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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with with permission permission of the of copyright the copyright owner. owner.Further reproduction Further reproduction prohibited without prohibited permission. without permission. COOK ISLANDS MAORI ENGLISH:
A UNIQUE LANGUAGE VARIETY FROM THE SOUTH PACIFIC
by
Aileen K. Wiglesworth
submitted to the
Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences
of American University
in Partial Fulfillment of
the Requirements for the Degree
of Master of Arts
in
Anthropology
Chair: /1.1 W . 1^. (
Dei
'ate
1996
American University 7£T5*
Washington, D C. 20016 THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
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Copyright 1996 by Wiglesworth, Aileen K.
All rights reserved.
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by
Aileen K. Wiglesworth
1996
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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To the Bilingual Speakers of Cook Islands Maori and Cook Islands Maori English
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. COOK ISLANDS MAORI ENGLISH:
A UNIQUE LANGUAGE VARIETY FROM THE SOUTH PACIFIC
by
Aileen K. Wiglesworth
ABSTRACT
The indigenous Polynesians of the Cook Islands refer to themselves as
Maoris and to their ancestral language as Maori. The Cook Islands Maori language has
persisted since contact with the West in the early 19th century, through missionary and
colonial periods, and since independence which came in 1965. Today, Cook Islanders are
predominantly bilingual in English and Maori.
The English spoken by Cook Islanders is a unique variety, characteristic of
the language contact situation, its speakers call “maroro (gloss: flying fish) English.” My
objective in this paper is to establish a compelling argument for the uniqueness of Maori
English by providing examples of distinguishing semantic, phonological and syntactic
features. I will also refer to historical experiences of Cook Islands Maoris since contact
that have influenced their language usage. My underlying theme is the construction of
social identity through language choices.
ii
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I wish to acknowledge the guidance and support of my committee, Drs.
William Leap and Dolores Koenig, and my academic advisor, Dr. Geoffrey Burkhart, of
the Department of Anthropology at American University. I am also grateful for the
tutelage and encouragement o f Drs. Naomi Baron and Theresa Waldspurger from the
Language and Foreign Studies Department at American University, and for his statistical
advice, Dr. Austin Barron o f the Mathematics and Statistics Department. Adrienne
Kaeppler of the Smithsonian Institution gave me entree to prominent Cook Islanders,
who graciously submitted to my interviews, and Karen Peacock, librarian at the
University of Hawaii helped me to locate important secondary source materials unavailable
anywhere in the continental US. Dr. Susan Hertz, my first professor of anthropology, was
generous with her knowledge and her support throughout this project.
Cook Islanders who made this thesis possible include Kauraka Kauraka and
Papa Mana Strickland who found many hours to lend me their extensive knowledge while
I was on Rarotonga, and who have written to answer my questions since my return. I am
also grateful to the many other Rarotongans who put up with my questions and freely
gave of their opinions and ideas including Papa Tom Davis, Takiora Ingram, Ron
Crocombe, Tere Tarapu and the teachers and students of Titikaveka and Mangaia
Colleges, though I do not wish to indicate by this acknowledgment that any of these
iii
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. excellent people either approved o f this thesis or contributed to any of its errors. I am
most grateful to those who provided me with data, my Rarotongan neighbors.
I also wish to thank Australian Volunteer Abroad, Leslie Cooper-Wares,
my energetic and inspiring Mangaian hostess, and my brother, Bill Wiglesworth (also an
AVA), and sister-in-law, Debbie Wiglesworth, whose invitation and hospitality brought
me to the Cook Islands for my first linguistics fieldwork. Finally, I am indebted to
Kathleen Milanich for her editorial advice.
iv
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION...... 1
Statement of the problem ...... 1
CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW ...... 4
Introduction ...... 4
Anthropological theory: language pluralism and colonialism ...... 4
Analysis of languages in contact ...... II
Lexical and semantic analysis ...... 12
Phonological analysis ...... 13
Syntactic analysis ...... 14
Pragmatic analysis ...... 15
Literature review conclusion ...... 16
CHAPTER 3
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND DESCRIPTION OF FIELDWORK
17
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THE HISTORY OF COOK ISLANDS MAORI ENGLISH...... 21
Introduction: Description of the Cook Islands and
their history prior to contact with the W est...... 21
Introduction to the history of CIM E ...... 23
The missionary period ...... 25
The missionaries' r o le ...... 25
The missions and language policy ...... 26
Restricted relations and isolation ...... 28
Schooling and literacy ...... 31
Cook Islanders and the missionary period ...... 34
The missionary period - concluded ...... 36
The colonial period ...... 37
The colonial period - the Europeans ...... 38
The colonial period - the M aoris ...... 46
The colonial period - concluded ...... 50
Self-governance ...... 52
Promotion of English since self-governance ...... 53
Education ...... 54
Migration ...... 59
vi
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Maori attitudes ...... 63
Conclusion to the history of CIM E ...... 65
CHAPTER 5
THE COOK ISLANDS MAORI LANGUAGE ...... 67
History and development ...... 67
Description ...... 68
Phonology ...... 68
Syntax and M orphology ...... 69
Social u sa g e ...... 70
CHAPTER 6
DATA ANALYSIS: COMPELLING FEATURES
OF COOK ISLANDS MAORI ENGLISH ...... 73
CIME lexical and semantic features ...... 73
Loan words ...... 73
Extension of meaning of existing words ...... 80
Compound adverbials with here and there ...... 82
A semantic/syntactic feature of CIME: the concept of language 85
CIME lexical and semantic features: conclusions ...... 93
vii
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Phonological features ...... 94
Saying yes and yeah in CIME ...... 94
Suprasegmental rhythm and C IM E ...... 103
A syntactic feature - greater use of present tense ...... 121
CHAPTER 7
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS...... 135
APPENDIX A
THE TRANSCRIBED INTERVIEWS ...... 137
Daniel ...... 137
H elen ...... 153
Nancy and Tangata ...... 164
Pam ela...... 181
APPENDIX B
USE OF THE SCHWA IN CIME ...... 189
APPENDIX C
COMPARATIVE USE OF THE SCHWA. CIME AND SAE ...... 209
viii
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MEANINGS OFMA'ATA IN CIM
ix
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Figure 6.1 Loan Words in Cook Islands Maori English ...... 75
Figure 6.2 Proper Noun Loan Words ...... 79
Figure 6.3 Compound Adverbials ...... 83
Figure 6.4 Some Syntactic Differences Between Maori and English:
Formation of Plurals and Collective N o u n s ...... 88
Figure 6.5 Yes and Yeah in CEME ...... 95
Figure 6.6 Yes and Yeah Continued ...... 97
Figure 6.7 Maori and English Suprasegmental Feature C ontrasts ...... 107
Figure 6.8 Tense U sages ...... 125
Figure 6.9 Verb Tense D ata ...... 128
x
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INTRODUCTION
This thesis is about a particular variety of English. The problem I have set
is to establish its distinctiveness, which derives from the history of its development and
especially from the culture of its creators. Whorf (1956:156) said that “language patterns
and cultural norms ... have grown up together, constantly influencing each other;” these
words have become a tenet of anthropological linguistics. Culture and language are
inextricably bound up with each other, and the development of a new language variety is
indicative of the cultural changes lived by its speakers. With language, people create new
social identities which help them to adapt to a changing world. To describe a language
variety fully is an extensive and complex undertaking. The scope of this thesis is not a
description of a variety, but a depiction of some of its features, especially of compelling
features that establish it as a unique variety.
Statement of the problem
The indigenous Polynesians of the Cook Islands refer to themselves as
Maoris and to their ancestral language as Maori. The history of Cook Islands contact with
native speakers of English goes back to the 1820s when missionaries of the London
Missionary Society (LMS) arrived in the southern Cook Islands of Aitutaki, Atiu, Mauke,
1
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Mitiaro, Mangaia and Rarotonga. However, Maori use of English was minimal in these
early days because the LMS initially brought in Tahitian-speaking missionaries, and
subsequent missionaries learned and adopted Cook Islands Maori (CIM). Throughout the
nineteenth and most of the twentieth centuries, English speakers on Rarotonga were in the
minority, though they assumed dominant roles, first as missionaries and traders, later as
administrators of a British Protectorate, and then a New Zealand Colony.
The Cook Islands Maori language and culture have persisted through the
missionary and colonial periods, and since independence, which came in 1965. Today.
Cook Islanders are predominantly bilingual in English and Maori, and there is growing
evidence that English is becoming the dominant language on Rarotonga (Tixier and Early
1980; Kauraka 1994; Wiglesworth 1995), the most developed and the capital of the Cook
Islands. The English spoken by Cook Islanders is not a prescriptively ‘standard’ variety of
English (Tate n.d.; Kauraka 1994:2). The natives call it “maroro (gloss: flying fish)
English” because its speakers are functioning between two worlds, like a flying fish
between sky and sea (Kauraka: personal correspondence). I will refer to it throughout this
paper as Cook Islands Maori English (CIME).
My objective in this thesis is to document some aspects of the distinctive
variety of English spoken by Cook Islanders, and to explore the relationship of these
features to cultural and historical factors. The primary influence is the CIM which is still
the first language of most Cook Islanders. Leap’s work on American Indian English
provides an apt comparison.
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In some cases, their linguistic details arc quite similar to those found in the English of their non-Indian neighbors, coworkers and classmates. More commonly Indian English shows extensive influence from the speaker’s ancestral (or “native” ) language tradition(s) or from other language sources and differs accordingly from non-Indian notions of “standard” grammar and “appropriate” speech (Leap 1993:1).
Leap (1993:3) defined “linguistic features (sound patterns, word structures,
sentence constructions, reference conventions, principles of rhetoric and metaphor, etc.)”
in American Indian English. This thesis begins the task of uncovering the same kinds of
characteristics in the variety of English spoken by the Maoris of the Cook Islands.
In the next chapter, I review literature about languages in contact and
colonial anthropology in order to situate this work within the fields of anthropology and
anthropological linguistics. In chapter 3, I describe my fieldwork and methodology. In
the next two chapters, I present relevant background information; Chapter 4 is a summary
of the history of the Cook Islands Maoris with an emphasis on the key developments that
influenced CIME, and Chapter 5 provides an overview of the Cook Islands Maori
language. Chapter 6 contains my analytical treatment of my own data and documents the
unique features of CIME which establish my thesis. In Chapter 7 ,1 summarize my
findings and draw conclusions about the relevance of this work.
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LITERATURE REVIEW
Introduction
This thesis draws from both linguistic and socio-cuitural anthropology.
This literature review addresses linguistic findings of researchers working in contexts of
language pluralism, as well as the socio-cultural themes that such findings support.
Because language develops over time and shows evidence of its speakers’ history, this
review focuses on colonial histories, and because CIME developed in the context of
colonial educational institutions, these settings are particularly worthy of review. In this
chapter, I begin with a review of the themes discovered by anthropologists studying
language pluralism and relate these to colonial histories and theories of socio-cultural
change induced by colonialism. In a second section, I give an overview of linguistic
analyses of languages in contact.
Anthropological theory: language pluralism and colonialism
Anthropologists have analyzed language as data to demonstrate a variety of
themes. In a culture contact situation, language data provides evidence of the political,
economic and social changes taking place. If one cultural group dominates another,
speakers will use its language in ways that demonstrate the power structure (Gal 1987;
Hill 1985; Schmidt 1985; Douad 1979; Benton 1991; Ferguson 1959; Marshall 1982;).
4
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Linguistic change in multilingual communities correlates to the direction of cultural change
going on within those communities (Schwartzman 1984; Gal 1987; Dozier 1956).
Language vitality and persistence in rural or isolated settings contrasts with language loss
when its speakers migrate to urban settings (Hill 1985; Fallon and Scott 1983; Scollon
1979). Themes of acculturation or resistance to intrusion by another language
community, are played out in the language of the speakers in the affected community
(Dozier 1956; Gal 1987; Hill 1985; Johnson 1943; Leap 1993; Douad 1979; Dozier 1956;
Neundorf 1982; Spicer 1943). Linguistic similarities and differences within speaker
communities indicate loyalty to a group (Schmidt 1985) and social stratification (Marshall
1982; Gal 1987; Douad 1979; Ferguson 1959). There is even the rare case o f linguistic
plurality which indicates, by means of carefully maintained multilingualism and linguistic
separation, a respectful acceptance o f group differences (Sorenson 1971). Linguists have
equated use of contact languages with feelings both of self-confidence and of inferiority in
speakers (Sorenson 1971; Schwartzman 1984; Douad 1979). There is also utilitarian or
‘vehicular’ adaptation to language contact, which is the source of pidgins (Jourdan 1991;
Bakker 1989), and new languages, creoles, are sometimes born as a result of culture
contact (Jourdan 1991). Historic linguistic data has demonstrated the historic divergence
and diffusion of cultures (Emeneau 1956; Kroskrity 1985; Bakker 1989). These themes
overlap and interact to build a profile of the language contact situation under study.
The language addressed by this thesis developed in an atmosphere of
colonial domination and profound social change, and it was acquired in colonial
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educational institutions. The literature of anthropological linguistics demonstrates that
these historic phenomena may be evident in CIME.1 Cook Islands Maoris choose to speak
English, and they endow the English they speak with unique features. These linguistic
choices are metaphors for culture change and persistence. The choice of English indicates
the direction of social change, while the persistence of Maori, at least in part attributable
to the isolation of island life, represents the continuation of the indigenous culture.
Language became an indicator of social stratification in the Cook Islands,
as it often does in colonial societies (Camoy 1974:139), or any multilingual society where
one population of language speakers dominates politically and economically. Clignet
(1984:86) described “the recognition of the inferior position” imposed upon colonized
peoples, and resulting attempts to “reduce the differences that the colonizer has defined as
being at the origin of his second-class status.” Among Clignet’s examples of this
phenomenon were mastery of European languages and adoption of European clothing
styles. Possibly the greatest attraction of English for Cook Islands Maoris was as an
equalizer in a colonial environment.
CIME developed late in the history of contact: the early colonizers, English
missionaries, used the indigenous language strategically to communicate effectively with
the Maoris’ — ultimately the missionaries developed a policy of denying English language
education to the Maoris, a policy which lasted along with the political power of the
missionaries, into the early twentieth century. Though the missionaries’ policy of
'The evidence is no doubt even more compelling in the native language. Cook Islands Maori, but that is another thesis.
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minimizing the intrusion of English may have ensured the preservation and stabilization of
the Maori language of the Cook Islands, the Maori culture itself changed significantly
during this early contact period.
The experiences of nineteenth century Cook Islanders are analogous to the
religious revitalization movements that recur in colonial histories and are well-represented
in the anthropological literature. Worsley (1957) and Mintz (1974), for example,
documented and analyzed cases of indigenous peoples undergoing rapid and
comprehensive religious conversions in the face of overwhelming social change. Cook
Islanders accepted Christianity under pressure from Western missionaries who challenged
Maori cultural assumptions while disease and famine threatened Maori survival. Guiart
(1970) addressed millenarianism in the South Pacific and in the Cook Islands specifically,
pointing to such causes as the promise of material wealth and eternal salvation, the fear
engendered by epidemics, storms and famine, and the ambitions of indigenous leaders who
often outmaneuvered their rivals by enlisting missionaries (and Western weaponry) in their
power struggles. Wallace (1966:159) saw religious revitalization movements as a logical
strategy to ensure the survival of a “socio-cultural system ... pushed progressively out of
equilibrium” by various stresses, including contact between different cultures and
dilemmas of cultural identity. A revitalization movement reintroduces order into
conditions of disorder, stabilizing a society by discarding some cultural elements, and
recombining those that remain (Wallace 1966:211). Rather than accept total
disintegration, small scale societies threatened by overwhelming external forces, engage in
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revitalizing religious movements — choosing the survival of those cultural elements
compatible with a new social framework, and rejecting incompatible elements.
When Cook Islanders transformed their culture through religious
conversion, they lost their indigenous religious tradition. The Maori language survived
this early transformation of Maori culture — it was not in conflict with another language.
Later, a colonial government lifted the missionaries’ ban on English because of pressure
from Maori leaders demanding English education for Cook Islanders. The mixing of
cultural elements set into motion by the socio-cultural changes of the 19th century,
continued under the pressure of colonial domination.
When Cook Islanders began to acquire English, they acquired it formally.
CIME is not a pidgin or a Creole; its speakers learned English in colonial schools, and this
setting left its mark on CIME. Colonial education policies vary widely, and the Cook
Islanders’ experiences sometimes parallel and sometimes diverge from other examples.
The missionaries’ policy of indigenous language schooling contrasts with British
nineteenth century colonial policy elsewhere, for example in India (Camoy 1974:97) and
Africa (Camoy 1974:131), where colonials promoted English in lieu of indigenous
languages. English education was a prerequisite to government hiring in India (Camoy
1974:103); however preliterate India is an unlikely model for cultures with no written
tradition. Other colonized peoples, like the Cook Islanders, asked for schooling in the
colonizers’ language. Camoy (1974: 139) found that Africans under British rule
demanded a European academic education to put them on a par with their British masters.
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Similarly, in Algeria after World War I, returned Algerian soldiers demanded French
education for their children to give them better access to employment (Heggoy 1984:103).
The differential views and goals that formed colonial educational policies
reflected the variation in the colonizers objectives, as Kelly (1984:27) showed by
contrasting French educational policy in Indochina and Africa. Typically, early colonizers
were evangelists bent on ‘civilizing’ indigenous peoples (e.g., Camoy 1974:128 and Urch
1992:3 on British colonial Africa). It was not unusual for missionaries and colonial
governments to differ in their goals for education (Urch 1992:3 and Barthel 1985:142),
but both sought to replace indigenous values with ‘Europeanization’ well into the
twentieth century (Heggoy 1984:98 and Camoy 1974:131).
