There is no letter ‘s’ in the Maori language

September 10, 2019

By AHNZ

There is no letter ‘s’ in the Maori language.

When the Maoris took up English words one of the first things they did was to strip out every ‘s’. Thus, ‘soldier’ becomes ‘hoia’, ‘Samson’ is ‘Hamahona’, ‘soup, ‘hupa’.

My understanding is that Maoris not born to it as children simply could not produce the required sound with their tongue. The Japanese have a hard time making an ‘r’ sound; Same sort of trouble. The language symbols of Colonial Maori adapted to the limited vocal hardware available at the time.

English speakers have never objected to Maoris appropriating their words or eliminating our ‘s’. English speakers never went around demanding Maoris put this ‘s’ and that ‘s’ back where they bloody well found it!

However, the Politically Correct, some calling themselves ‘Māori’, do protest these days that Anglo Saxons picked up their words. And, that we have Anglicised them to our language by adding in an ‘s’. In particular, they want our ‘Maoris’ to be ‘Maori’ or even ‘Māori’.

Does that make sense to you? Is this hypocrisy really a point of grammar?

Or is it better explained by one group seeking to colonise the other? The same Politically Correct people pretending to complain about ‘colonisation’ and ‘appropriation’ are every time in the act of doing this themselves to the ones they accuse. Don’t let ’em.

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Ref. My mod image of Muppets featuring one of my favourite characters, Lefty the Salesman

Update: Old Youtube link broke so put in a new one: Would you like to buy an ‘O?’

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