral fibre".