A common theme in educational policy was occupational training,
especially for jobs that supported colonial economic goals and kept indigenous people
from positions of power. The French in Indochina (Kelly 1984:23) the Americans in the
Phillippines (Foley 1984: 50), and Europeans in Africa (Camoy 1974:140) promoted
agricultural skills. In British Africa vocational training was paramount (Camoy
1974:131). On the other hand, administrative training of colonized peoples was seldom an
objective, and this often left newly independent former colonies without the skills
necessary for self governance. Zaire, with a colonial education system designed to meet
“laboring needs,” offered primary education without secondary education up until
independence, and, according to Urch (1992:85), this deprived Zaire of responsible
indigenous leadership. Crocombe (1979:1-2) makes the same claim for the Cook Islands.
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and in fact, there was no secondary school there until 1893, and it was closed down from
1912 until the late 1950s. India provides the counter example, and its size and complexity
made the training of indigenous administrators a necessity. Camoy (1974:143) described
the irony that culture-transforming Western education of colonized peoples, regardless of
its attempts to maintain them in a subservient position, introduced the seeds of
independence by Europeanizing indigenous leaders and promoting values of “liberty and
freedom.”
A final recurrent theme in colonial educational systems is their parsimony.
Colonialists often neglected to give indigenous teachers adequate training (e.g., Bombay
Conference 1952:21), and the general reluctance of colonizers to spend money on colonial
education is easily documented (e.g., Camoy 974:108 on the British in India).
Clignet (1984:82, 84) described the most profound effects of colonial
education and the “crux of colonial exploitation” in general. Colonized peoples were
deprived of choices based on their own culture, by “exposure to educational and cultural
stimuli that tend to erase the significance of [their] own past.” In this respect, educational
policy was a favorite instrument of colonizers worldwide and throughout the colonial
period (e.g., Camoy (1974:140) on the British and Urch (1992:3, 35) on Europeans in
general in colonial Africa). As a result, newly independent societies did not have a choice
to return to their cultural roots and they ended up settling for “formal liberation,” while
imitating “the developmental patterns of many European nations o f the nineteenth
century” (Clignet (1984:87) referring to Fanon). Their “dilemma [is] between formal and
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substantive liberation — that is between national and social independence” (Clignet
(1984:87) referring to Memmi). Clignet himself says that formerly colonized peoples
arc confronted with conflicting notions regarding the consequences attached to the present nature of ethnic differentiation.... Insofar as liberation is both cultural and structural, the colonized must reconcile the diverging demands of specificity and particularism on the one hand, uniformity and universalism on the other (1984:90).
In his work with the Kwaio, Keesing (1992:236) finds a similar dilemma in
Kwaio efforts to oppose socio-cultural change by “meeting the enemy on his own turf.”
If one want to challenge the colonial assertions of sovereignty, one must do it in a language of Hags and anccstors-on-coins in place of Kings. If one wants to challenge colonial legal statutes and Biblical rules by asserting the legitimacy of ancestral rules and customary codes, one must do so through codification, through writing a counter-Biblc/countcr-lawbook. Recognition that if counterclaims are to be recognized and effective, they must be cast in the terms and categories and semiology of hegemonic discourse, is politically astute, not blindly reactive (1992:237).
While Maori Christians and Pagan Kwaio represent widely divergent responses to
colonialism in many respects, Keesing’s image of opposition that takes on the ‘language’
of oppressors could serve as a quite literal description of the motivation for the Maoris’
choice of English. Adaptation to ensure the survival of individuals opposes the complete
disintegration of their culture, while also ensuring that the culture will change and lose
ground to external pressures.
Analysis of languages in contact
In this thesis, my primary objective is to acknowledge the Cook Islands
Maori variety of English as a product o f the contact situation today and over the last 175
years. To do this, I analyze my own fieldwork data, transcribed texts of CIME, to
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discover some compelling features that distinguish CIME from standard Englishes and set
it apart as the Cook Islands Maoris’ own creation. The literature of language pluralism
and contact relates the kinds of features other linguists have encountered as they ascribe
meanings to language contact texts. The most basic varieties of linguistic data fall into
the following categories: lexical, semantic, phonological, syntactic and pragmatic. The
remainder of my review is organized around these categories.
Lexical and semantic analysis
Loanwords, the simplest form of codeswitching, are the lexical data of
language contact situations. Spicer(1943), Kroskrity(1985) and Marshall(l982) provided
examples of loanwords that represent material items, inventions and practices from the
'other1 culture. Dixon, Ramson and Thomas(I990) showed how native languages provide
loanwords for native flora and fauna in the language of the colonizers or conquerors.
Kroskrity (1985) found a tendency for speakers in language contact situations to use
loanwords to describe substances which are eaten, drunk or smoked and abstract
concepts, religion and games. Trager found 120 Spanish and English loanwords in his
incomplete lexicon of 2500 words of the Taos language and speculated that the
percentage of loan words would either stay the same or increase in a comprehensive
lexicon (Trager 1939:156).
A semantic strategy speakers use to incorporate novel concepts into a
language is the extension of meaning of existing words (van Dyke 1992; Basso 1967;
Benton 1991). Basso’s example documented Navajo speakers who assigned Navajo
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words for body parts to the mechanical parts of a car. Speakers adapted existing words,
allowing them their original meaning as well, so that an invention from one culture could
enter the lexicon of another language.
Phonological analysis
Every language employs a specific set of vowel and consonant sounds as
well as identifying suprasegmental features. Understanding the phonemic content of a
language is prerequisite to any study of the intrusion of phonology from one language to
another (Chambers 1992; Emeneau 1956; Kroskrity 1985; Marshall 1982). Immigrants
provide the most familiar example of use of the sound system of the speaker’s first
language in articulating a second language, and this same effect is useful to linguists
studying phonological bases for languages and words that arise from contact situations
(Leap 1993; Dixon, Ramson and Thomas 1990; Schmidt 1985; Benton 1991).
Working in the 1960s, Tate (1977:1,5-6,12, 20-23,33,49,116) observed
phonological differences in the CIME of Rarotongan school children traceable to the
phonemic and suprasegmental characteristics of Maori.2
• consonant substitutions [p] for [b], [k] for [g], [v] for [f] and[d] for [t]
• interchange of consonants [z] and [s], interchange and omission of ‘th’ sounds
• consonants omitted at the end of words
• absence of schwa — full value given to unaccented vowels
2 In Chapter 5 ,1 discuss and compare the sources for describing CIM phonology as well as other major CIM features, especially as they relate to the analytical discussion in Chapter 6.
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• smaller vowel inventory — absence of I, A, se, and diphthongs
• variation from standard English stress and intonation
Because I am a speaker of an American variety of English working 30 years later than
Tate, I am aware of a complicating factor which did not concern Tate (an Australian) —
the predominant variety of English spoken by native speakers of English in the Cook
Islands is New Zealand English, and the influence of New Zealand English on CIME is
greater now than it was in the 1960s. An extensive understanding of New Zealand
English, although it would be valuable, is beyond the scope of this work. Rather than
selecting and separating the phonological influences, I focus on the Maori influences on
Maori English, with Tate’s observations as a starting point.
Syntactic analysis
As a linguistic analysis category, syntax is both broad and complex. In
analyzing CIME, I look for consistent syntactical phenomena that others have found,
specifically in varieties of English. The following list is a compilation from Leap
(1993:53-78) and Marshall (1982:314-316), edited to focus on CIM features which
contrast with English syntax.
• a reduction in plural suffix markers and their indication through other linguistic
means (such as number words for plurals)
• addition of plural markers to mass nouns
• deletion of articles
• pronoun deletion (especially subject pronouns where case marking is clear)
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• gender marking
• differences in tense and aspect marking
• use of adverbials as tense/aspect markers
• copula and AUX deletion
• differences in subject-verb agreement marking
• differences in preposition use related to noun-verb relationships
• word order changes
My analysis of syntactic features of CIME takes this list as its basis, noting other obvious
deviations from standard Englishes if they are present. However, presence of the features
alone without their consistent recurrence is not sufficient grounds for claiming that they
are compelling features of CIME.
Pragmatic analysis
Leap defined pragmatics as “information pertaining to expected
relationships between language form and context or situational detail” (Leap 1993:7).
Pragmatic systems “establish the framework that guides a speaker’s use of context-
making, turn-taking, and other features of discourse structure and guide the listener’s
interpretation of these clues to conversational meaning.” For example, Ochs( 1988:86-
104) and Duranti( 1994:144-66) analyzed contexts for uses of the ergative in Samoa to
show correlation with ages, relationships and hierarchical roles of interlocutors.
I am obliged to limit my pragmatic analysis of CIME because of the brief
duration of my fieldwork. Nevertheless, I look for clues to pragmatic constructions in my
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data, as well in secondary sources by those who are more experienced students of Maori
social identity.
Literature review conclusion
The challenge for the anthropological linguist is to uncover anthropological theory
from analysis of language data. This thesis focuses on a language variety, Cook Islands
Maori English, with colonial beginnings, whose speakers have endured by adapting to
overwhelming social and economic pressures from a dominant culture. The speakers of
CIME have also retained a portion o f their own unique cultural identity. By linguistic
analysis, this thesis will show that CIME reflects both the indigenous culture and the
adaptive strategies of its resilient speakers. By demonstrating the uniqueness of CIME, I
confirm the cultural identity of its speakers and place their colonial history alongside that
of other colonized peoples whose linguistic decisions serve as a metaphor for their cultural
survival.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER 3
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND DESCRIPTION OF FIELDWORK
I visited the Southern Cook Islands in July and August of 1995 for a period
of about one month. I stayed on Rarotonga (except for a few days on an Outer Island), in
the household of an Australian-American family who were six months into a two year
assignment as Australian Volunteers Abroad. The father, my brother, was teaching
woodworking at a local secondary school. Two of the three children, my niece and
nephew, were enrolled in a local primary school. Our neighbors were extended families of
Cook Islanders who were not native Rarotongans but had moved there from various Outer
Islands in the Cook group.
I collected data in Rarotonga through field observation and taped, informal
interviews. During my fieldwork, I observed bilingual behaviors in a variety of contexts
and interviewed Cook Islanders on their attitudes toward language and their own
bilingualism. Among my data-collection sites were local primary and secondary schools,
the neighborhood, Parliament, a courtroom, markets, church services, and public events,
especially those in celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of Cook Islands independence in
the first week of August of 1995. I interviewed a number of secondary school teachers
and students (and collected students’ essays), neighbors, and local leaders including
historians, linguists and some current and former government leaders. The interviews I
17
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taped provided data for analysis of a unique variety of English. To this purpose, I have
focused on the interviews of the Outer Islanders who were my neighbors during my stay in
Rarotonga because they represent a variety o f linguistic experiences and objectives.
My five primary CIME informants include Daniel,3 an eleven-year-old boy,
Helen, a nineteen year-old young woman, Nancy and Tangata, a married couple, parents
of four young children, who were in their early to mid-thirties, and Pamela, a young
mother of an elementary school girl, in her late twenties or early thirties. I conducted
interviews in neighborhood settings: on Pamela’s front porch, in Nancy and Tangata’s
living room, and in my brother’s family room, which was familiar to Helen and Daniel --
she as a babysitter, he as playmate to my nieces and nephew. I did not use statistical
methods in choosing my informants, though I am pleased that they represent both sexes
and a variety of Outer Islands and age groups.
My Cook Islander informants grew up on three different islands in the
Southern Cook group: Daniel and Helen are from the same Outer Island, as are Tangata
and Pamela. Nancy is from a different Outer Island than the others. All five chose to live
on Rarotonga — the young people, for their education, and the adults for lifestyle reasons
that included their children’s education. As is typical of Cook Islanders, these five had
close relatives living in New Zealand, and, also typically, the adults held government jobs
and had traveled in the Pacific region. Pamela’s university degree was from a Melanesian
university where she met her Western Samoan husband. Helen aspired to a university
3The names are fictitious.
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scholarship abroad, and went to Australia in early 1996 to study to become a doctor.
Because it is still rare for a Cook Islander to hold a university degree, this group of
informants is more educated than are Cook Islanders on average. The effect on my data is
probably that it includes a greater proportion of standardized English than in the speech of
the population at large. In this respect, the discovery of shared, unique features of CIME
is more compelling than if I were dealing with a less-educated population.
I have transcribed 52 pages of text (APPENDIX A) from the interviews
mentioned above. For this thesis, I analyze these texts for compelling and unique lexical,
semantic, phonological, syntactic and pragmatic features of CIME. The lexical analysis
includes an (incomplete) inventory of CIME loanwords, functionally categorized to
facilitate comparison with loan word trends in other contact situations. I also seek
linguistic constructions in my data that seem to me both unusual because I am a native
speaker of a standard English, and familiar because of my training and research in
language contact. I cite these examples, developing phonetic transcriptions where needed,
and survey all of my data to determine if similar effects recur consistently within and
across individual interviews. Where appropriate, I utilize Schmidt’s techniques for
charting language variation across a sample population (Schmidt 1985:53,65 for example).
I further analyze the examples for their etiology, focusing on evidence of the influence of
CIM, the native language of most CIME speakers (and of all my informants), or of the
history and development of CIME.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Although the transcribed interviews are my primary source, I include other
data from my field notes in this research, especially as it is relevant to my textual analysis.
For example, I have data on the social context of language behavior as well as on
loanwords that may not occur in the interviews themselves, and I have a number of other
taped or written sources of CIME.
In considering my data, I maintain an awareness of the pitfalls described in
the literature for this kind of work. Schmidt refers to the “observer’s paradox,” that is
the fact that a researcher’s presence changes the behavior of those being observed, and
therefore affects the data (Schmidt 1985).
The section of my thesis on the history of CIME is drawn largely from
secondary sources of an historic or analytical nature. My chapter on CIM is based on five
CIM grammar books, most of them no longer in print, acquired while I was in Rarotonga.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER 4
THE HISTORY OF COOK ISLANDS MAORI ENGLISH4
Introduction: Description of the Cook Islands and
their history prior to contact with the West
The Cook Islands comprise an independent country consisting of 15
tropical islands in the South Pacific. Roughly, they are in the same time zone (same
longitude) as Hawaii, and south of the equator, extending down to about the Tropic of
Capricorn. French Polynesia lies to the east, Fiji and the Samoas to the west. The
Southern and Northern Groups within the Cooks are distinguished by climate and geology
as well as by location. The northern islands are, largely, arid coral atolls; the southern
islands are generally larger, more fertile and volcanic in origin.
About half (or 9,500) of the total population of the Cook Islands lives in
Rarotonga, the capital and most developed of the islands. Rarotonga, the site of my field
work, is about 20 miles in circumference, dominated by mountainous peaks and
surrounded by a coral reef which encloses a tropical lagoon. Cook Islanders, who are
Polynesians and closely related to New Zealand Maoris, refer to themselves as Maoris and
4 My primary sources for this chapter are Beaglehole (1957), Buzacott (1985), Gilson (1991) and Scott (1991). I will specifically cite all other sources as I reference them.
21
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to their language as Maori. I refer to them either as Maoris or Cook Islanders, and to
their native language as CIM.
The ancient seafaring Polynesians migrated from Southeast Asia to the
Pacific Islands 1600 - 2500 B.P. (Kirch 1995),5 bringing with them “an entire portmanteau
biota” including both plants and animals and a knowledge of horticulture (Kirch and
Ellison 1994:311-312). Prehistoric Polynesians combined this rich imported biota with the
faunal resources of Oceania to achieve subsistence. However the combination of swidden
agricultural methods and population pressures precipitated unprecedented rates of
ecological change and disturbance in these isolated and vulnerable island ecosystems
(Kirch and Ellison 1994:311-12). Archaeological data provide proof of the extinction of
bird and marine species on several of the Southern Cook Islands (Steadman 1989:177,
Allen 1993:437).6 Drawing from proto-historic transcriptions of Mangaian history (e.g..
Gill 1984,1989), Kirch speculated that the irrigated taro fields of Mangaia (2% of the
island) were the spoils of intertribal warfare prior to and at the time of European contact
in the early nineteenth century (Kirch 1995).
The collected legends of the Cook Islands tell about ancestral discoverer-
chiefs who came as conquerors and founded lineage groups. Hierarchical chieftainship
provided the social organization for the islands; at least one ariki governed each of
5Archeologists still dispute these dates. Kirch derives these from core sample evidence of swidden agriculture on Mangaia in the Cook Islands. 'These extinctions influence the categories of loan words in CIME; see the analytical chapter below.
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Rarotonga’s three districts. Malaiapo headed lineage groups and their subdistricts
(tapere), narrow strips of land which ran from the central mountains to the coast. Chiefs
provided leadership in war, allocated land for cultivation, settled disputes, arranged feasts
and represented their groups to the gods in exchange for labor and gifts from their people.
Descent was primarily patrilineal, but Maoris valued matrilineal connections as well.
Subsidiary titles were held by headmen in the lapere, and creation of titles was one means
of relieving tensions and settling disputes within descent groups.
Little is known about priestly roles and pre-contact religious life because of
the attitudes of the early missionaries and their utterly successful missionizing. Certainly
leaders invoked the Polynesian concept of mana, a supernatural power source passed
down through ancestral lines, to legitimize their authority. Mana also favored individuals
called ta 'unga with special gifts in crafts or religious rituaL Differences in the degree of
mana and supernatural sanctions of tapu were strong forces for social control. Warfare
was not uncommon and although warriors practiced cannibalism, the rest of the people
probably did not.
Introduction to the history of CIME
In writing this chapter, my assumption is that history leaves its marks on
language, in this case on English as spoken by Cook Islands Maoris. The nature and
intensity of the contact events that generate the new language, the imposed policies for
language teaching and use throughout the contact period, and the attitudes and desires of
the speakers are all aspects of a language’s history. These multiple influences are not
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distinct from each other. They are bound up with each other and all other changes to
cultural life that accompany contact situations, and with fluctuating political and economic
conditions both at home and in the wider world.7
Most chroniclers of Cook Islands history separate the history of contact
into three periods (or two if written prior to independence): the missionary period, the
colonial period, and the period of nationhood (Scott 1991; Crocombe 1979:1-2;
Strickland 1979b:7; Beaglehole 1957; Gilson 1991). Although missionization is part of
the colonial experience, I will retain the historians’ segmentation, because there are
noteworthy events and differential policies and attitudes affecting the development of
CIME that characterize each period. Briefly delineated, the missionary period began with
the arrival at Rarotonga of John Williams of the London Missionary Society (LMS) in
1823 and ended with the declaration of a British Protectorate over most of what are now
the Cook Islands in 1888. The colonial period, defined for this chapter as the period of
formal rule by external governments in Cook Islands history, consists of thirteen years of
British protectorate, followed by the time during which the Cook Islands were a New
Zealand Colony, from 1901 until 1965. Nationhood stretches over 30 years from 1965 to
the present.
