Editing Māori language (section)

== Dialects ==
[[File:Māori dialects map.svg|thumb|North Island dialects{{sfn|Harlow|2007|page=42}}]] 
Biggs proposed that historically there were two major dialect groups, North Island and South Island, and that South Island Māori is extinct.{{sfn|Biggs|1988|page=65}} Biggs has analysed North Island Māori as comprising a western group and an eastern group with the boundary between them running pretty much along the island's north–south axis.{{sfn|Bauer|1997|page=xxvi}}

Within these broad divisions regional variations occur, and individual regions show tribal variations. The major differences occur in the pronunciation of words, variation of vocabulary, and idiom. A fluent speaker of Māori has no problem understanding other dialects.

There is no significant variation in grammar between dialects. "Most of the tribal variation in grammar is a matter of preferences: speakers of one area might prefer one grammatical form to another, but are likely on occasion to use the non-preferred form, and at least to recognise and understand it."{{sfn|Bauer|1993|page=xxi–xxii}} Vocabulary and pronunciation vary to a greater extent, but this does not pose barriers to communication.

=== Northern dialects ===

In the northern dialects, particularly in [[Muriwhenua]] and parts of [[Ngāpuhi]], the [[Digraph (orthography)|digraph]] ''wh'' is not pronounced as {{angbr|f}}, as it is in most of the other dialects, but as a [[voiceless bilabial fricative]] {{angbr|ɸ}}. Some speakers also reduce this sound to {{angbr|h}}, particularly in words beginning with the causative prefix ''whaka-'' (e.g. ''whakarongo''), leading to the pronunciation being heard as ''haka-'' (e.g. ''hakarongo'' or '''hakarongo'').<ref name=threat>{{cite news |last=Boynton |first=John |title=Is iwi dialect under threat? |url=https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/m%C4%81ori-language-week/366227/is-iwi-dialect-under-threat |newspaper=RNZ |access-date=23 December 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Neilson |first1=Michael |title=Māori Language Week 2020: The different mita, dialects, of te reo Māori |url=https://www.nzherald.co.nz/kahu/maori-language-week-2020-the-different-mita-dialects-of-te-reo-maori/G27YBVHQ2R4BQIPDGPZSMX32PQ/ |newspaper=The New Zealand Herald |access-date=23 December 2024}}</ref>

Speakers of the northern dialect, like other dialects, also have preferences for specific renderings of words (e.g. ''kāhore'' instead of ''kāore'', ''kaurua/kourua'' instead of ''kōrua'', etc.), or entirely unique words (e.g. ''kūkupa'' instead of ''[[kererū]]'', ''whareiti'' instead of ''wharepaku'', etc.)<ref name=threat /><ref>{{cite web |title=Kūkupa - Te Aka Māori Dictionary |url=https://maoridictionary.co.nz/word/3244 |website=Te Aka |access-date=23 December 2024}}</ref>

=== Eastern and western dialects ===

In the southwest of the North Island, in the [[Whanganui]] and [[Taranaki]] regions, the phoneme {{angbr|h}} is a [[glottal stop]] and the phoneme {{angbr|wh}} is {{IPA|[ʔw]}}. This difference was the subject of considerable debate during the 1990s and 2000s over the then-proposed change of the name of the city Wanganui to Whanganui.

In [[Ngāi Tūhoe|Tūhoe]] and the Eastern [[Bay of Plenty Region|Bay of Plenty]] (northeastern North Island) {{angbr|ng}} has merged with {{angbr|n}}.

