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As with the German umlaut and the Chinese pinyin tone marks, it's also easiest to ignore ;) New Zealand has a few generations of people who pronounce Maori word
by sacrosancty 4y ago
As with the German umlaut and the Chinese pinyin tone marks, it's also easiest to ignore ;) New Zealand has a few generations of people who pronounce Maori words by ignoring the macrons and with more English-like vowel sounds. It's as if the language has changed but there are perfectionists trying to spread popularity of the official pronunciation too.
- eythian 4y agoIf you ignore German umlauts, you can end up with words that sound quite different. The same goes with the Māori macron, it can outright change the meaning of a word. If you can't type them easily, you can double the vowel (Maaori), which also makes the sound change more obvious.
- drewzero1 4y agoSimilarly in German, if you can't type an umlaut you can add an e after the affected vowel. (Äpfel -> Aepfel)
- Taniwha 4y agoYeah in Māori - kākā, kāka, kakā, and kaka are all different words
- sacrosancty 4y agoThat's what redundancy in language is for. You hear this kind of vowel and emphasis mistake all the time in non-native English speakers and we can mostly work out what they mean from context.