7 Beaglehole's work (1957) is comprehensive on the subject of cultural or social change in the Cook Islands up until the 1950s. To put Cook Islands history since contact into political and economic contexts, see Beaglehole (1957), Gilson (1991), Scott (1991) and Crocombe (1992).
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The missionary period
Prior to 1827 when English missionaries settled on Rarotonga, Cook
Islanders had little contact with Europeans. Notably, Rarotongans observed the Bounty in
1789 and the Seringapcilcim in May 1814, closely followed by the Cumberland in August
1814. John Williams ‘rediscovered’ Rarotonga in 1823, and settled there as a missionary
in 1827.
I consider the missionary period first from the point of view of the
missionaries, specifically the policies they adopted and imposed. Second, I observe these
policies and the major events of the missionary period from the perspective of the Cook
Islanders. Their reactions and the choices they made heavily influenced the degree and
nature of culture change and language options in this period and provide a basis for what
transpired in the colonial period that followed. The concluding section summarizes the
changes that occurred in language usage and the Maoris’ attitudes to English and CIM as
the colonial period began.
The missionaries' role
Three aspects of mission policy influenced language choices for future
Cook Islanders: (1) use of indigenous missionaries and the native language, (2) isolation
from other Europeans (i.e., those who were not LMS missionaries or their families) and
restricted relations with all non-Maori residents, and (3) application of schooling to
promote literacy and spread Christianity among Cook Islanders.
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The missions and language policy
Williams' missionizing strategies and policies were key both to the success
of the LMS in the Cook Islands and to the persistence of the CIM language. His early
efforts in the Society Islands convinced Williams to recruit native missionaries to swell the
ranks of the LMS if they were to succeed in spreading the gospel to the Pacific Islands.
Polynesian Christian teachers had linguistic and cultural advantages in establishing
contacts. Cook Islands Maoris were among the first recipients of this strategy. LMS
Missionary, Aaron Buzacott who arrived on Rarotonga in 1828 and spent the better part
of the rest of his life there carried out Williams' plan, observing that "it is a circumstance
of very rare occurrence that a religious impression is produced upon the minds of a
people, except by addressing them in their mother tongue" (1985:68).
Initially, the LMS sent Tahitians and European missionaries trained in the
Tahitian language into the Cook Islands. The Tahitian missionary, Papeiha, was the first
to gain acceptance among the Rarotongans. When Buzacott arrived, his knowledge of
Tahitian enabled him to talk freely with the Rarotongans within a few weeks, and to
preach his first Rarotongan sermon within three months.
Over the next 19 years, Buzacott gained such a thorough knowledge of
CIM that he preferred it to English. On a brief visit to London in 1847, English seemed
"almost a foreign tongue to his lips; his mind being prone to think according to the habits
and ideas of the Rarotongans" (1985:198). The following quote from Buzacott indicates a
respect for the CIM language bom of his own familiarity with it.
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The number of words was not very great, being limited by the simple wants and customs of their former mode of life; but the idioms were often perplexing, and to some Europeans some of these idioms might ever remain a mystery (1985:176-7).8
Williams' strategy o f indigenous missionizing was successful in the Cook
Islands, and Cook Islands converts reproduced that success many times over. Maretu, a
Rarotongan sent by the LMS to Mangaia in 1838, was the first missionary to gain
acceptance there, and his use of a Maori dialect was a key component of his success (Gill,
1876:103)9 Another Rarotongan, Ta'unga went further afield to the Samoas and
Melanesia (Ta'unga 1968). These and other Christian Cook Islanders brought Christianity
and other Western cultural elements to a variety of Pacific groups, but they showed due
respect to the power of indigenous communications and indigenous languages wherever
they went (Maretu 1983).
Although the missionaries never promoted English among the Maoris, they
did introduce English loan words into Maori. Savage’s dictionary lists a number of CIM
words, which probably originated in the nineteenth century to accompany European items
and concepts. Maori phonology characterizes the following examples of English loan
words in CIM (Savage 1980).
• kamula - carpenter
• imene - song, hymn, to sing
*On CIM speakers’ use of fewer words than English speakers, see the semantic/syntactic discussion of language in Chapter 6. 9Although Rarotongan Maori differs from the Mangaian variety of CIM, it is closer to Mangaian Maori than is Tahitian, the language used by the first missionaries to Rarotonga. Maretu believed that the Mangaians would have rejected a Tahitian-speaking missionary (Maretu 1983:109 n. 18; annotation by Crocombe).
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• kapi - a page, a copy
• kapu - a cup, a basin, a dipper, to dip up, to ladle, to scoop up
• mati - a match
• peni -paint, a pen used for writing
• pepa paper, - a letter
• tukei - sugar
Restricted relations and isolation
Once the missionaries had gained a foothold in the Cook Islands, their
determination, fiery rhetoric and material wealth combined to establish their influence over
the majority population (Guiart 1970). They oversaw the destruction of holy places
(maraes), concentrated the people in a few villages, and worked with Christianized native
leaders to impose Westem-style laws (with rewards and punishments) which contradicted
local customs. Early opposition was broken by disease and famine, and Cook Islanders
embraced Christianity for its promise to revitalize their rapidly disintegrating society.
Though native leaders governed, native customs and beliefs languished under the stress of
overwhelming social change, and the Christian missionaries informed and dominated the
native leaders’ policies.
In the early days of the missionary period from roughly 1827 through 1840,
the European populations on Rarotonga and Aitutaki numbered 20 and six or seven
respectively, mostly missionaries and their families. The European missionaries kept a
social distance from the Maoris, bringing European wives with them, and restricting their
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own contact with the Maoris to teaching and casual friendships. Intermarriage was strictly
forbidden.
It was a scx-segregalcd relationship, probably free and easy in all friendship relationships, but highly formal and awe-provoking when the missionary or his wife felt the frequent duty to thunder or to chide against sin (Beaglehole 1957:42).
Native missionaries, on the other hand, mingled freely and were frequently reprimanded or
dismissed for the ‘sin’ of sexual intimacy (Beaglehole 1957:42). The missionaries’
separationist strategy undoubtedly had a racist component.
The missionaries’ efforts to isolate Maoris from other Westerners
encouraged prejudice in the Maoris themselves. The Maoris were taught to call the
missionaries’ European rivals "white heathens," whether they were “godless” seamen from
whaling ships or French priests moving westward from French Polynesia (Beaglehole
1957:83; Gilson 1991:41 -3). By mid-century, there was a modest increase in the number
of non-indigenous, non-missionary inhabitants of Rarotonga, mostly sailors and traders.
The missionaries reacted to this perceived threat to their moral authority by promoting
laws against miscegenation and non-Maori land ownership. However, enthusiasm for
Christianity waned in the years that followed, especially after Buzacott and the first
generation of LMS Missionaries retired. By the end of the missionary period,
intermarriage was common, laws against it repealed, and foreign settlers began to acquire
leases on land. Despite their minority status (only about 75 Europeans on Rarotonga by
the end of the century), these settlers began to exercise disproportionate power, as the
missionaries once had. They agitated against limitations on them as foreigners, and it was
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largely in support of their interests that New Zealand annexed the Cook Islands in 1901.
In their mixed households, English often took precedence and its use began to have elitist
implications.10
The inferior numbers of Europeans and limitations on mixing between the
cultures certainly lessened the impact of Europeanization on the Cook Islanders during the
missionary period. However, the disproportionate impact of a few determined outsiders is
a recurring motif in the contact history of the Cook Islands, which have never been the
target of widespread settlement or development and have maintained a predominantly
indigenous population. The missionaries took their toll by depriving the Cook Islanders of
their indigenous religion and presenting many Western values and practices to them as
superior to those they held traditionally. Late in the nineteenth century, as the policy of
isolation broke down and the few established Europeans who were not missionaries
married natives and gained political power, the cultural walls were also breached, and the
indigenous islanders were unlikely to ignore that those who were gaining power were also
primarily speakers of English.
Schooling and literacy
The missionaries introduced and promoted two Western traditions,
schooling and literacy, that played a major role in the spread of Christianity in the Cook
Islands, and continue to impact language choices today. Cook Islanders embraced literacy
10 Language delineates social classes in colonial societies (Camoy 1974:139). See also Gal (1987), Hill (1985) and Ferguson (1959), Marshall (1982), Douad (1979).
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with zeal and high rates of literacy have remained the norm to this day. But when the
missionaries arrived in the 1820s, CIM was not a written language, so that a goal of
literacy combined with an indigenous language policy was a major undertaking.
The missionaries were undaunted and resourceful in meeting the challenge.
According to Buzacott, hundreds of adults showed up to attend the earliest classes on
Rarotonga, and there were soon 2,500 adults and children presenting themselves for
instruction. Maretu (1983:63n) has a slightly different account: "At the beginning, lessons
were available only to the chiefs and their children and for some time the chiefs tried to
limit learning." Regardless of the audience, Williams' work in transcribing CIM was just
beginning, so that the missionaries’ tools of instruction were only "a few Tahitian books...
and a few portions of the New Testament in that language, and a few sheets of Roman
letters in large print... [and] only twelve slates,” supplemented with oral drills and rote
memorization (Buzacott 1985:64-5). Teaching quality was minimal, due to the lack of
adequate training for the Tahitian teachers.11
Key components to the missionaries' strategy were a written language, a
means to produce printed matter, and literary works in CIM to print. Williams transcribed
a Rarotongan CIM lexicon and devised a CIM grammar in 1828. Williams and Buzacott
along with Charles Pitman, another LMS missionary, immediately began translating the
scriptures into CIM. By 1831 Buzacott had established Rarotonga's first printing press.
"The poor training of teachers is a motif that recurs in Cook Islands education until the present. Few of the indigenous teachers in today's Cook Islands schools have had the benefit of a university education.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. His “Complete List of Books,” translated and printed at the Mission Press on Rarotonga,
began with the gospels, and continued with the remaining books of the New Testament.
A sampling of what followed includes hymn books, catechisms and children's books,
especially school books, e.g., a geography in 1838 and an arithmetic in 1841. A
Rarotongan “Pilgrim’s Progress” appeared in 1846 and, apparently the only indigenous
literature, Aitutakian Laws in 1847. In addition to the texts printed in Rarotonga, five
thousand copies of an English edition of the Bible were imported in 1839, and Buzacott
returned from England with a fully Rarotongan Bible in 1847. All were highly prized by
the Cook Islanders, despite their inability to read or interpret the English copies (Buzacott
1985:178; Maretu 1983:157n; annotation by Crocombe). The Mangaians' eagerness for
the written word culminated in a collective Bible stealing incident, which Maretu thwarted
(1983:144).
The availability of printed matter had the desired effect.
Mr. Williams observes that from the moment the people received books in their own dialect, their progress has been so rapid, that at the present time there is a greater number of persons who can read at Rarotonga than at any of our other stations.... By far the great majority learned to read, many also to write (Buzacott 985:68).
Toward the end of his tenure on Rarotonga, Buzacott described the
changes on Rarotonga wrought by the missionaries' efforts to educate the Maoris using
Western methods of schooling and promotion of literacy.
In 1857, school-books and slates could be bought by the poorest without difficulty, the whole population could read, the majority could write and do a little ciphering. Not a few knew the elements of geography, astronomy and sacred history. The reader will find in the list of works published in Rarotonga,... enough to make a very respectable little library ... (1985:133-134).
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As the direct result of mission policy in the 19th century, Cook Islanders
became literate in their ancestral language. The missionaries’ motives were undoubtedly
mixed — conversion to Christianity, certainly, but also, a more general and ethnocentric
'improvement' that might be called Europeanization. Buzacott congratulated himself for
the “effects of education” as he saw them.
The vacant stare in some, and the ferocious countenance in others, have given way to a mild and engaging demeanor.... In courtesy of spirit and dignity of manners, and delicate consideration for the feelings of others, some of the Rarotongans excel the majority of Englishmen (1985:242).
Initially, it was impractical for the missionaries to communicate in English,
but in the long run, CIM rather than English schooling was consistent with the
missionaries’ isolationist policy. However, an education focused on religion and in their
native language deprived the Cook Islanders of knowledge crucial to future self-
govemance. True self-governance, would not have required popular knowledge of
English, but participation in the government of an English-speaking overlord did, and
hindsight has demonstrated the importance of participatory government to training
indigenous leaders of newly independent nations. In that respect, the paternalism of
missionary education may have been as crucial as the indigenous language policy in
restricting the development of Maori leadership.
Finally, mission education in the Cook Islands should be faulted not for the
choice of the language of education, but for the imposition of the institution itself.
Western education, its methods and content, interfered with and demeaned Maori cultural
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reproduction. Clignet (1984:84) described the effectiveness of colonial education and
colonial rule in depriving colonized peoples of ’’the significance of [their] own past.”
Cook Islanders and the missionary period
English missionaries and European historians produced most of the
literature on this period in the Cook Islands. The missionaries, Maretu and Ta'unga, were
also the indigenous writers of the time, and certainly the majority of Cook Islanders
admired them and respected their viewpoints, but it is necessary to read between the lines
to find the dissenters. Buzacott and Maretu briefly commented on those who resisted
Christianity and the authority of the missionaries (Buzacott 1985:41-5; Maretu 1987:83-
4). Resistance was short-lived, but Beaglehole, who interpreted missionary accounts from
the perspective of the Maoris, believed that the Maoris were not so much won over to
Christianity as worn down by 'acts of God,' especially the devastating epidemics of
infectious diseases introduced by Westerners. The missionaries attributed these as well as
the usual visitations of famine and cyclones to ‘divine wrath.’ Beaglehole described a
dialectic process.
First there is outward acceptance of some novelties as, for instance, a code of laws, changes in marriage customs, the alphabet and reading skills; second there is opposition and violence from those with a vested status interest in the past, rightly fearful that the new ways would rob them of their status and power. Thirdly, the opposition is broken by disease and famine. The people arc now prepared to push aside some of the rewards of the old social system, particularly those of which the white missionaries disapprove, and to learn the responses which will bring forth the rewards promised them under a new social order (Beaglehole 1957:40-1).
Beaglehole speculated that Christianity was a welcome relief to many
Maoris, considering what went before: "warfare, infanticide, cannibalism and sorcery"
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(1957:43). However, the missionaries diminished the islanders’ pride in their culture by
railing against sinfulness and punishing what the Maoris considered normal behaviors,
especially their sexual liberality which has survived to be admired by Westerners in the late
20th century. On the other hand, since other whites were portrayed to them as even
worse sinners, Maoris probably retained some sense of their own equality to the
missionaries and superiority over whites who were not devout Christians.
I have already mentioned the Maoris’ enthusiasm for education and literacy
and their interest in English which began to emerge as the isolationist policy of the
missionaries broke down. The most likely explanation parallels the findings of analysts
like Camoy (1974: 139) and Clignet (1984:86) — that colonized peoples demanded
education in the language of the colonizers in order to confront the inequalities of
colonialism.
The missionary period - concluded
Mission policies induced a variety of results. Isolation and indigenous
language usage were stabilizing forces. The divergent and confusing influences of
commercial interests and alternative religious groups were circumscribed by the
missionaries’ paternalistic practices, but the same paternalism whittled away a measure of
Maori self-confidence. The pressures for social change did not extend to language (except
that loan words in CIM mark Western introductions), but were nonetheless intense.12
I2Linguists have equated use of contact languages with feelings of both self- confidence or inferiority in speakers (Sorenson 1971, Schwartzman 1984, Douad 1979).
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Beaglehole chided the missionaries because they prepared the Maoris for colonialism
rather than self- rule, but he praised the Maoris for their “capacity to adjust to change
without becoming a convert to change.” Strickland (I979b:7) is less encouraging in his
summary of the missionary period: "Christianity disintegrated the foundation of our
society and our people became bewildered." But the missionaries' decision to
communicate in CIM and their successful efforts to make CIM a written language and to
promote literacy in it ensured its survival during a period when many other Maori cultural
elements were lost.
The positive value that Maoris put on education and literacy, acquired from
the missionaries and fueled by the decision to compete with Westerners at their own game,
continued to motivate them in the colonial period that followed. Very few Maoris spoke
English, but they understood that it represented power in a world from which they had
been isolated, and speakers of English would wield the power in the Cook Islands in the
period of formal colonial rule that followed.
The colonial period
The impetus to officially colonize the Cook Islands was primarily from two
quarters: New Zealand settlers, traders and government officials saw commercial
advantages, and Cook Islands Maori leaders sought protection. The French, who were
The assumption here would be that the Maoris loss of confidence in their own culture would be played out in a loss of the native language. Perhaps the missionaries’ policy prevented this, but could not bottle up the demand for English indefinitely.
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also to deprive the British of Pacific ports that might benefit from the proposed canal
across Panama. The British did not intervene when Peruvian and French Polynesian
slavers forcibly removed Cook Islanders earlier in the nineteenth century. However,
spurred by New Zealand’s economic ambition, French aggression and the Panama Canal
opportunity, and invited by the Maori arikis, the British declared a protectorate in
September 1888. The British appointed New Zealander, Frederick Moss, as the highest
administrative officer, the British Resident. W.A. Gudgeon, who succeeded him in 1898,
was also the last to hold the office. In league with Seddon, the New Zealand premier, and
with the support of the European settlers, Gudgeon politicked to annex the islands to New
Zealand in 1901. According to Scott, the arikis who signed the 1901 annexation
agreement were goaded by promises of financial opportunities and expectation of British
rather than New Zealand colonial status.13
Histories of colonial rule in the Cook Islands have focused on the attitudes
and policies of high level colonial administrators and the opposition they encountered. I
do the same with a focus on education and language policy. As for the missionary period,
I follow the discussion of European objectives for the Maoris with the Maori perspective,
especially their own educational goals regarding language. I conclude with an account of
language use at the end of the colonial period.
