Quotes of the Day

Visitors to new zealand these days might be excused for wondering if it really is English they speak there. The accent is but a minor distraction; it's the words that stop newcomers in their tracks. Newspapers refer casually to tikanga (Maori culture) and kaupapa (philosophy or plan). TV hosts open and close their shows with haere mai (welcome) and ka kite ano (see you later). Acquaintances say they're flat out with mahi (work) and have a hui (meeting) to get to. John Macalister, a writing teacher at Victoria University of Wellington, returned to New Zealand in 1997 after 16 years away and felt like a foreigner. Forced to look up one te reo (Maori) word after another, he started jotting them down. The list "just continued to grow," he says. "After a while, I felt I couldn't stop."

He called a halt just short of 1,000 words. But Macalister's A Dictionary of Maori Words in New Zealand English, published last month by Oxford University Press, suggests the flow of Maori into English won't be stopping anytime soon. Kiwi English is not just annexing Maori words, from Pakeha (European) to whanau (extended family). It's giving them English inflections (moko-ed for tattooed; haka-ing for dancing), and playing with them to create hybrids like maka-chilly (from makariri, cold). "You can't get far these days without having to use a Maori word," says Haami Piripi, chief executive of the Maori Language Commission, which promotes the use of te reo. It's a heartening trend, he says: "If words aren't spoken, they don't live" - and 20 years ago, Maori was dying. What worries Piripi and other cultural gatekeepers is that even as it gives oxygen to a few hundred Maori words, English - by its sheer boisterous vitality - is knocking the wind out of Maori itself.

English has been adding Maori words to its lexicon since Captain Cook noted that fortified Maori villages were called pa. British settlers readily adopted Maori names for indigenous animals and plants, from kakapo birds to kauri pines. But the use of Maori words has surged in the past 15 years as te reo schools have multiplied and Maori activists gained clout. Terms like kaumatua (tribal elder) and taonga (cultural treasures) have come into play because they express concepts for which there's no English equivalent, says Macalister. But some words have been picked up because they're more economical than English. Ngati, which denotes a tribal group, "gives you a succinct way of expressing a community of interests," Macalister says. "So you get ngati nimby, or ngati cappuccino, for café society." Other words have a richer spread of meanings: "Aroha, for example, covers more than love. It also has the sense of affection, warmth and goodwill" - so people will talk of a crowd on a cold night being warmed by aroha. But word choice is also a matter of politics, says Victoria University linguist Winifred Bauer. "Sometimes it's not that there isn't an English word, but people will choose to use the Maori word." If they are Maori, "they're expressing their Maoriness. They're saying, Yes, I am talking English, but I am a Maori. This is also done by Pakeha who wish to associate themselves with the Maori viewpoint."

Pleased as he is that English speakers are embracing Maori, Piripi fears that some are squeezing it out of shape. His Language Commission has had a long, and so far losing, argument with newspapers that insist on anglicizing Maori words - adding s to mark the plural, for example. Pronunciation is another disputed point. It's said Kiwis have 11 different ways of saying "Maori," from the hackle-raising "Mayo-ree" to the correct "Mow-rri." "New Zealanders have a long way to go in terms of pronunciation," says Piripi. "Really, 200 years of occupation without achieving five simple vowel sounds is not so good." Linguist Bauer notes that Maori has adopted large numbers of English words, from motuka (car) to poti (vote), but "English speakers don't complain that Maori people say karaka instead of clock." The reason: "English is not threatened, and Maori is."

To protect Maori from the onslaught of English, the Language Commission has created new terms for hundreds of modern concepts (for electricity it chose hiko, or unseen power; computer is rorohiko, electric brain). Most Maori speakers, though, learned English as their first language. And when their Maori vocabulary comes up short, they reach for an English word. Young speakers increasingly structure Maori sentences as if they were English, says Bauer. "Swapping words is one thing," says Toni Waho, a pioneering te reo teacher. "The sinister thing is when grammar changes, because grammar reflects cultural values and ways of thinking. We have to be very vigilant in ensuring the grammatical structure of Maori isn't taken over by English."

Still, Waho is optimistic. "With 30,000-plus learners of te reo, there's going to be an explosion of interchange between the languages," he says. "Maybe that 1,000-word vocab will also explode." Does Macalister expect his list to grow? "For sure." Non-Maori people still have a lot to learn about te reo, he says, but "it's exciting - it's a journey we're on." As the popular English-Maori phrase goes, everything's kapai (good). With luck and a little aroha, both languages will still be saying that many years from now.

• Elizabeth Keenan
• While New Zealand English revels in Maori imports, the Maori language struggles to keep English at bay