I've noticed that there are hardly any books for learning Cook Island Maori but many books dedicated to learning New Zealand Maori.
These two languages are both mutually intelligible with each other but Cook Island Maori has the added benefit of being mutually intelligible with Tahitian, Hawaiian, and Rapan.
Condraz23 wrote:Wow, thanks for the information! I guess I would be better off learning both languages.
I wasn't complaining, I was just curious.
Also, I was under the impression that Cook Island Maori had a 98% lexical similarity with Tahitian, Hawaiian, Rapan, and New Zealand Maori, while New Zealand Maori was a language isolate with only 0% lexical similarity. I guess my guess wasn't quite true.
Anyway, thanks for the reply!
I've noticed that there are hardly any books for learning Cook Island Maori but many books dedicated to learning New Zealand Maori.
As a speaker of NZ Māori and CI Māori, CI Māori has many indivual dialects that are not all mutually intelligible. Because all the words are recorded in one dictionary, it is very easy to find a cognate for words in Cook Islands Māori, however, that does not necessarily every single speaker of Cook Islands Māori will know that word, especially if its not their dialectal word for it
More people in NZ should be learning NZ Māori. NZ Māori is the Māori and indigenous Polynesian language of this land.
Did you go on to Fare Vāna'a?
Anyhow, with the native speakers of Cook Islands Māori I've met, they've all confirmed that there are only so many words that they know, and they've all said at one stage or another that each island speaks their own "language"
silenus wrote:wondering if anyone can answer this question: i want to learn Tahitian, but as there are no books/recordings available, i thought i should learn a similar language that has such resources. I am trying to decide between New Zealand Maori and Hawaiian. I read that Hawaiian has 76% lexical similarity to Tahitian and 71% with Maori. So NZ Maori has 71% similarity to Hawaiian but the figure to Tahitian was not included. Any suggestions???
Condraz23 wrote:Why do more people opt to learn New Zealand Maori? I heard that a fluent speaker of Cook Island Maori can understand a speaker of New Zealand Maori with no problems at all. The Cook Island Maori language has the added benefit of being mutually intelligible with speakers of Tahitian, Hawaiian, and Rapan.
So why do more people choose to learn the New Zealand form of Maori?
Return to “Australian, Austronesian and Papuan Languages”
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 7 guests