13At the time of annexation, New Zealand was still a colony of Great Britain, and did not achieve dominion status until 1907. A dominion is a self-governing nation of the British Commonwealth, other than Great Britain, that acknowledges the British Monarch as Chief of State.
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The colonial period - the Europeans
In this section, I focus on colonial policy makers and their shifting policies
on education and language use in the Cook Islands. Neither the British nor the New
Zealanders considered an outflow of money to the islands acceptable, and there was a
clear pattern of unwillingness to prioritize education, in good or bad economic times.
Frederick Moss, the first British Resident (1890 - 1898), agreed with the
Maoris and their leaders on the need for school reforms and for English in the schools. He
promoted an egalitarian school system; he saw providing education for "sons of chiefs"
only as a dangerous concentration of power. He prompted parliament to make English
education mandatory in the mission schools, and to create English-speaking schools in
each district. Moss also published the first fully bilingual newspaper in the islands, Te
Toreci, in 1894.
The LMS, led by Rev. J. K. Hutchin, opposed teaching English to the
Maoris: "Will it change their hearts? It will only lead them to read trashy novels as French
has taught the natives to do in Tahiti" (Hutchin quoted by Scott 1991:62-3). However,
under the threat of competition from other religious groups, the LMS was persuaded by
the Makea Ariki, highest chief of Rarotonga, to open Tereora, the first secondary school
in the islands. Subsidized by parliament, with an English curriculum and initially attended
by 60 young Cook Islands Maoris, Tereora was established on January 2, 1895.
Moss was not able to reconcile the demands of the Maori populace and
leaders, the ambitions of the various missionary groups, and the conservatism of the New
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Zealand settlers who opposed education reforms for the Maoris. On Rarotonga, rivalry
among the three districts, each of which insisted upon having its school built first,
jeopardized the whole project. Moss, an Anglican, thought education for the Maoris was
more important than religious differences, and welcomed the efforts of Seventh Day
Adventists and French Catholic priests in providing schools and teachers. Although more
than half of Rarotonga's children attended school for a few years in the 1890s, the attempt
to introduce English education was a failure. Scott explains that "teachers who knew no
CIM were instructing children who knew no English,” but religious politics also played a
role. The Adventists committed themselves to teaching in the LMS-dominated state
schools, then abandoned them to start their own schools (in English), and the LMS more
than likely worked to sabotage both English teaching and rival missionaries. Meanwhile,
Moss's independent policies put him at odds with both the Makea Ariki (who preferred
English education for elite Maoris only) and the European residents (who tended to
oppose English education for Maoris), and he resigned in ill health in 1898. His successor.
W. E. Gudgeon, who represented the residents who opposed Moss, made every effort to
undo what little Moss had achieved.
W. E. Gudgeon, British Resident from 1898-1900 and New Zealand
Resident Commissioner 1901-1909, bridged the transition from British Protectorate to
New Zealand Colony. The paternalistic rhetoric of annexation neglected to mention New
Zealanders’ trade and development ambitions for the islands.
In the New Zealand Parliament, [legislators stated] that annexation would be for the islanders' own good since they would be governed as well as they ever could be. As the
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Premier, Mr. Scddon,... phrased the matter: 'I say it is our duty to help preserve the Polynesian race14... if we are to wield ouL our destinies as a nation, by all that is good and holy, we have a duty to perform and I ask Parliament to perform that duty' (Beaglehole 1957:121).
When Gudgeon took office, the LMS ran both the state primary schools
and Tereora College. There was also an Adventist and a Catholic school. Some English
was taught in all these schools, but the LMS schools taught primarily in CIM. Unable to
ignore any longer either the decline of their influence or popular support for English
education, the LMS offered to turn over their schools to the state shortly after annexation
(Gilson 1991:169). Overlooking both the wishes of the people and the LMS's
recommendation, Gudgeon opposed this proposal and clarified his colonial philosophy
with the following statement.
Of what possible use can education be to such islands as Pcnrhyn, Rakahanga, Manihiki, Pukapuka, Mitiaro or even Mauke? In such communities education can only create a desire for things unobtainable. At the best only one in twenty of the boys will obtain employment as clerks or storemen and the rest will be spoiled for the work for which they are best fitted, viz. the cultivation of the soil. I would point out that... the best educated among them arc the greatest rogues (Scott 1991:57).
So Gudgeon left state education to the LMS, and enrollments declined. Tereora became a
school for the children o f elites, who paid fees, and Gudgeon seldom mentioned education
in his annual reports to the New Zealand Parliament.
George Hogben, a noted educationist and New Zealand Secretary of
Education who visited the Cook Islands with a parliamentary party in 1903, opposed
Gudgeon’s policies. He listened to Maori appeals for improved teaching as well as
,4The decline in population caused largely by introduced diseases lasted into the twentieth century, when it finally leveled out and reversed itself. Throughout Polynesia at this time Polynesians were thought to be a dying race (Davis 1992:5).
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training of native teachers. On Rarotonga, Pa Ariki and on Aitutaki, Israela Ariki gave
their approval for the New Zealand system of compulsory secular education with an
English curriculum, and Hogben returned to New Zealand with these reforms in mind. He
also suggested scholarships for Cook Islanders to attend New Zealand Maori schools so
that they might return as teachers.
Gudgeon prevailed over Hogben and the LMS continued to teach in the
vernacular to declining enrollments. Gudgeon’s statement of opposition reveals the depth
of his prejudice.
I have never known nor heard of a people more wanting in moral stamina than these islanders. They do not understand the necessity for self-denial or self-restraint, and therefore to educate such men above the resources of the islands would be little short of criminal... When they have by race-contact obtained a stiffening of European blood they may be capable of using the education given them; but the pure and unadulterated Native of the South Seas is a self-indulgent animal, and after an experience of nine years I have neither respect for his character nor hope for his future. The education he receives outside of Tereora is not a bad one for his conditions of life: he learns to read his Bible in Maori, and to sing hymns, and I do not think that the Mission ever intended he should Icam more than this. The result is that he is perfectly contented and happy, and if he wants to Icam English he goes as a house-boy to some European family, and in a very short time Icams enough for his purpose (Gilson 1991:171).
In 1912, three years after Gudgeon left office, Tereora closed down. There
were no classes for older Maori children for the next 45 years. Although the closure of
Tereora temporarily renewed the discussion of educational reform, Crocombe saw this
development as indicative of an underlying colonial strategy.
The colonial government abolished higher formal education to preclude the emergence of a new leadership.... Apart from a very few who were later sent to Maori Colleges in New Zealand and for medical training in Fiji, Cook Islanders were effectively (and intentionally) denied the training that would have equipped them for senior posts in the government, commerce and the churches (Crocombe 1979:1-2).
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Cook Islands Minister Pomare led a backlash after Gudgeon left office.
Finally, the government took over several primary schools and introduced compulsory
education in 1914. European head teachers inaugurated an English curriculum in "the
three R's, crafts and elementary agriculture;” they used Maori only to introduce the new
language (Gilson 1991:172). The theoretical impetus for these reforms was
“Europeanisation,” which was based on the premise that Maoris rejected their own culture
which was "no longer useful to them" and wanted to imitate Europeans, with whom they
"had been unable to compete commercially or intellectually" (Gilson 1991:173).
According to theories of Europeanization, the Maoris lived in a demoralizing cultural no-
man's-land, and only education could reverse the current social, economic and public
health problems.
The Resident Commissioner from 1916-21, Frederick Platts, was a
proponent of Europeanization. He believed "the natives are in tutelage — they are not yet
ready for the free institutions of New Zealand” (Scott 1991:153). This was the basis for
his educational philosophy and the reforms he promoted. When Platts took office, there
were primary schools on Rarotonga, Mauke, Mangaia, Atiu and Palmerston. He worked
to increase enrollments, and for the first time, saw that Maoris obtained scholarships to
New Zealand schools. Platts became personally involved in finding a curriculum that
would teach English as a foreign language and settled on American readers developed for
use in the Philippines. He oversaw the creation of a technical school to provide Maoris
with training for public service jobs in the new wireless station, the government printing
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press and the post office. During Platts' tenure, a visiting parliamentary party in 1921 also
agreed to requests that all laws should be translated into CIM.
The common thread in Platts’ policies, counter to earlier efforts, was Maori
participation in government, leading to reduced Maori dependence. As with Moss before
him, Platts had his critics, and strongest among them were the European residents. Also
like Moss, his career was cut short because he "worked too well on behalf of the Maoris"
(Scott 1991:167).
Meanwhile, World War I and the economic boom of the late teens and the
1920s brought Cook Islanders into contact with a wider world as never before. Up until
the depression of the 1930s, several ships a month docked at Rarotonga, exporting
agricultural products to New Zealand and importing manufactured goods from New
Zealand and the United States (Davis 1992:4). The need to track ship movements was the
impetus for the introduction of the wireless and local telephone to Rarotonga. Movies
arrived on Rarotonga in the 1920s and were an immediate success with the Maoris.
Unlike the other developments though, movies were not a particularly potent influence for
English since CIM speakers provided simultaneous translation and commentary for the
silent films.
Platts' replacement, Hewitt, was not unlike Moss’ replacement, Gudgeon,
in that he set out to undo the work of his predecessor. However, his tenure was brief, and
his successor, H. F. Ayson, broke the pattern of vacillation between opposite viewpoints
by taking the middle ground on most issues during his twenty year administration.
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Sir Apirana Ngata, the New Zealand Maori Minister of the Cook Islands
from 1928 till 1934, was a force for educational reform. His philosophy appears to have
been a mix of Europeanization and Polynesian pride: “To deny a sufficient education to
the Polynesian tribes of these islands would not be humane; it would not be manly or
sportsmanlike; it would not be worthy of decent British traditions” (quoted by Gilson
1991:174). Curricula promoted "the morals and ideas of Christian European civilisation"
including world history, geography and English literature, as well as Maori arts, crafts,
dances and story-telling and technical training geared to local jobs (Gilson 1991:174).
Instruction in English supported two purposes: the expression of modem concepts (such
as western medicine) and the provision of a lingua franca among the island dialects and
throughout the Pacific. Though Ngata promoted foreign training of Maori teachers, his
efforts were hampered by the low salaries they were offered when they returned to work
alongside better-paid European teachers. Also, Maori culture subjects were soon
neglected in favor of teaching English.
Due to poor teacher training, lack of supervision from Wellington, irregular
inspections, and Depression budget cuts attributed to declining exports, Cook Islanders
were still receiving an education far inferior to New Zealanders.15 New Zealand spent
almost four times more on its own children than on Cook Islands pupils, while Cook
l5New Zealand Maori educational policies were assimilationist until 1931 when Ngata’s reforms introduced Maori culture curricula. While New Zealand Maori communities were rural and relatively homogeneous, Maori school curricula were distinct from those of other schools. When they began to migrate to the cities, Maoris attended ordinary schools. New Zealand never formally segregated its schools, but so-called Maori schools endured lower budgets into the 1950s (Dakin 1973:70-77).
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Islands teachers reported burgeoning class sizes, poorly equipped classrooms, and meager
compensation for their work. Not surprisingly, the students still did not show proficiency
in English, and in 1934 the CIM language was forbidden in the state schools. Ngata
resigned in 1934 in response to ongoing spending cuts, and education spending did not
increase through the years of World War II.
Despite the low quality of the schooling before and during the war, major
linguistic changes took root. Maoris kept their ancestral language at home (Davis
1992:12) and many learned enough English in the schools to become bilingual. From
1936 until 1945, literacy in English went from 16% to 50% among indigenous
Rarotongans.
The colonial movement was on the wane after the war, and educational
policy reflected new attitudes. New Zealand's Minister for Island Territories (1943-1948),
Peter Fraser (later Prime Minister) concluded that Europeanization had failed and brought
back CIM instruction in the schools, with a focus on the early grades. Polynesians had
little use for European lifestyles, and the poor implementation of English schooling was
resulting in students poorly versed either in English or CIM. However, the readoption of
CIM suffered from the lack of adequate instruction materials and it was not popular with
the Maoris themselves who felt that the schools' primary role was the teaching of
English.16
I6They were not alone in their expectations. Camoy (1974:131) believed that Africans attended colonial schools specifically to “learn English so they could deal more effectively with the European ... [and acquire] access to jobs” and in spite of colonizers
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The colonial period - the Maoris
As in the missionary period, Europeans17 who wrote accounts of Maori
attitudes toward language use in the colonial period reported that Maoris favored an
English language education for their children. Gilson cited the lack of new publications in
CIM, and the flexibility of English for expressing new ideas, but he also acknowledged
that English did not have wide application in the islands. Europeans were (and are) still
very much in the minority. There were no libraries, seldom any newspapers, and movies
were translated for the audience. He continued.
English was useful for dealing with officials, but it was not essential. The traders either spoke the vernacular or had employees who did. There were few jobs solely open to English-speakcrs, and special training was required for most of them.... However, a working knowledge of English did enable islanders to seek unskilled work in New Zealand (Gilson 1991:178).
Migration was a motivation for English, but the bulk of the migration came later, with the
political upheavals after self-governance. Although the impetus for early accounts of
Maori interest in English are unclear from current research, the most likely cause, stated in
the literature review and above in this chapter was the symbolic value of English as an
equalizer in a stratified colonial environment.
Evidence of the Maori viewpoint prior to World War I can be derived from
the reluctant admission of the LMS that the Maoris were requesting English instruction,
and from the testimony of sympathetic officials who visited the Cook Islands and listened
attempts to create demand for education through vocational training.
17I include New Zealanders of European ancestry in this designation - the Maoris prefer the termPapa'a which they apply to all Westerners.
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to Maori leaders. The 1903 parliamentary party that included Hogben sought the opinions
of leaders on Rarotonga and Aitutaki. Here is Scott's account.
Pa Ariki told the visitors there was a desire that the knowledge of the people should grow and he asked for students to be trained to teach the people in all the villages. He was asked if he would approve of the New Zealand system of compulsory secular education. After some reluctance by the interpreter, the Rev. Lawrence, to put the question, Pa replied: that is our thought and wish ... if the government is to do it, well let the government do it... The point was again made that secular education excluded religion. The missions could look after religious instruction, Pa said. Aitutaki had the same view. The chief, Israela, said the people would be pleased to welcome the New Zealand system as soon as the government sees fit (Scott 1991:101-103).
Eight years later, Cook Islands Maoris repeatedly asked the visiting New Zealand Chief
Justice and those who accompanied him, to improve education in the islands. A Mataiapo
(lesser chief) in Titikaveka, Rarotonga pleaded for a government school there "so that by
learning they may become helpers of the Government. ... Do not leave us to become as a
lot of fools" (Scott 1991:120). In the federal Council, one Maori speaker made an appeal
for state schools to replace mission schools:
We are children and are living in darkness, and we want to be as wise as those under whose wing we are living. That is one thing that we know will be of great benefit to the island -- that everybody may learn, and also learn to speak the English language, and anything else that may be learned in school (from Scott 1991:120).
Whether his portrayal of Maoris as unenlightened children was honest, metaphorical or a
manipulative appeal to colonial sensibilities is impossible to judge.
World War I was a turning point in opening up the Cook Islands to the
world beyond the South Pacific. Maori soldiers excelled in the war effort and were
praised and decorated for discharging their duty well. They returned with stories of
Europe, arousing the curiosity and interest of those at home. They also came up against
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prejudice, which some veterans addressed by learning English. When intolerant officials
expelled 16 Cook Islanders from the New Zealand Seamen's Union, Ioane Tiaki’s
testimony implied that language was the basis for prejudice and the best strategy against it:
“Four of us speak good English. The others speak a little English. I have never known a
case of a sailor or fireman refusing to work with us. We always got on well with them”
(Scott 1991:143-4).
Many returning veterans, frustrated by the lack of opportunity at home,
migrated to New Zealand. The reasons for learning English at home before the war were
augmented by the desire to develop relations with English-speaking communities abroad.
The onset of the Depression renewed the Maoris’ interest in migration and though they
were not recruited for military service during World War II (another instance of
prejudice?), their work was in demand in the factories and on the construction sites of
New Zealand. Both educational and economic opportunities attracted Maoris to
Auckland during World War II.
After World War II, the pleas for improved education and for its extension
to higher levels continued, with a new theme — equal rights. The emergence of non-
traditional Maori leaders at this time can in part be attributed to the educational reforms of
the pre-war period.18 First among these was Albert Henry, a Maori ex-schoolmaster, who
founded a bilingual newspaper, Te Akatauira, in 1938, and left government employment to
provide English classes privately to "education-hungry students penalized by a compulsory
18Camoy (1974:143) described the irony that colonial education sowed the seeds of independence by promoting European values of “liberty and freedom.”
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leaving age of fourteen" (Scott 1991: 2 16-219). Henry gave CIM classes to Papa'a
administrators and traders as well. He would become the first Prime Minister of the self-
governing nation of the Cook Islands in 1965.
If Henry's rise to power provides an indication of Maori attitudes toward
language at the end of the colonial period, it is this. English was needed for the attainment
and the exercise of power, but pride in CIM language and heritage was key to the
consolidation of popular forces in the movement toward self-govemance. Scott relates
the action of a congress o f Cook Islanders, led by Henry in Avarua, Rarotonga in 1949:
"the word NATIVE is to be canceled for the word MAORI and radio news be translated
into the Maori language" (Scott 1991:265).
The colonial period - concluded
According to Crocombe (1979:1), the colonial government "wanted [Cook
Islanders who were] passive, dependent, lacking in confidence and experience, and very
easy to manage." Some colonialists certainly wanted these things, and those who did not
were hampered by powerful opposition and sparse budgets. The colonialists who believed
in and promoted the ongoing inferiority of Polynesians did the greatest harm, but the more
humane and equally misguided efforts of those who promoted Europeanization also took
their toll. The greatest failing of the Papa’a colonials was that they arrogantly declared
themselves the experts on the Maoris’ educational and linguistic needs. Even when they
listened they did not back up their support with well-funded or well-implemented
programs. Educational reforms came and went, and ultimately, the reforms had the effect
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that the Maoris had long requested: a generation of Maoris became bilingual in English
and CIM.
