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What is the “native tongue” of a treaty written my two countries with no common native tongue?
by CogitoCogito 3y ago
What is the “native tongue” of a treaty written my two countries with no common native tongue?
- olliej 3y agoSorry, in the case of a treaty signed with colonizers, not a general treaty between two independent countries. My upbringing means when thinking of treaties in different languages it's in that context. [edit]Additional sorry, I re-read the phrasing here so to clarify, this is a real apology, not passive aggressive, I do mean my initial comment lacked this context, which obviously impacts things, but I also can't edit the comment to add it in anymore either, woo!.[/edit] So in New Zealand (my birthplace) the legal text of Te Tiriti o Waitangi is the Māori version, not the English one, and you'll be shocked to hear that through out most of history the English one was used by the English speaking government to justify decisions, and the English version gave more up than the Māori version. Similar applies to treaties with indigenous people through out the world, of course in many such cases neither language was actually honored, and in a sad number of cases the indigenous groups were literally exterminated.