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Māori is on a really interesting trajectory in New Zealand. There was a huge decline in the 1900-1960 era, where kids would be punished at school for speaking T

Māori is on a really interesting trajectory in New Zealand. There was a huge decline in the 1900-1960 era, where kids would be punished at school for speaking Te Reo (the Māori language). It was headed towards being a dead language. There were then huge efforts by Iwi to promote and normalise Te Reo, through education and media such as Māori radio and TV. Over the last decade or so, though, I feel there’s been a cultural shift in New Zealand where Te Reo is being embraced by New Zealanders in a new way: Māori words are being incorporated into our English dialect: “Do the Mahi (work)!” someone might say, or “let’s have a hui (get-together/meeting)”. It is also regularly spoken by news anchors on TV and Radio, e.g https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=U_CpvfR2WkU https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=U_CpvfR2WkU It feels new and globally unusual. It almost feels like the first inklings of a new language - an English/Māori creole of sorts?

throwaway3722 6y ago
It's interesting that "hui" has exactly the same meaning as in Chinese. A quick search revealed this article: https://fr-fr.facebook.com/NewZealandChinese/posts/when-hui-and-much-more-is-same-for-maori-and-chinesethe-maori-of-new-zealandsong/1167217290054492/ https://fr-fr.facebook.com/NewZealandChinese/posts/when-hui-...
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  Any two languages will have some words of the same meaning that look alike, but this will be coincidence. Your linked article is utter pseudoscience. Modern Mandarin is an artifact of the last millennium, Middle Chinese looked completely different. Similarly, Maori is known to go back to a Polynesian proto-language that also looked different. So, in neither language was the word "hui" just a few centuries ago. Also, the two words are not actually pronounced alike.
- yorwba 6y ago
  That article seems to suggest that the resemblance is related to the Austronesian migration out of what is today China. But that happened thousands of years ago, so it's unlikely that any word remained exactly the same over such a long time. Partially, the similarity is just orthographic: the pronunciation of Mandarin huì is written [xweɪ̯⁵¹] in the international phonetic alphabet, while the IPA transcription of Māori hui is apparently just [hui]. Additionally, both words derive from forms that were even less similar: the Mandarin word is reconstructed to come from Old Chinese /* m-kˤop-s/ or /* ɡoːbs/ https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%9C%83#Pronunciation_1 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%9C%83#Pronunciation_1 while the Austronesian Comparative Dictionary relates the Māori term to Proto-Oceanic * pui, referring to a cluster e.g. of fruit: https://www.trussel2.com/acd/acd-s_p.htm#4023 https://www.trussel2.com/acd/acd-s_p.htm#4023

throwaway3722 6y ago

It's interesting that "hui" has exactly the same meaning as in Chinese. A quick search revealed this article: https://fr-fr.facebook.com/NewZealandChinese/posts/when-hui-and-much-more-is-same-for-maori-and-chinesethe-maori-of-new-zealandsong/1167217290054492/ https://fr-fr.facebook.com/NewZealandChinese/posts/when-hui-...

Mediterraneo10 6y ago
Any two languages will have some words of the same meaning that look alike, but this will be coincidence. Your linked article is utter pseudoscience. Modern Mandarin is an artifact of the last millennium, Middle Chinese looked completely different. Similarly, Maori is known to go back to a Polynesian proto-language that also looked different. So, in neither language was the word "hui" just a few centuries ago. Also, the two words are not actually pronounced alike.
yorwba 6y ago
That article seems to suggest that the resemblance is related to the Austronesian migration out of what is today China. But that happened thousands of years ago, so it's unlikely that any word remained exactly the same over such a long time. Partially, the similarity is just orthographic: the pronunciation of Mandarin huì is written [xweɪ̯⁵¹] in the international phonetic alphabet, while the IPA transcription of Māori hui is apparently just [hui]. Additionally, both words derive from forms that were even less similar: the Mandarin word is reconstructed to come from Old Chinese /* m-kˤop-s/ or /* ɡoːbs/ https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%9C%83#Pronunciation_1 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%9C%83#Pronunciation_1 while the Austronesian Comparative Dictionary relates the Māori term to Proto-Oceanic * pui, referring to a cluster e.g. of fruit: https://www.trussel2.com/acd/acd-s_p.htm#4023 https://www.trussel2.com/acd/acd-s_p.htm#4023