It is apparent that the Maoris wanted to learn English during the colonial
period. They said as much, and they stayed away from schools when English was not
available. They associated English and schooling, and why not? Their own culture had
reproduced itself without it. But would it continue to do so? CIM was the first language
of Maoris, the language of home and family, and, according to Davis (1992:12), its
expressiveness fostered its survival. Although the Maoris did not reject their own
language and culture, their active pursuit of the offerings of Western culture (with English
as the key) during the period of colonization extended the trend of cultural displacement
initiated in the missionary period.
Writing in the 1950s, Beaglehole argued that Maori culture had persisted,
that Maoris were still basically Polynesians — that their Polynesian 'psychology' was intact.
Looking back at a century and more of culture contact in Rarotonga and Aitutaki one's abiding impression must remain an impression of cultural tenacity and stubborn conservatism rather than one of pronounced and lasting change. Certainly there have been changes on the periphery of life: changes in clothing, in tools, in communication, changes in religious ideology and practice; the disappearance of infanticide, cannibalism, institutional warfare, slow changes in polygamy and chiefly power. But despite these changes the people have remained tenaciously Polynesian, with their own attitudes, their own motivations and interests. Not the facts of change, but the resistances to change become emphatic when focus is switched from the externals of life to the psychological bonds that really hold a society together (Beaglehole 1957:237).
But must there be an argument — persistence or change? Certainly both occurred and
language choices reflected both: bilingualism represented a foothold in each culture.
Language choice as a metaphor for culture change and persistence is a frequent theme of
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anthropological linguists a major theoretical basis of this thesis. Beaglehole derived his
data in support of cultural adaptation and persistence from pre-colonial history and his
own anthropological fieldwork. As such, he is the most comprehensive source of
information on Maori sensibilities in either period — missionary or colonial, but the lack of
direct Maori content in the views I have presented makes this analysis incomplete.
The key development in the colonial period is that Maori bilingualism in
English and CIM began as the direct result of an educational policy, however poorly
implemented, that made knowledge of English available to a whole generation of Maoris.
Regardless of colonial motives for introducing change or anthropological notions of
cultural persistence, it was the Maoris themselves who chose English and worked to
obtain it.
Self-governance
When the Cook Islands gained nationhood in 1965, they chose to limit their
own powers, especially in foreign affairs, in order to maintain a beneficial relationship with
New Zealand (Crocombe 1992:163; Short 1987:177). The Cook Islands' status is that of a
self-governing 'Associated State' which maintains the right to unilaterally declare full
independence at any time. Among the benefits of this arrangement is New Zealand
citizenship which gives Cook Islanders free access to employment opportunities and state
educational institutions there. Although the first two Cook Islands Prime Ministers (1965-
1987) advocated severing the official relationship with New Zealand, there has never been
widespread Maori backing for this move (Crocombe 1992:171-2). Several New Zealand
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Prime Ministers have also privately expressed their support for Cook Islands'
independence, "to free New Zealand from both the cost and criticism for being in a
quasi-colonial relationship" (Crocombe 1992:172).
The effects of the Cook Islanders' choice to retain the relationship with
New Zealand are both complex and definitive. It is a choice that demonstrates the success
of the colonials who promoted Europeanization; it is also a choice for change and for
participation in a wider world. By 1965, there was no question of exclusively falling back
on Maori resources, either economic or cultural. The value of New Zealand citizenship to
Maoris of the Cook Islands is predominately economic, but the choice undermines Maori
cultural persistence. Wolf (1982) demonstrated this omnipresent phenomenon — of
economic choices that result in the decline of cultural diversity — in chronicling the spread
of capitalism from Europe to all comers of the world. The spread of English and other
European languages to the detriment of indigenous languages is a metaphor for the
concurrent cultural displacement.
In the period of self-governance, Maoris of the Cook Islands have made
further commitments to bilingualism — to teaching English and, more recently, to
preserving CIM. Having expelled missionary and colonial overlords, they select their own
leaders now and make their own domestic policies, but there is no quintessential Maori
view of language issues any more than of any other subject of public concern. To look at
this period in terms of the development of CIME is to recognize diverse influences and
acknowledge diverse points of view. First, I relate the influences that have favored
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English, and education is once again central, and I conclude by looking for common
threads within the varied opinions about language choices among Cook Islands Maoris
that I encountered in the literature and in my own fieldwork.
Promotion of English since self-governance
The major factors that have influenced language choices in the Cook
Islands in the late 20th century are education, migration, tourism and the media.
Education
New Zealand’s influence on Cook Islands education continues into the
present. The most significant policies in this respect are curricular, including the decision
to award students the New Zealand School Certificate (NZSC) and the practice of
bringing in better-paid, expatriate teachers. A number of Pacific Islands introduced the
NZSC at mid-century, and the use of foreign teachers is a continuation of a New Zealand
colonial policy in Polynesia. While most Pacific nations phased out both practices. Cook
Islanders elected to extend them (Crocombe 1992:96, 196).
The provision of expatriate teachers, mostly New Zealanders, for high
schools and teachers’ colleges, was held to be an interim measure for the training of
indigenous, self-sufficient educators throughout the colonial period and into the 1980s
(Crocombe 1992:97). When Beaglehole took stock of Cook Islands education in the
1950s, his recommendation was to bring in more European teachers "with an interest in
island life" to create citizens of a "Western World." The poorly trained indigenous
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teachers he observed could only deliver "the three R 's,... a little computation,... health
and hygiene," and religion. But foreign teachers were comparatively expensive, so
Beaglehole encouraged New Zealanders to step up to their "educational responsibilities to
an island people" (Beaglehole 1957:218)
According to Crocombe (1992:95-7), the decolonizing New Zealand
administrators were committed to upgrading education in the South Pacific; they sent out
New Zealanders as teachers, instituted scholarships for islanders to New Zealand schools,
and upgraded curricula. But the goal of self sufficiency was deferred time and again "due
to public demand for expansion of secondary as well as other forms of education." And
though foreign teachers were (and are) well-paid, local teachers' salaries were (and are)
still so low as to discourage careers in education. In this respect, Cook Islands education
today is suffering from the same inequitable pay scales that Ngata complained about in the
1920s and 1930s (conversations with teachers).
Most foreign teachers in the Cook Islands are placed at the secondary level
and this serves to concentrate them on Rarotonga, where most of the Islands' college
students reside.19 They have a great deal of influence on the English spoken by their
students. Some Maoris rate the quality of a college by the number and proportion of
foreign teachers (e.g., see Helen’s comments comparing her school on Rarotonga with the
school on her home island in the transcription of her interview in Appendix A). On the
Outer Islands, foreign teachers are scarce, and as a result, the teachers who deliver the
19Secondary schools in the Cook Islands are referred to as colleges. College students range in age from 11 to 17 years.
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English curriculum tend to be native speakers of CIM rather than of English, and the
English they impart has many CIM characteristics.
Although CIM was officially reintroduced into the curriculum in the 1940s,
teachers continued to punish students for speaking CIM in school into the 1980s in
attempts to address problems with English proficiency (From personal interviews with 22
to 45 year-old Maoris). In addition, New Zealand funded a major study to improve the
curriculum for teaching English in the 1960s (Tate 1963, 196? and n.d.), and the South
Pacific Commission sent a teaching specialist to reevaluate teaching of English in the
primary schools in 1970s (Carpenter 1972). By 1980, a survey of language use and
preference in the Southern Cook Islands primary schools (Tixier and Early 1980:72-3)
found the schools able to impart English and maintain CIM successfully. The authors also
cautioned that Rarotongan youths’ preference for English signaled a “language shift” in
progress.
Currently, all Cook Islands state primary schools except one on Rarotonga
(Avatea School) are conducted in CIM (officially, the Rarotongan variety). The
curriculum is designed to give the children a solid basis in their indigenous language before
they learn English. In the first two years, teachers work primarily in spoken and written
CIM, and they introduce spoken English. English writing is taught from grade three. At
Avatea School, teachers chiefly use English and teach CIM as well. Avatea’s students are
the children of expatriates as well as local children whose parents choose an English
immersion program.
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All Cook Islands colleges are conducted in English, but the indigenous
teachers frequently intersperse their lectures with CIM when they believe that some of the
students are not following their English (personal observations and communications with
teachers). Maori Culture classes taught in CIM end after form 4 (about age 15).
A number of Pacific Islands began working with New Zealand in the late
1940s to issue the NZSC to local high school graduates. In the 1980s, New Zealand
assisted these same islands in phasing out the NZSC because of its neo-colonial
implications (Crocombe 1992:101,106). The Cook Islands was one of several
governments that retained the certificate, because it is a recognized credential which gives
Cook Islanders access to institutions o f higher education and employment opportunities
abroad. The NZSC is still the ultimate goal in the eight Cook Islands high schools
(Crocombe 1992:101) and there is even talk of completely phasing out the Cook Islands
Certificate which is now prerequisite to the NZSC (personal interviews with teachers). As
a result, the Cook Islands curriculum is designed to provide students with the means of
achieving proficiency in Standard New Zealand English.
Cook Islands parents value education and they are intent upon giving their
children the best opportunities for learning English. University-educated Maoris are still
rare, but their numbers are growing, and the only path to higher education is through
attainment of an NZSC and one of the few foreign university scholarships awarded to
Cook Islanders annually by New Zealand, Australia and the Melanesian nations.
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There is one more aspect of Cook Islands education that is an apparent
continuation of New Zealand colonial practice. Just as in the days of Gudgeon and Ngata,
education is not a financial priority in the Cook Islands. The schools I observed in the
summer of 1995 had insufficient chairs and desks and broken windows. Teachers wrote
long exercises on the board for copying because of the lack of books, copiers and even
paper. Students and teachers were constantly involved in hand raising activities that took
time away from the classroom, and many of these targeted sporting or cultural trips rather
than academic priorities. The government generally provided teachers and buildings;
parents and students worked through the School Committees, which exist for each of the
36 Cook Islands schools, to raise money for minor maintenance, science and sports
equipment, books, copiers and other extra facilities (Crocombe 1990:31).20
Another development in education is the growth of private schools on
Rarotonga. Te Uki Au School, for example, provides an English curriculum taught by
native speakers of English, and limits Maori culture and language classes to two hours a
week. In the summer of 1995, Te Uki Au, which promotes English as a first language and
prioritizes Western academic subjects over sports and Maori Culture, was growing rapidly
and expanding to accommodate additional grade levels. Many of its students are children
of expatriates who prefer an education more grounded in Western schooling for their
children, but many are Maori children whose parents can afford the fees and who are
2l>In 1988, School Committees raised about $40 per child per year for primary schools, and $200 per student for colleges, while the proportion of the government budget devoted to education declined from about 12 percent to 8 percent (Crocombe 1990:32).
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unhappy with the education, and especially with the English language instruction their
children receive in the state schools. Also, many children whose parents prefer an English
immersion curriculum have been turned away from Avatea School, which has long waiting
lists, and Te Uki Au is meeting their demand.
In summary, the primary focus of state educational policy in the self-
governing Cook Islands is teaching English. Indigenous teachers are in the majority, but
they are poorly trained by comparison with the foreign teachers, who are also highly
valued for speaking a standard variety of English. Schools are not a financial priority for
the Cook Islands government and this has an effect on the quality of state education. I
observed a particularly ironic result of a poorly-funded educational system that focuses on
a foreign language when I visited one of the Outer Islands. I met with half a dozen sixth
formers who had successfully negotiated both the Cook Islands and the New Zealand
School Certificate exams in the lower and upper fifth forms. Prior to the exams there
were 16 students at this level on the Island. These were the survivors. Every one of them
was the child of a family of returned migrants, all had received most of their education
abroad in English-speaking school systems, and they all spoke English rather than CIM at
home. Those who had failed the exams had been educated in Cook Islands Schools only.
Back in Rarotonga, a business leader predicted that the next leaders of the Cook Islands
will be returned emigrants, because they receive a better education than those who never
left.
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Migration
Migration, an option for Cook Islanders as early as World War I, became
widespread after self-governance. Today there are at least twice as many Cook Islanders
abroad, especially in New Zealand and Australia, as there are at home.21 In the 1950s
Beaglehole worried about accommodating a growing population with education, housing
and social services, not realizing that migration would completely offset the growth.
Because self-governing Cook Islanders are New Zealand citizens, there are no legal
barriers to their emigration either to New Zealand or to Australia, which allows New
Zealand immigrants.
Two events in the 1970s coincided to increase emigration to its highest
levels to date. One was the opening of the International Airport in Rarotonga. Okotai
described travel into and out of Rarotonga prior to the airport opening in 1973.
A person intending to visit Rarotonga had three choices; he could follow the weekly Auckland, Nadi, Apia, Rarotonga air route ... - the flight takes 17 hours - or go by sea on the Moana Roa which serviced Rarotonga once a month, or wait for the very occasional cruise liner that called at the island (Okotai 1985:50).
The other event was a national election which left the members of the losing opposition
party demoralized and without employment prospects at home (Davis 1992:242;
Strickland 1979b: 13). The leader of the opposition, Tom Davis, wrote about emigration
in his autobiography.
After the general elections of 1972 in which we had polled nearly 48 percent of the votes, our supporters were highly disappointed. A number of public servants and wage workers were fired on the basis that they were our supporters. ... This caused so much consternation and fear... that, between March 1972 and September 1974, 4040 people of all ages
21There are obvious parallels with migration from Caribbean islands to the USA.
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emigrated from the Cook Islands - over 20 percent of our total population. ... The exodus consisted mainly of Democratic Party supporters and their families (Davis 1992:242).
The migrants were mostly young adults (Strickland 1979b: 13).
Crocombe (1992:13,17) described New Zealand’s Pacific Polynesian
emigrants and their children as "of a small and often underprivileged category" with Cook
Islanders representing the second largest group, after Samoans. Indigenous language and
culture become less important with time for the immigrants, though some elements are
maintained, and Cook Islanders, especially, preserve strong ties with relatives back home.
Cook Island immigrants are also more likely to marry Europeans than they are to marry
other Cook Islanders.
Children in the Cook Islands grow up aware of the possibility of
emigration and in close communication with migrant relatives whose remittances prop up
both the family and the Cook Islands economy. Learning English is a logical goal for
Maori youths at home. The migrants become more anglicized, they maintain relationships
through communications and travel, and they often return to Rarotonga or their home
Outer Islands to live. Many return as retirees to raise their grandchildren, bringing their
Papa'a spouses. The net effect on language in the Cook Islands is a shift toward English
and away from CIM. Over time, one consequence of migration is likely to be that CIME
will more closely approximate Standard New Zealand English.
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Other influences
Developments that increase Maoris' exposure to written or spoken English
affect CIME. Some of these involve direct interaction with native speakers of English or
with Cook Islands migrants who have come to prefer English to CIM. Some are
facilitated by modem telecommunications or printed or electronic mass media. Here is a
list. The first of these items is probably the most significant among them.
• The international airport has promoted the growth of tourism in the Cook Islands,
"which is more dependent on tourism for its national income that any other South
Pacific country." Most tourists are English speakers from New Zealand, and
English-speaking tourists create jobs for English-speaking Maoris (Crocombe
1992:149). Tourism is concentrated on Rarotonga (Okotai 1985:51 ) 22
• Radio is mostly in English. Crocombe refers to indigenous language programs,
indicating that English language programs are the norm (1992:129, 132).
• Since late 1989, most Cook Islands television programs have come from
Television New Zealand (TVNZ). There is some local programming in both CIM
and English, but international news and other programs are from TVNZ
(Crocombe 1992:134).
^Syme (1985:57) blames the loss of the indigenous language in Hawaii as a consequence of tourism, and states that the same 'tragedy' is already occurring in Rarotonga.
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• The Cook Island News, the six-day-per week newspaper is in English with one or
two CIM articles in each issue. A new Sunday paper was starting up while I was
in Rarotonga with a similar language mix.
• By far the highest phone, fax and telex traffic from the Cook Islands is to New
Zealand, with 31 long distance contacts to New Zealand per 1000 of population in
1988 (Crocombe 1992:140-1).
Maori attitudes
Concurrent with the growth of CIME, there is a movement on Rarotonga
to reinvigorate the use of CIM.23 Many public events including sessions of Parliament are
now conducted in both English and CIM with simultaneous translation from whichever of
the two languages the speaker chooses. Traditional events, such as the initiation of an
Ariki, are directed entirely in CIM. Many church services are in CIM, though some are in
English and some are a mixture of both languages, depending upon the sect and the
likelihood that there are tourists or other foreigners in attendance. I heard of a returned
migrant businessman taking CIM lessons to improve his business contacts on Rarotonga.
I interviewed 26 Maoris on Rarotonga on their language preferences and
there was a pattern to their answers. In general, CIM is age-graded with young people
^Hawaii, New Zealand (Benton 1989) and Fiji (Geraghty 1989) are three Pacific polities with language revitalization programs. There are certainly others. Meanwhile, many Oceanic languages are endangered (Nekitel 1989; Tryon and Charpentier 1989).
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. more likely to speak English and those over 25 more likely to speak CIM. Some elites24
had English as their primary language, and most elites strongly promoted the survival of
the CIM language. Elites often had strong educational backgrounds, and they were
knowledgeable on theories for promoting bilingualism. One young man with high
government connections who was raised speaking CIM at home told me "We have a belief
that if you are good at Maori, you will be good at English." Tom Davis, the former Prime
Minister who has a Harvard Ph.D. mentioned in his autobiography the "mistaken belief' of
Rarotongan families that "more Maori means less English, when in fact one language
enhances the other" (Davis 1992:12).