=== Southern dialects ===
[[File:Hotere annotation.png|thumb|right|Part of the annotation to a [[Ralph Hotere]] exhibition at the [[Dunedin Public Art Gallery]], written bilingually in English and southern Māori. Note several regional variations, such as {{lang|mi|nohoka}} ({{lang|mi|nohoanga}}, a place or seat), {{lang|mi|tikaka}} ({{lang|mi|tikanga}}, customs), {{lang|mi|āhana/ōhona}} ({{lang|mi|ana / ōna}}, [[Alienable and inalienable possession|alienable and inalienable]] "his"), {{lang|mi|pako}} ({{lang|mi|pango}}, black), and {{lang|mi|whaka}} ({{lang|mi|whanga}}, harbour).]]
In South Island dialects, ''ng'' merged into ''k'' in many regions. Thus ''Kāi Tahu'' and ''[[Ngāi Tahu]]'' are variations in the name of the same [[iwi]] (the latter form is the one used in Acts of Parliament). Since 2000, the government has altered the official names of several southern place names to the southern dialect forms by replacing ''ng'' with ''k''. New Zealand's highest mountain, known for centuries as {{lang|mi|Aoraki}} in southern Māori dialects that merge ''ng'' with ''k'', and as {{lang|mi|Aorangi}} by other Māori, was later named "Mount Cook". Now its sole official name is ''[[Aoraki / Mount Cook]]'', which favours the local dialect form. Similarly, the Māori name for [[Stewart Island]], {{lang|mi|Rakiura}}, is cognate with the name of the [[Canterbury Region|Canterbury]] town of [[Rangiora]]. Likewise, [[Dunedin]]'s main research library, the [[Hocken Collections]], has the name {{lang|mi|Uare Taoka o Hākena}} rather than the northern (standard) {{lang|mi|Te Whare Taonga o Hākena}}.{{efn|The Hocken Library contains several early journals and notebooks of early missionaries documenting the vagaries of the southern dialect. Several of them are shown at Blackman, A. [https://blogs.otago.ac.nz/thehockenblog/2011/07/07/some-sources-for-southern-maori-dialect/ ''Some Sources for Southern Maori dialect''].}} Maarire Goodall and [[George Griffiths (historian)|George Griffiths]] say there is also a voicing of ''k'' to ''g'', which explains why the region of [[Otago]] (southern dialect) and the settlement it is named after – [[Otakou]] (standard Māori) – vary in spelling (the pronunciation of the latter having changed over time to accommodate the northern spelling).{{sfn|Goodall|Griffiths|1980|pages=46–48}}

The standard Māori ''r'' is also found occasionally changed to an ''l'' in these southern dialects and the ''wh'' to ''w''. These changes are most commonly found in place names, such as [[Lake Waihola]],{{sfn|Goodall|Griffiths|1980|loc=p. 50: "Southern dialect for 'wai' – water, 'hora' – spread out"}} and the nearby coastal settlement of [[Wangaloa]] (which would, in standard Māori, be rendered {{lang|mi|Whangaroa}}), and [[Little Akaloa]], on [[Banks Peninsula]]. Goodall and Griffiths suggest that final vowels are given a centralised pronunciation as [[schwa]] or that they are [[Elision|elided]] (pronounced indistinctly or not at all), resulting in such seemingly bastardised place names as [[The Kilmog]], which in standard Māori would have been rendered {{lang|mi|Kirimoko}}, but which in southern dialect would have been pronounced very much as the current name suggests.{{sfn|Goodall|Griffiths|1980|loc=p. 45: "This hill [The Kilmog]...has a much debated name, but its origins are clear to Kaitahu and the word illustrates several major features of the southern dialect. First we must restore the truncated final vowel (in this case to both parts of the name, 'kilimogo'). Then substitute r for l, k for g, to obtain the northern pronunciation, 'kirimoko'.... Though final vowels existed in Kaitahu dialect, the elision was so nearly complete that [[pākehā]] recorders often omitted them entirely"}} This same elision is found in numerous other southern placenames, such as the two small settlements called The Kaik (from the term for a fishing village, {{lang|mi|kāinga}} in standard Māori), near [[Palmerston, New Zealand|Palmerston]] and [[Akaroa]], and the early spelling of [[Lake Wakatipu]] as {{lang|mi|Wagadib}}. In standard Māori, Wakatipu would have been rendered {{lang|mi|Whakatipua}}, showing further the elision of a final vowel.{{cn|date=September 2024}}

Despite the dialect being officially regarded as extinct,{{efn|As with many "dead" languages, there is a possibility that the southern dialect may be revived, especially with the encouragement mentioned. "The [[Murihiku]] language – Mulihig' being probably better expressive of its state in 1844 – lives on in Watkin's vocabulary list and in many [[Sooty shearwater|muttonbirding]] terms still in use, and may flourish again in the new climate of [[Maoritanga|Maoritaka]]."<ref>{{cite book |last=Natusch |first=S |date=1999 |title=Southward Ho! The Deborah in Quest of a New Edinburgh, 1844 |location=Invercargill, NZ |publisher=Craig Printing |isbn=978-0-908629-16-9}}</ref>}} its use in signage and official documentation is encouraged by many government and educational agencies in Otago and [[Southland, New Zealand|Southland]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.otago.ac.nz/maori/world/signage/index.html |title=Approved Māori signage |website=University of Otago |access-date=6 June 2019 |archive-date=7 June 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190607213634/https://www.otago.ac.nz/maori/world/signage/index.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>"[https://web.archive.org/web/20130209072805/http://www.es.govt.nz/media/13556/coastal-plan-december-10-1-introduction.pdf Eastern Southland Regional Coastal Plan]", from "Regional Coastal Plan for Southland – July 2005 – Chapter 1". See section 1.4, Terminology. Retrieved 3 December 2014.</ref>