Dear Editor
Mainstream media has come in for criticism of late for not living up to its assigned role and heritage. This is seen in the opinion piece of Simon Wilson. He is correct when he states te Reo has been embraced by many. That is as far as it goes, however. He quite clearly is unaware of accepted international protocols that apply in multilingual countries but for some reason are not adopted in NZ. A cursory bit of research would have alerted Mr Wilson to these conventions.
Every language has its own rules, grammar, spelling and the like. As a sometime NZ Sign speaker I can confirm it applies in that medium as well. So, where the debate arises is mixing the languages. This has been foistered on the general public with no prior consultation. If I was to communicate with Mr Wilson in person using a mix of oral and sign language I expect, if he is not familiar with sign language, he too would become frustrated.
I wholeheartedly endorse the promotion of te Reo when it is expressed with integrity, in that it conforms to the rules of te Reo. What I don’t endorse is the seemingly one-way traffic of apparently randomly chosen words from te Reo being arbitrarily included in English-based communication. I don’t want to become trilingual and have to include mixed English/Maori (Manglish) as a mode of communication akin to pidgin English. To me it seems we are in danger of accepting this practice, which is in reality a form of miscommunication that brings with it more problems than it solves.
If Mr Wilson and his ilk want to promote te Reo then they would be well advised to research the accepted norms as practiced overseas. If those norms were applied in NZ this whole fiasco over language would not have developed to become as heated and emotional as it currently has and te Reo would have even more recruits lining up to learn the language.
It behoves Mr Wilson and others to exercise some independence and not, as it appears to me, simply accept as the truth material being promoted by one, biased, side of a story. A little bit of truly independent research and journalism would be appreciated, especially on the topic of te Reo and its role in NZ.
D J Gates