Davis's statement was borne out by my own observations. Non-elites in
Rarotonga were more likely to have CIM as their first language and to promote English as
the first language for their children. They wanted their children to learn their indigenous
language as well, but they felt that would happen without any effort. Rarotongan parents
and grandparents tended to speak English to their children because they believed it helps
the children's English if speaking and hearing it is not confined to school. Four parents
told me that their children understood CIM, but did not speak it.
Rarotongan children preferred English — my data, from compositions of
college students, shows a ratio of two to one (22:11). Four children made derogatory
24I am roughly defining elites as those Cook Islands Maoris with access to power, wealth and a private (often foreign) education by virtue of their inherited (i.e., as members of a chiefly family) or acquired status. Elected or appointed government officials acquire status through their office in the self-governing Cook Islands. I have no data on the amount of overlap between those with inherited and those with acquired status.
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remarks about the CIM language; others said that English is easier than CIM and that their
siblings and friends prefer it. The half a dozen people I asked why English is considered
easier responded that many words are not available in CIM: English, which has so many
more speakers world-wide quickly accommodates new concepts; CIM generally changes
through the introduction of loan words from English.
The Outer Islands were a different story. Kauraka pointed out that
language use on the islands was shifting toward English with inverse proportion to the
island's distance from Rarotonga (Kauraka 1994). On the Outer Island I visited, one of
the closer ones to Rarotonga, children and adults who were not returned emigrants
preferred speaking CIM to speaking English.
Cook Islanders want to keep their favored relationship with New Zealand
which continues to open doors for them overseas — to higher education and to
employment. They have mixed opinions about the promotion of tourism: they are aware
of its dangers and its benefits. They are in general, unwilling to open up to immigration
from New Zealand (Short 1995), and they prize the land tenure they hold on their native
Outer Islands, even when they choose to live on Rarotonga.
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Conclusion to the history of CIME
During the 19th century while the missionaries held hegemony in the Cook
Islands, Maoris lost elements of their culture when they chose conversion to Christianity in
the face of overwhelming external pressures for socio-cultural change. However, the
CIM language itself was sustained and preserved and became the basis for introducing the
Western concepts of education and literacy as well as the Christian religion. During the
period of colonization by New Zealand, Cook Islands Maoris became bilingual by
pursuing English language education, despite the posturings of a paternalistic and
ungenerous colonial government. English was the language of power and economics and
it could provide them with access to a wider world of opportunities. The Maoris opposed
efforts to deprive them of an education based on English and their persistence was
rewarded. Since self-governance, Maoris have not turned back from their commitment to
English, though they have recognized the value of the CIM language as well. Economic
opportunities at home and abroad have convinced parents, especially those on Rarotonga,
that English is the key to a better life for their children. The children of Rarotonga prefer
English to CIM, and they and the English-speaking migrants returning from abroad are the
likely leaders of the Cook Islands in the 21st century
The contact history of indigenous Cook Islanders with Europeans
concludes with the development of a bilingual culture and a unique variety of English.
Cook Islanders have maintained their ancestral language well into the 20th century, and it
continues to influence the way they speak English. Their now enduring experience with
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Western styles of education has its own unique aspects: most teachers of English have
been (and are) native speakers of CIM, but some teachers were (and are) not only native
speakers of English, but highly trained educators. The rapid changes occurring at the end
of the 20th century, especially in Rarotonga with the advent of tourism, modem
communications and transportation, ensure that CIME will continue to change alongside
other world Englishes. The still substantial population of CIM speakers, especially those
on the Outer Islands, guarantee that this variety of English will continue to bear
characteristics that make it unique to this island nation.
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THE COOK ISLANDS MAORI LANGUAGE
History and development
CIM is an Austronesian language related to about 300 languages with a
million speakers in Papua New Guinea (coastal areas and islands), Micronesia, Melanesia,
and Polynesia, and another 200 or more languages with 200 million speakers in northern
New Guinea, the Philippines, Formosa, Indonesia, Malaysia and Madagascar (Benton
1991:1). The Proto-Polynesian languages diverged from the other Austronesian
languages about 3,500 years ago and further subdivided into the various Polynesian
languages as Polynesian migration and settlement in the Pacific progressed over the next
2000 to 2500 years. CIM developed from (hypothetical) Proto-Eastem Polynesian and is
most closely related to New Zealand Maori, Tahitian, Hawaiian and Marquesan languages
(Benton 1991:4-6). Since European contact, CIM, has been heavily influenced by
English, most noticeably in loan words adapted to the Maori phonetic system, but also in
the loss of some syntactic features which have no equivalent in English (e.g., directional
indicators and possessives).
There are varieties of Maori particular to each of the settled Cook Islands
except Palmerston, which is settled by English-speakers primarily of European descent.
67
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The Rarotongan variety which is the official national language, is the best documented of
these. On Rarotonga there appears to be a risk of the younger generation losing Maori,
since most of them prefer the English they learn in school to their ancestral language.
Maori is still the preferred language of Rarotongan adults, who speak it to each other in
most social contexts. In business and even in government, English reigns, though in the
last few years, Maori has been reinstated in parliament where the members may speak
whichever language they prefer, and an interpreter provides a translation in the other
language. According to Kauraka (1994), the purity of the Cook Islands Maori varieties is
inversely proportional to the distance of each variety’s home island from Rarotonga.
Description
Phonology
CIM phonemes include the following consonants: k, m, n, ng, p, r, t, v, and
the glottal stop (Strickland 1979a: 7 et al). There are five vowels (a, e, i, o, u) and vowel
length is phonemic in CIM. Texts differ regarding the pronunciation of the short
versions.25 Primary stresses in CIM fall on the first syllable of multiple syllable words. If
words are longer than two syllables, there is a secondary stress on the penultimate syllable
(Strickland 1979:8). There are no diphthongs in Polynesian languages, each vowel is
given the value of a full syllable, however this may be changing with the influence of
English. Consonants occur only as syllable onsets and there are no consonant clusters.
25I take up this issue in the phonology section of Chapter 6.
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Some examples of adapted English loan words illustrate this, e.g., spoon becomes lipuni,
Christmas becomes Kiritimati. These examples also illustrate substitution of the /tl
phoneme in Maori for the /s/ phoneme in English, since neither /s/ nor any other sibilant
occurs in Maori.
To native English speakers, the/ng/ consonant used to begin syllables and
words is often problematic, and they tend to emphasize the [g] or velar aspect over the
nasal quality of the phoneme.26
Syntax and Morphology
Some of the syntactic and morphological features of Maori contrast with
features of standard Englishes. Here are some examples.
• Position indicators used after nouns or verbs indicate the position of the speaker
relative to the listener or position away from both (Strickland 1979a: 13).
• Pronouns are singular, dual or plural (Strickland 1979a: 19-20).
• Tense particles identify verb tenses (Rere 1994: 58-60).
• Possessive particles indicate natural or close personal possessions (to, no and o),
vs. acquired possessions (la, na, a)according to Strickland ( 1979a:21). Rere
(1994:70-71) defines o and a possessives by more specific categories.
26I have found the key to pronunciation of [ng] is to keep my tongue low in my mouth.
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• Plural forms of nouns are the same as singular forms (Strickland 1979a: 14).
Plurals are indicated with a plural determiner or count word (Carpentier and
Beaumont 1995:14-15).
• Preferred word order is Verb - Subject - Object for indicatives, commands and
interrogatives, which are differentiated by intonation. Without an object, the verb
still tends to precede the subject (Carpentier and Beaumont 1995:37-40, Strickland
1979a: 11, 13).
• There is no equivalent for the verbs to be or to have (when it means to possess) in
Maori (Carpentier and Beaumont 1995:86, 88).
• There are more demonstratives than in English, and directional indicators are often
used with verbs in Maori (Strickland 1979a: 12-13).
• There are three possible patterns for interrogatives; one is indicative word order
with rising intonation (Rere 1994: 56-57).
• There are several possible transformations for the passive in Maori, some verbs
have three or four passive forms (Rere 1994:60).
Social usage27
In the first section in this chapter, I alluded to the potential for loss
of CIM in the youngest generation. In interviews, I learned that many parents (informal
estimates vary from 25 to 50%) speak English to their children because they appreciate the
^Most of the ideas in this section also appear elsewhere in this paper, e.g., in the section of Chapter 3 about Maori attitudes to language usage since independence.
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economic and prestige value (especially among non-elites) o f competence in English.
Most Rarotongan parents want their children to hear enough Maori to be able to
understand it, even if the children do not speak the language. Most children hear CIME
(Rarotonga) or Maori (Outer Islands) at home and CIME from native teachers in school.
However Standard New Zealand English is the basis for the school curriculum and exams
for the New Zealand School Certificate. In school, teachers are challenged with children
who are more comfortable in one or the other language, and native teachers code-switch
to be understood.
When Rarotongans gather, their choice of language is governed by age,
but also by the mix of people present. Although most adults feel more comfortable in their
native language, English can serve as a lingua franca even among Polynesians from
different areas of the Pacific. If Anglos are present, Rarotongans will often politely speak
English, since very few Anglos, even residents and spouses of natives, have learned Maori.
Among Rarotongan elites, I am told that Rarotongan is required, and I met
at least one Cook Islander raised abroad who is taking lessons in his ancestral language to
improve his status. An awareness, especially among elites, of language renewal efforts,
such as those going on in Hawaii, has caused concern and made survival of Maori a topic
of interest to adults if not to most young people. However, a government and business
leader confided to me that she expected the next generation of leaders to be
English-speaking Cook Islanders who have returned from New Zealand where they have
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had the benefit of a superior education. Cook Island emigrants sometimes return from
New Zealand for economic reasons or to retire.
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DATA ANALYSIS: COMPELLING FEATURES
OF COOK ISLANDS MAORI ENGLISH
CIME lexical and semantic features
I introduce four topics in this section: loan words, CIME words
that extend the meaning of English words, compound adverbials that serve a pragmatic2*
function in CIME, and a feature that reflects the interplay of CIM semantics and syntactics
in CIME.
Loan words
The patterns represented by CIME loan words are compatible with findings
in the literature, reviewed above. Like Trager's collection of Spanish loan words in the
Taos language (1939:156), CIM loan words in CIME in are predominately nouns. Some
CIME loan words fall into the two categories that Spicer (1943) focused on in his work
on Spanish terminology used by Yaqui Indians: material objects or inventions and social
organization. On the other hand, Spicer found ritual and religious terminology (an aspect
of social organization), but CIME reflects its own religious history, and Christianity
displaced indigenous religious practice in the Cook Islands long before English came into
use. Kroskrity's (1985) two dominant categories of Spanish loans in Western Mono are
28According to Leap “the concern in pragmatics is knowing how to ground syntax and semantics within the context of speaking”(1995).
73
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household notions and substances which are eaten, drunk or smoked. CIME includes
Maori loan words for the latter, but I collected none of the former. Trager (1939:156)
found 120 Spanish loan words in a lexicon of 2500 words (not including proper names)
collected from the Taos language. He speculated that this ratio would either continue or
increase if he made a comprehensive collection, and it would probably increase over time.
Since Trager (and Kroskrity and Spicer) wrote about loan words from the colonizers'
language to the indigenous language, and this study focuses linguistic exchange from the
indigenous to the colonizers’ language, the ratio of CIM loan words in CIME may
decrease with time.
Dixon's study of Australian aboriginal words provides a better analogy for
CIM words in English, and the flora and fauna of Australia dominate his word inventory
(Dixon 1990). Similarly, plant species and plant products are a significant proportion of
CIME loan words.
Figure 6.1 lists the loan words I heard Maoris use during my field work in
the Cook Islands. The overriding pattern is of items and concepts which were novelties to
the speakers of English who came into contact with Cook Islanders historically, and which
continue to have importance in Cook Islands culture today. The use of these items and
concepts persisted after the introduction of English, and because there was no equivalent
English word, the CIM word was borrowed into English. Ironically, the tourist trade
influences the survival of CIM terms in both CIME and CIM. Gewertz and Errington
(1991) are among many anthropologists who have written about cultural elements that are
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Figure 6 .1. Loan Words in Cook Islands Maori English
Word Gloss
akari ripe coconut or its meat ariki chief, leader au wild hibiscus; Gber used for 'grass' skirts, rope ei necklace of flowers, feathers, leaves, or shells; there arc also hip eis and head eis imenetuka Cook Islands Maori style of hymn (both words are English loan words in Maori: hymn and sugar) kaikai a party which is centered on a meal; a pot luck meal kia orana greeting (welcome; may you live) kikau leaves of the coconut palm; used to make baskets and traditional roofing kiukiu bonefish kumara sweet potato kuru breadfruit Maori indigenous Cook Islanders, their indigenous language makatea raised limestone formation, especially on Mangaia and Mauke mana abstract indigenous source of power maniota arrowroot mata trees trees that grow in mountainous areas of Rarotonga mataiapo a district chief, lower than an ariki meilakc thank you nu a green coconut or its milk; drinking coconut paku same as rukau, Mangaian version papa'a person of European descent, not a Maori pareu length of cloth worn by women and girls as a skirt or dress pate slit gong, usually of carved wood pa'ua giant clam pe'e traditional style chant pupu shell the shell of a small crustacean found only on Mangaia; used for eis puru coconut husk fiber; variety of uses e.g., plugging holes in vakas rakoa the white-tailed tropicbird rangatira sub-chief rukau edible leafy part of the taro plant, Rarotongan version (see paku) taro root crop; staple food Tangaroa well endowed Maori god of the ocean, favorite subject of wood carvers tiarc Maori fragrant flower of gardenia family; used for eis tivacvac appliqucd textile; a Maori art/craft form uniu earth oven, cooking is done by heated laval rocks umukai a feast focused on a traditional meal cooked in an umu utu a large indigenous tree or its fruit. The fruit is poisonous and was used to stun lagoon fish vaka traditional outrigger canoe for ocean travel
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valued by indigenous peoples more for their economic value in the tourist trade than for
their intrinsic or cultural worth.
Most CIME loan words are nouns — all but two of 38 words — and this is
consistent with Trager (1939:156). I categorized the words to uncover other patterns.
Some of the words fall into Spicer’s two categories: material objects or inventions and
social organization.
Maori material objects in Figure 6.1 include ei, pareu, pate, tivaevae, umu
and vaka. The indigenous raw materials for producing some of these objects are also loan
words: au, kikau, pupu shells,pum . Hare Maori. Most of these materials are important in
traditional dress worn when staging performances of Cook Islands culture called items™
especially dancing, chanting and music. In this respect, pe'e and imene lukci are also Cook
Islands inventions.
In CIM, pareu means (or used to mean) to wear or gird — reureu is the
CIM word for the original item of clothing, made from leaves, similar to today's pareu
(Savage 1980:236,306). Historic films I viewed at the Constitution Week celebrations on
Rarotonga in August 1995 did not show Maori women wearing the pareu until the middle
of this century. Instead, the women pictured in the early films (dating back to 1919) wore
either dancing costumes made of au (Westerners might mistake them for “grass skirts”),
or modest cotton dresses originally introduced by the missionaries. The change in
meaning of pareu may reflect an interruption and reintroduction of traditional women's
29 See the discussion of words with extended meaning in CIME which follows this section.
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dress in Cook Islands history that paralleled the revival of interest in indigenous culture in
the 20th century after the power of the missionaries had waned, and tourism gained
economic importance.
Vakas still exist in the Cook Islands, though modem versions are called
outriggers, and the word, vaka, is reserved for canoes built according to customary
specifications by Maoris with an interest in ancient Polynesian navigation and sailing.
Early CIM words in CIME that relate to social organization are ariki,
mataiapo, rangalira, Maori, papa’a.31 The first three of these words persist as hereditary
titles in elite families, the descendants of traditional rulers and warriors. The only CIM
religious terms in the lexicon are mana and Tangaroa and both terms have survived in
other Pacific cultures ("Nomads of the Wind" citation pending) and may not have been
borrowed directly from the Cook Islands Maori language. Historically, Rarotongans
claimed a special relationship to Tangaroa, a deity of the ocean (Savage 1980:346); today
his image is popular with tourists.
Following Kroskrity’s categories, I found no household items, but a
preponderance of foodstuffs in CIME, especially edible plants. They include akari,
kumara, kuru, maniota, nu, paku, pa’ua, rukau, Closely and associated taro. with these
are occasions for eating and drinking: umukai and kaikcA. In CIM today, English loan
words identify many household items. Although today's Maoris may eat with lipuni
3IThe original meaning of papa'a, four layers, refers to the many layers of clothing worn by the first Europeans to come to the Cook Islands.
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(spoons) and drink from kapu (cups), they still consume and even prefer traditional foods
(Wiglesworth 1995).
Eighteen of 38 CIME loan words relate to Cook Islands flora and fauna:
akari, au, kikau, kiukiu, kumara, kuru, maniota, mata trees, nu, paku, shell pa'ua, pupu
puru, rakoa, rukau, taro, liare Maori, Only and kiukiu, utu. pa'ua, pupu and rakoa are
animals rather than plants, since nearly ail land-based Polynesian faunal species became
extinct prior to contact with the West (Allen 1993:437; Kirch 1995; Kirch and Ellison
1994:313; Steadman 1987:199). In the twentieth century, many of the lagoon and sea
species became endangered in the Cook Islands, and I collected kiukiu in a parliamentary
discussion of this problem. The Members of Parliament argued in English about whether
kiukiu correctly translates as the edible "milkfish" or the inedible "bonefish." Calling it a
loan word at all is stretching that concept. Pa’ua has become a delicacy, imported to
Rarotonga for the tourist market. It is best known today for its large, collectible shells.
Mangaians gather indigenous pupu shells to make ei to give to visitors to Mangaia and to
sell to Rarotonga’s tourists.
Makatea represents a geographic feature unique to some Polynesian
islands including several Southern Cook Islands. Geography is the largest category of
loan words, given that most places retain their precontact names. I found the place names
listed in Figure 6.2 in my field notes and they are only a sample of the many I could have
used from Cook Islands maps. The permanence of geographic features insures the
persistence of their names as loan words in all of the worlds’ colonial languages.
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Figure 6.2 Proper Noun Loan Words
Place Names People's first names
Aitutaki Araipu Arorangi Ina Atiu Kauraka Avarua Kimiora Avatea (School) Mere Manihiki Matamaru Mangaia Mii Manuae Ngametua Mauke Reangi Mitiaro Ripou Ngatangia Rupe Nikao Ta'i Pukapuka Takiora Rakahanga Tapurau Rarotonga Tarita Takitumu Teaea Takutea Teareni Tereora (College) Tere Titikaveka Tereaii Tongareva Teremoana Tupapa Tetangi Tungane Tuaine Utia
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I collected the Maori names in Figure 6.2, and although I cannot say
whether use of Maori first names is waning, my own data represent a majority of non-
Maori first names. Surnames are both Maori and European, reflecting intermarriage
which began late in the missionary period, discussed in the historic section above. My
rough reckoning indicates an even distribution. Their absence from early contact writings
may indicate that surnames are themselves a Western introduction (Gill 1989a and 1989b;
Maretu 1983).
The percentage of CIM words in CIME is small and likely to be decreasing
with time as English grows to introduce new concepts (Van Dyke 1992). The categories
of CIM loan words are limited, and they reflect the persistent cultural elements, such as
traditional foods, place names, inventions, titles and entertainments, which are important
to the Maoris but which also appeal to the tourist trade. However Outer Islanders who
continue to practice subsistence agriculture supplemented by hunting and fishing and who
see few tourists are also assured of retaining these lexical elements (and they also prefer
speaking CIM to speaking CIME).
Extension of meaning of existing words
Basso gave an example of Navahos extending the meaning of native words
to cover new technology. Cook Islanders have extended the meanings of several English
words in CIME to give lexical representation to some Cook Islands cultural elements
which are not addressed in standard Englishes.
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An item refers to Maori presentations of music and dance that are often
original compositions for specific occasions. I observed rehearsals and final performances
of a number of the items staged by students representing their schools in the Constitution
Day celebrations of August 1995. These included dances accompanied by music,
especially ukelele, guitar (both introduced in this century) and pate. Instrumental items
withpate s only are also popular, and choral music can be the focus of an item, but Maoris
on stage and in the audience often engage in spontaneous dancing if none has been
choreographed.
When Maoris refer to competitions, they use a plural form which means the
same as 'contests' in Standard American English. Speakers of Standard New Zealand
English also say competitions with this meaning. However, because the singing
competitions and school competitions of the Cook Islands are specific to Maori culture,
the word competitions has an extended meaning in CIME. Singing competitions are held
periodically on every island for children's and adults' age groups and the winners compete
for national titles. School competitions occur in most subjects and detailed results are
public information. Sports competitions are a favorite topic of conversation in the Cook
Islands where rugby is the preferred sport and the girls' netball team holds world ranking.
Two more CIME words with Maori-created meanings are coconut and
doughnut. A coconut is a white person; a doughnut has mixed parentage: one natural
parent is white, the other is an indigenous Cook Islander. I cannot say whether these
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terms are used outside the Cook Islands. I heard them used affectionately by teachers
addressing their students.
Compound adverbials with here and there
Maoris have created compound forms of the English adverbs here and
there in CIME by adding over or back before the deictic. I used data from taped
transcribed interviews (Appendix A) for this analysis. When a speaker of standard English
uses the deictics here or there, a speaker of CIME often uses the forms over here, over
there, back here and back there. The compound forms have specific meanings unique to
CIME.
Figure 6.3 shows the numbers of occurrences of here and there as
adverbials in the interviews and their forms and meanings. Daniel compounded here and
there with over and back more frequently than the other informants. All of the others
except Pamela used the combined forms when they referred to islands in the Cook Islands
and only Daniel and the control33 used the compound forms to mean ‘nearby or in this or
that place on Rarotonga,’ usually accompanied by a pointing gesture. All of the
informants except for Daniel used the simple forms, here and there (i.e., not
compounded) more frequently than the compound forms, and Figure 6.3 lists their
various meanings.
33Here and in all analyses below involving control data, the control used is my own speech in the same interviews. This is less than optimal -- someone (or multiple individuals) speaking New Zealand English would have served better to differentiate CIME since that is the standard English Cook Islanders most frequently hear.
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Figure 6.3 Compound Adverbials
Speaker DNHT P Control
Speech events / 500 words (# of occurrences except control): meaning
over here{ 1 )/over there( 1) or back 1.0 — — — .4 here(l): nearby, in this/that place on (meaning Rarotonga nearby)
over here( 10)/over there( 1) or back 3.2 2.8 1.4 .5 — there(4): meaning this or that island
here(control only)/there(4): 0.6 1 1.3 1.4 nearby, in this/that place on Rarotonga
herel l)/there(2): — — 3.3 .5 1.3 .4 Cook Is. vs. another country
here(6)/there{4): 0.3 7.1 .9 .5 1.9 2.3 this or that island
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According to the results listed in Figure 6.3, speakers used the compound
forms {over here, over there, back there) to distinguish between Rarotonga, the island
where the interviews took place, and other islands in the Cook group. Speakers never
used the compound forms to distinguish the Cook Islands as a whole from other nations,
though they did use the simple forms for both meanings (i.e., an island nation {here) and
other nations {there) vs. different islands within the Cook Islands). The frequency of one
or the other of these two meanings correlated to the nature of the conversation. Daniel,
Nancy, Tangata and Pamela tended to discuss Rarotonga and the Outer Islands, whereas
Helen, who was hoping to attend a university in Australia, talked more about going
abroad.
The compound forms then, literally did not go outside of the geography of
the Cook Islands, but referred to the island that we were on (Rarotonga) vs. the individual
Outer Islands. Three of five CIME speakers used the compound forms with this meaning
more frequently they used the simple forms for the same meaning. The control never used
the compound form when differentiating the various Cook Islands. Perhaps it is
significant that the only Maori who never used the compound form was the only one of
the speakers who had lived abroad and attended a foreign university. It may be that
similar spatial features are available in the ancestral language though I was not able to
uncover them in the resources available to me.
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A semantic/syntactic feature of CIME: the concept of language
CIME has some syntactic features that are incongruent with standard
English syntax. These features can interact with lexical usages in English and CIM to
produce unique semantic features in CIME. I demonstrate an example of this
phenomenon for a semantic area that provided the theme of conversation in much of my
data: language.
Here are some CIME utterances about language that do not occur in
standard Englishes.
Helen: She learned a few English.
Tangata: [We speak English] and a few Maori.
Daniel: Yeah, I know why, because their voice is different. Their voice
goes up.
Field notes: much words
Aileen: Do you speak English or Maori when you’re in School? D: We speak
the same. The both.
Daniel: Sometimes ... I hate the English language, but Maori language I don’t
really hate.
Helen: They mainly encourage us to speak Maori language
Tangata: It's mixture of Maori, our local and English language.
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Before discussing the syntactic features that may influence these utterances,
I briefly differentiate the lexical/semantic concept of language in CIM and English.
Although there are many English nouns that share meaning with language
(e.g., dialect, voice, speech, talk, saying) each is also semantically different — that is, each
word has separate and unique connotations as well. The semantic notion of countable and
uncountable nouns is important to this analysis of language. In English, most nouns have
an uncountable form which corresponds to the plural version without an article, for
example a language and the languages of are Asia countable, but languages, as in She has
a gift for languages, are uncountable. Words are discrete countable items within a
language (though arguably all the words cannot be counted in a living language), but
words also exists as an uncountable noun (e.g., Lawyers use words well.). Both language
and word also occur as collective nouns in their singular form (Humans are the only
creatures capable of language; His word is law.). However, this is not the case for most
nouns — consider I like oranges or I like some statues.
In CIM, I found two words that mean language — luatua and reo. Both
words not only have multiple meanings when translated to English, but they also function
as multiple parts of speech.
Savage (1980:304) translated reo as “voice, tone, speech, utterance,
language, dialect, form of words.” Buse and Taringa (1995:390) listed five meanings for
reo: (1) “voice;” (2) “key, part voice, tone;” (3) “key” of a keyboard instrument; (4)
“language, dialect;” and (5) “will, last instruction, make a will, bequeath, give parting
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instructions” (N.B., both noun and verb meanings). Savage (1980:405), defined lualua as
“a general term for speech, oration, spoken language or that which is spoken: literally
means to repeat and repeat again and again;” Buse and Taringa (1995:518) were clearer
about differentiating two parts of speech for luatua: a verb (“talk, say, speak, converse”)
and a noun (“a word, words, text, talk, a message, doctrine, news, anything spoken”).
Both lexicons list a number of examples of semantic variation for both luatua and reo,
driven by modifiers, e.g., “lualua muna, a secret” (Buse and Taringa); “ Tangata lualua
raurau, a chatterbox” (both); “tuatua-kiro, eloquent speech” (Savage). CIM grammars
also gave a variety of translations for lualua.
• te luatua Maori o te Kuki Airani or te reo Maori o te Kuki Airani - Cook Islands
Maori (Carpentier and Beaumont 1995:82)
• E ‘ate luatua Maori chair?no te - What is the Maori word for chair? (Carpentier
and Beaumont 1995:6)
• E reka lana luatua. - His talk is interesting.
• Kare e taka ana lualua - His speech is not clear.
• E lualua Maori koe. Speak - in Maori (Rere 1994:18).
These English translations represent a mix of countable and uncountable nouns. There are
probably other CIM nouns besides luatua and reo within this semantic area, but these two
predominate in the conversational grammars available to me.34
MOther than Carpentier and Beaumont (1990) and Rere (1994), these include
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Figure 6.4 Some Syntactic Differences Between Maori and English: Formation of Plurals and Collective Nouns
Maori syntax English syntax
1) There is no plural morpheme in Maori. I) Regular plurals arc formed with the plural Maori speakers indicate plurals with plural morpheme [z\. markers (e.g., au, kau, nga, puke, 7, ct teta al). Another way of forming noun plurals is reduplication (Rere 1994:68).'
2) The Maori “articles” te and e are used with 2) Determiners such as the and a can indicate singular and plural nouns; plural markers with number. te and e indicate plurality. Maoris use these “introductories” more to introduce nouns than to indicate number (Mose 1961:92-93).
3) Some non-countable or collective nouns are 3) Some non-countable or collective nouns arc formed with the introductory te (and rarely formed using the plural (e.g., men, oranges, withe) followed by a (countable) noun with taro2 as in / like men, etc.}. The definite no plural indicator (e.g., te tangata, te ‘anani, article is used with countable nouns (Tate te taro) (Mose 1961:95; Rere 1994:67). 1963:21).
4) Since there is no plural morpheme in 4) There arc also many collective nouns in Maori, there is no distinction between English that only exist in ‘plural’ form collective nouns and non-countable nouns without the plural morpheme (e.g., air, rice, which have a countable form, as there is in wood). English (See 5 below to clarify the need for this distinction.)
5) The use of modifiers indicating quantity 5) The two types of (collective) nouns take docs not appear to be governed by the some different modifiers as indicators of countable/collective distinction that exists in quantity, e.g., many, a few, several, a number English. See Appendix D on the multiple of modify nouns that have countable forms; meanings of ma 'ata. much, a quantity of, amodify little those with only uncountable forms3.(Tate 1961. 17)
Taro, a loan word in English, is an irregular plural, probably because of its Polynesian origins and the lack o f a plural morpheme in Polynesian languages.
In verbs, reduplication indicates 3And a lot of, some, any, and nomore repeated action. can modify either.
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Semantically, the most obvious differences between CIM and English
terminology for language is that English speakers use a variety of nearly synonymous but
semantically differentiated terms while CIM speakers appear to use two major terms
whose semantic variations are governed by contexts and modifiers. In order to
differentiate countable and uncountable semantic variations in CDM, I must move on to
CIM syntactics.
In her book about teaching English grammar to Cook Islands Maori school
children, Tate differentiated countable and uncountable nouns in English, and listed their
appropriate modifiers while admonishing that “the choice of the right word with the two
kinds of nouns must be made by habit” and “teachers would never explain these rules to
pupils” (Tate 1963 :18,19). These kinds o f ‘errors’ are common to speakers learning
English, and Tate addressed them because they were common usages in the CIME of
schoolchildren. Figure 6.4 is a comparison of the syntactics for forming plurals and using
collective or non-countable nouns in the two languages.
Tate (1963:21) said that some uncountable CIM nouns take the definite
article, while in English the definite article is used only with countable nouns (e.g., te
(angata for men in “the tongues of men”). Mose and Rere gave the general rule for
forming collectives or uncountable nouns in CIM with a noun and the CIM “introductory”
te (Figure 6.4 #3). According to Mose (1961:95) te tangala means the man but it can
also mean the people, while te au tangala means more than three men. Said another
Mose (1961), Rere (1979), and Strickland (1979a).
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way, in standard English, countability and use of definite articles applies to the same noun
usages, but this same correlation does not occur in CIM.
Another syntactic area appropriate to this discussion is pluralization.
Figure 6.4 shows that CIM speakers make nouns plural with modifiers or by context,
while standard Englishes employ the plural morpheme, /z/, regardless of other indications
of plurality. I found a several examples of CIME speakers omitting the plural morpheme
or using it differently from standard Englishes.
Daniel: Our two childrens, they are kneeling down.
The childrens always have babies (i.e., to take care of in church).
Yeah, I know why, because their voice is different. Their voice
goes up.
I saw him abunch of lime.
Helen: Our parent encourage us to speak Maori.
I know they haven’t got that much money to get the medicines.
field notes: There shouldn’t be any smokes coming out of the umu.
Our ancestors stored waters in these vessels.
The last points of Figure 6.4 show that English speakers acknowledge the
distinctions between collective nouns that have and those that do not have singular forms
by using different modifiers with them; that is even in their non-countable forms, countable
modifiers are used with the former (e.g., ‘a little rice,’ not ‘a few rice,’ but ‘a few
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languages,’ not ‘a little languages’). CIM speakers apparently do not distinguish these
types of nouns syntactically (since there is no plural form o f most nouns) nor in the
selection of modifiers they use to indicate quantity. Appendix D gives the example of the
CIM modifier ma 'ata. Its flexibility of meaning is similar to that of luatua. The CIME
utterances at the beginning of the appendix suggest that the speakers were substituting
much for ma 'ata and not making the distinctions between much and many, as modifiers of
uncountable and countable nouns respectively, that speakers of Standard Englishes make
(Figure 6.4 #4&5).
I would conclude that the CIME expressions about language quoted at the
start of this section reflect all o f the influences from the mother tongue that I have listed in
Figure 6.4 and discussed here. My main point is that CIME speakers may reclassify some
English nouns as both uncountable and countable words, based on the multiple meanings
of the specific CIM noun counterpart (e.g., lualua means both a word and language).
This may help to account for the first two examples which use a countable modifier (few)
with uncountable nouns (CIM and English, as languages). It may also account for the last
three examples which deleted the definite article as if the CIM and English languages were
uncountable nouns in English. As for the both, certainly two is a countable number of
languages and takes the determiner in English! There are fewer examples of the
interaction of the other points of Figure 6.4, but there is almost certainly some interplay
of these various syntactic themes in CIME and there are two more examples of this
interaction in the data given.
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In Daniel’s first example, voice, could be translated into CIM as luatua or
reo. Either the singular or plural English form of the noun, voice, would have been
standard usages, but the plural possessive pronoun with the third person singular verb
form was not. Daniel may have been leaving off the plural morpheme, but probably not.
since the singular verb form is used. However, substitute intonation for voice (reo has
both meanings) and Daniel’s syntax was correct for standard Englishes, and that, from
context, was his meaning.
Much words presents the opposite problem of the first two examples: a
countable noun with and uncountable modifier. Assuming the speaker knew about this
distinction, the countable/uncountable nature of language (tuatua) as words may have led
to this combination. After all, even in English, words can be uncountable (See Figure 6.4
#3). However, this is even more likely a case of a translation of ma 'ata to much.
However, much in standard English lacks the flexibility of ma 'ata in CIM (again, see
Appendix D).
The CIME examples in this section differ from the others presented in this
thesis in that I cannot establish a consistent pattern of usage. Instead, I have taken a few
examples of spoken CIME which diverge from standard English and looked for a pattern
of interference that explains these examples. As with the other features, what makes these
examples interesting is that they illustrate constructions that are influenced by elements of
the Maori culture, in this case syntactics of the mother tongue. A tangential discovery of
this analysis is the relative economy of the CIM language. This finding is consistent with
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the histories of CIM and English, given that CIM grew up on islands in relative obscurity
from the world’s other languages, while English has grown and expanded due to contact
effects from many of the worlds languages for many centuries.35
CIME lexical and semantic features: conclusions
These four examples of lexical and semantic features of CIME (influenced
by pragmatics and syntactics) reflect historic antecedents and represent unique Maori
cultural features. Historically, I find words (such as imene tuka) that CIM speakers
borrowed from English in the early contact period, adapting them to CIM phonology, and
which CIME speakers borrowed back from CIM to describe a unique cultural element
developed in that phase. Loan words have political economic overtones when they exist
largely to accommodate the tourist trade (e.g., Tangaroa, pa'ua) or as symbols of interest
in native culture, revived by colonial excesses and a modem movement toward self
government and cultural pride (e.g., vctka, pareu). However, the few examples given
here are most interesting in what they show about their Polynesian speakers today. They
reveal an avid interest in traditional foods, performing arts and competition; a playful
attitude toward racial variety (i.e., doughnuts and coconuts)., an experience o f space that
differs from mainlanders’, and a reluctance to abandon features from the mother tongue
that stand out for their simplicity and flexibility. Most important for this thesis, CIME
35See also Buzacott’s comment about CIM having a “not very great... number of words” in Chapter 3.
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speakers employ semantic features which are characteristic of this unique variety of
English.
Phonological features
In this section, I discuss some unique phonological features of CIME at
both the segmental and the suprasegmental levels. Maoris' varied ways of saying yes and
yeah illustrate the segmental features. The suprasegmental feature, the rhythm of CIME,
is both the most characteristic feature of the language variety and the most difficult feature
to demonstrate.
Saying yes and yeah in CIME
Maoris pronounce final s’s in several ways.36 Because my data consists of
question and answer interviews, the word yes occurs frequently across all the interviews,
and its pronunciation provides data to illustrate this segmental feature. In addition, CIME
speakers have multiple pronunciations for the vowels in yes and its counterpart yeah.
Although differential pronunciations occur in standard Englishes as well, the patterns of
CIME pronunciations of these segments indicate that they are more than just random
occurrences or “slips of the tongue.”
The overriding impression from Figure 6.5 is one of immense variety.
There seems to be no universally preferred way of answering in the affirmative in CIME.
wMy conclusions are limited to non-morpheme final s's. My data indicate that CIME speakers pronounce the plural morpheme according to the morphophonemic rules followed by speakers of standard Englishes.
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Speaker D N H P Control
Speech events / 500 words (# of occurrences except control)
forms of vex
yss (9) 4.2 1.4 1.5 .12
ySz (4) 1.9
yssz(5) 2.4
ySis (3) 1.9
yeisz (3) 1.9
ySAsz( I) 0.5
yis (4) 1.4 0.5 1.3
yis: (2) 1.3
yisz (5) 1.4 2.6
yiz(2) .5 0.6
forms of veah
ySA (61) 5.2 6.7 14.0 1.9
ys (44) 3.5 2.9 6.2 8.5 0.6
yA (1) 0.5
Figure 6.5 Yes and Yeah in CIME
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The informants preferred th eyeah forms to theses forms, but this was also true of the
control. The males (Tangata and Daniel) used the yeah forms almost exclusively, as did
the control. Four different final consonant forms occurred in yes. [s], [s:], [z] and [sz], the
latter being a combination ([s] and [z]) of two phonemes which ends with the voiced [z].
The vowel options in yes included [S], [i], [El] and [EA], For yeah, the vowel options
were [ea], [e] and [a], I discuss the consonant options first, then the vowels.
Sibilants do not occur in CIM, and this could be the reason why CIME
speakers would not necessarily differentiate these phonemes, especially when they are not
morphemes as well. The morphophonemic rules for the /s/ in yes in CIME are not so
straightforward as for the plural morpheme, and this is apparently true of other non
morpheme final sibilants.37
I looked at the segments which follow the /s/ in yes, and found some
correlation with voiced and voiceless following segments. Figure 6.6 shows that more
utterances of yes ended with the voiced forms of the sibilants (20 vs. 18), and I account
for this by noting that the segments which immediately follow were overwhelmingly
voiced as opposed to unvoiced segments (27 out of 38) and the preceding segment was a
vowel and always voiced. The two voiced coda options, [z] and [sz] were in free
variation or ideolectical, but the selection of voiced vs. unvoiced ([s]) coda suggested a
morphophonemic rule for sibilants in complementary distribution based on the following
37For example, Daniel pronounced the /z/ in wav with phonemic variety similar to the other CIME speakers pronunciation of the /s/ in yes.
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voiced unvoiced agreement segment segment ratio follows follows
Speech events
yes (9) 4 5 5/9
y£z(4) 4 0 4/4
yesz (5) 4 I 4/5
ysis (3) 2 1 1/3
ysisz (3) 3 0 3/3
ySAsz(1) I 0 1/1
yis (4) 2 2 2/4
yis: (2) 1 1 1/2
yisz (5) 4 I 4/5
yiz(2) 2 0 2/2
Results: unvoiced segments following [s|: 9/18 or 50% voiced segments following [z] and [sz|: 18/20 or 90%
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segment. The fact that half of the uses of [s] occurred with a voiced following segment,
could have two causes: (1) the speaker was aware that it is the standard English form and
differentiated the [s] and [z] sibilants, (2) the following segment, which is always in a
different word, is superseded by a pause, which is certainly voiceless, like the [s] in yes.
CIME speakers used various vowel forms when they saidye.v and yeah,
and it is possible that CIM phonemics have a role in this effect. CIM has five long vowels
each with its short form (or vice versa). Cook Islands Maori grammars describe these
vowels in a number of ways.38
Here is Mose in his 1961 grammar:
The vowels arc pronounced in two ways; either glottal (guttural) or light. Thus each vowel sound may be lengthened or shortened depending on the requirement of a word. The glottal sound is made by a sudden opening of a closed glottal passage and letting out the sound of the vowel through it. As a result, the A is pronounced asah,Easce, O asoin ought, and U as oo. The second or light way is made by pronouncing the sound of the letter with an open glottal passage. The passage must be opened before the sound is made and must be kept open till the sound is ended. This is the opposite of the glottal sound (Mose 1961:1).
Strickland gave the following guidelines for CIM vowels.
..in the case of vowels, the sounds may vary in length. They arc the same pure, clear sounds, but they arc made short or long and it is this variation of the vowel sounds which spices the Rarotongan language with its rhythmic, musical tone...
38 Keep in mind that these books are written for speakers of New Zealand, Australian or British English, hence the vowels are not standard American English vowels. Notably, the postvocalic /r/ affects the vowel, but is not itself pronounced. This /r/ has also been called the "non-rhotic consonant" in descriptions of standard Englishes (Todd and Hancock 1987:65, 301).
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The five short sounds of vowels: a as in above c as in pen i as in il 0 as in bought u as in put
The five long sounds of vowels: a as in the ar in car c as in the c in ten 1 as in the ea in cat o as in the or in torn u as in the oo in moon (Strickland 1979a: 7)
Kauraka provided me with a tape of his own reading of Strickland and
what follows is my IPA interpretation of Kauraka's pronunciation.
The five long vowels The five short vowels
[a:] [a]
[e:] [8]
[i:] between [i] and [i]
[oa:] [oa]
[u:] between [o] and [u]
Carpentier and Beaumont provide both a written and an audio-taped
comparison of CIM vowels with English vowel forms. I focus here on the audio version
- Carpentier was the speaker. My comments in parentheses ({}) refer to my own
interpretation of some of the sample words, and to an added feature of the short forms,
which I have called 'clipped.'
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Long vowel forms Short vowel forms
[a] long as the [a] in [ba] {bar?} [a] {clipped} short as the [a ] in bAt {but}
[e] long as the [e] in [eg] {egg?} [e] {clipped} short as the [S] in [get] {get}
[i] long as the [i] in [il] {eel} [i] {clipped} short as the I in [bit] {bit}
[oa] long as the [oa] in [poak] {pork} [oa] {clipped} short as the [oa] in [soa]
{so?}
[u] long as the [u] in [su] {sue} [a] {clipped} short as the [o] in [pot] {put}
(Carpentier and Beaumont: side I of audio tape)
Summarizing across these three (or four) versions, CIM short vowels are
glottalized, as Mose said. However, I would disagree with Mose that the glottal sound
begins the short vowel, based on my hearing of Carpentier. Glottalization at the beginning
of a syllable I would classify as the use of the glottal stop as a consonant. The short vowel
ends rather than begins with a glottalization, giving it the “clipped” quality I refer to
above. This is what I heard on the Carpentier and Beaumont tape, but not on Kauraka's
tape of Strickland. However, Kauraka told me that he considers English to be his first
language (personal communication) and I believe he grew up in New Zealand, which
could account for a modification of the glottalized vowel sounds that Carpentier
verbalized quite clearly. Both Mose and Strickland implied that the long and short CIM
vowels have the same "clear" sound, but both Carpentier and Kauraka (and the written
samples Strickland and Carpentier and Beaumont (1995:26) provide) indicated that the
quality of the vowel may change in some of the shortened forms, corresponding to the lax
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versions of the tensed long vowels. Other than Mose, the sources were consistent in
stating that there are shortened forms of Id and /i/ pronounced as [£] and [i]. These two
lax front vowels, along with the lax middle vowel [a] are the forms that occur inyt'.v in
CIME.
Since CIM grammars were not clear about whether [s] and [i] are
phonemic in CIM, it would not be surprising to find them in free variation in CIME. What
was even more interesting, was that the clipped or glottal sound that these vowels take on
in CIM, was consistently used by all speakers (in my data) and this extended to
pronunciation of the vowels in yeah as well. One interpretation of this effect is that
speakers of CIME did not clearly distinguish between the front lax vowels [£] and [i]
(which may not be phonemes in CIM), but they were very clear about distinguishing long
and short vowels and this after all, is the significant phonemic variation in CIM vowels.
The control, on the other hand, pronounced all vowels without the glottal or clipped
feature. In addition, speakers of CIME perhaps because they sensed that the vowel in a
standard English yes is a 'short' vowel that is held longer, attempted to compensate by
occasionally using the diphthongs [£ i] and [£A],
On the other hand, yeah in standard English has a diphthong, and speakers
of CIME pronounced it most of the time (61 of 106 occurrences). Perhaps I can account
for the 44 instances o f yeah pronounced [y£](and one pronounced [yA]) by recognizing
that diphthongs do not occur in standard CIM. In CIM, the standard structure of words is
CVCV (consonant vowel consonant vowel) and if two consecutive vowels do occur, they
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are pronounced as two syllables. CIM is changing and CIM speakers sometimes
pronounce the word Maori itself with a diphthong, however, diphthongs are still rare
enough to CIME speakers who tend to simplify them to a single vowel.
All of my theories about the segmental features of CIME described here
are grounded in CIM phonology. I also looked for pragmatic reasons for the CIME
responses. The varied pronunciations could indicate that Cook Islands Maoris are
uncomfortable with direct questioning.39 However, I could not substantiate this theory
with my data. All my informants appeared to be willing respondents to most of my
questions. In the few instances when I posed awkward questions, the most likely
responses were silence or evasion, not a discomfited affirmative.
In conclusion, there are segmental features of CIME, apparently influenced
by the phonology of CIM, which distinguish CIME from other English varieties. The
features I have discussed include phonologic variation of sibilants, specifically concluding,
non-morphemic /s/ and /z/, and front lax vowels. There may be morphophonemic patterns
to instances of the former; the latter appears to be a case of free variation. In addition,
CIME speakers utter the vowels with a concluding glottalization or clipped sound, similar
39See, for example, Leap’s findings about classroom dialogues between Anglo teachers and Ute students (1993:216-221) and Morrow’s (1992) account of Yup'ik behavior under legal questioning in Alaskan courtrooms. In both cases, the speakers chose to limit indications of agency, a finding similar to Ochs’(1988:86-104) and Duranti’s(1994:144-66) in their analysis o f Samoans’ use of the ergative in varied social contexts.
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to short vowels in CIM, and they also appear to have a tendency to drop one of the
vowels in an English diphthong.
Suprasegmental rhythm and CIME
Two Cook Islands residents who were native speakers of Australian
English whom I met during my fieldwork remarked that Maoris speak English faster (than
speakers of standard Englishes). Hartmann and Stork (1972:234) defined tempo, a
suprasegmental characteristic of speech, as “syllables per second” and Crystal (1987:348)
called it “the speed of speaking.” It may be the case that on average, Cook Islands Maoris
speak English with a faster tempo than speakers of standard Englishes, but it is not
feasible to measure the average tempo of a language variety. In fact, since tempo varies
between speakers of the same language and even over time in speech for the same
speaker, it is a poor comparative tool. I would postulate that at least a portion of what
these listeners are reacting to is what Crystal (1987:169) called the “machine-gun effect
[of] ‘syllable-timed’ rhythm.” However, applying this designation to any language is
somewhat controversial and bears some discussion.
Linguists who have discussed syllable-timed speech, have contrasted it with
stress-timed speech and claimed that all languages have either one characteristic or the
other (Crystal 1987:169; Hartmann and Stork 1972:235; Abercrombie 1967: 97). English
was the most frequent example of stress-timing; French the favorite example of syllable-
timing. Synonyms for these two rhythmic effects are isochronism and isosyllabism,
respectively. Definitions and examples are a good starting point in understanding these
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concepts. In isosyllabic language, “each syllable takes up approximately the same amount
of time in an utterance whether spoken at slow or rapid tempo” (Hartmann and Stork
1972: 235). “In isochronous rhythm, the stressed syllables fall at approximately regular
intervals throughout an utterance” (Crystal 1987:185). Isochronically, the example below
has the stresses as indicated.
Text: I’m e ‘leven years 'old to 'day.
Time line: |------1------1------1------1------1------1
Rhythm: tap tap tap
Although the stresses fall on the third, sixth and eighth syllables, if you tap at each stress
while speaking, they seem to fall at equal intervals. That is stress-timing or isochronic
rhythm. A Frenchman speaking the same sentence isosyllabically would give equal time to
each syllable regardless of the stress pattern, and a listener would perceive that an English
sentence is being spoken with a French accent. (Tapping to give syllables equal time
intervals helps a native speaker of English to create this effect, and also simulates the
“machine gun” rhythm mentioned above.)
Text: I’m e le ven years old to day.
Time line: | j 1------1------1------1------1------1------1
Rhythm: tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap
The pattern of stresses establishes the rhythm in stress-timed speech.
However, the concept of stress is controversial with some linguists. Crystal (1991:302)
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defined rhythm as “the perceived regularity of prominent units of speech” and these “units
can be stressed vs. unstressed, syllable length, or pitch.” Beckman (1994:4416) took a
slightly different approach and defined stress as linguistic prominence, a contextualized
composite of many things (e.g., pitch, loudness, vowel quantity (length) and quality (e.g.,
lax vs. tense / low vs. middle)) and further complicated the issue by remarking on the “lack
of any convenient quantitative phonetic representation for loudness.” This is problematic
for comparative studies. If stress is a composite, it varies from one language to the next.
Therefore native speakers are the most reliable determiners of linguistic prominence, and
they are experts only in one of the languages being compared. Beckman believes that the
solution lies in “carefully constructed stimuli to test the perceptions of native speakers.”
He adds that
phenologists cannot be confident of their transcriptions of stress patterns in languages that they do not know natively; there is too strong a possibility that superficially similar phonetic patterns will be misinterpreted in terms of the prominence structures of one’s native language.
Native speakers of English, for whom length is not phonemic are likely to “ misinterpret
true quantity contrasts in other languages in terms of stress.” In other words, according to
Beckman, I am not in a good position, as a native speaker of American English, to
interpret vowel length as a stress component of CIM and possibly also of CIME.
On the other hand, Catford (1977:81) gives a physical definition of stress,
correlating it to “initiator power,” which he measures in terms of displacement of air
during an articulation, i.e., the volume of air pushed a linear distance. In addition, there
are techniques and tools available for measuring and comparing the separate components
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of stress: spectograms to analyze syllable length and vowel quality, amplitude of wave
forms to compare (but not as a measure of) loudness, and pitch extraction curves to
indicate intonation changes. However there is no viable means to date of integrating these
methods to build a physical indicator of linguistic stress. Positivist attempts to define
stress, such as Catford’s, further illustrate the complexity of the problem of comparing
stress-related features of language varieties. An appreciation for the controversial aspects
of linguistic stress sets the stage for the following analysis.
Figure 6.7 differentiates English and CIM suprasegmental features. There is
overlap and interdependency in the lists provided, e.g., reduced syllables are likely in
isochronic speech and fully ‘valued’ vowels are characteristic of isosyllabic speech, yet all
these features are listed independently. Further discussion of the theoretical basis for
Figure 6.7 is appropriate.
When listeners perceive isochronism or stress-timed language, they hear
unstressed syllables articulated more rapidly to fit into roughly equal time spans between
stressed syllables. The units containing a single stress are called feet (Crystal 185-6).
Here is an example.
Text: I 'think I feel 'comfortable with 'both languages 'now.
Time line: —|------1------1------1-----
Rhythm: tap tap tap tap
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Figure 6.7 Maori and English Suprasegmental Feature Contrasts
English features Maori features
1) Vowel length is not phonemic, vowels may 1) Vowel length is phonemic; vowels are be lengthened if they end a word, or if they either long or short. Long vowels may sound are followed by voiced consonants (i.e., stressed to speakers of standard Englishes. morphophonemically) or for emphasis.
2) Consonants occur in clusters at the end as 2) Every syllable ends in a vowel and there arc well as at the beginning of syllables. Ng docs no consonant clusters (Vowels are more not occur in word- or syllable-initial position. important in Maori than in English (Tate n.d.:5)).
3) Rhythm is stress timed or isochronic; 3) Rhythm is syllabic timed or isosyllabic; English is marked by strongly stressed “each syllable is given its full value wherever syllables, regularly spaced, with unstressed or it may occur in a sentence” (Tate n.d.:34). lightly stressed syllables between the stresses (Tate n.d.:33).
4) Vowels in unstressed syllables are often 4) There are no reduced vowels and no schwa reduced, the most frequent vowel is the (Tate n.d.:6). There are no diphthongs in scwha. Said another way, unstressed syllables Maori; each vowel is pronounced separately are seldom pronounced as written so that (Taten.d.:7). rhythm can be maintained (Tate n.d.:34).
5) Many syllables and words are not 5) Writing is phonetic. This becomes pronounced as they are spelled (follows from phonologically significant when literate (4), also, written English has a long history speakers of Maori and English pronounce and changes in phonology have outpaced English words as they arc spelled, especially changes in spelling). as regards English feature (4) above.
6) Stressing syllables, often accompanied by 6) Glides may occur, but they are not required change of pitch or intonation (glide) is often for meaning (Tate n.d.:43). Maori speakers important to meaning (emphasis) in English achieve emphasis through word order, not (Tate n.d.:42-4). stress and intonation (Tate n.d.:50).
7) Word-level stress can be phonemic. 7) Word-level stress follows specific rules and is not phonemic (Strickland 1979:8).
8) Intonation patterns (what Tate calls speech 8) Intonation patterns are flatter and more tunes) in English often change direction based predictable than English. Like English, the on meaning. The variety of intonation overall rising or falling pattern of a sentence patterns makes them difficult for non-native has meaning, but the criteria for choosing a speakers to leam (Tate n.d.:43). pattern differ from English (Talc n.d.:49).
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Although the number of syllables between stresses varies, the native speaker of English
tends to speed up between stressed syllables and to use techniques such as vowel
reduction or even syllable elimination (e.g., comfortable pronounced 'kAmftfbj). As in the
prior example, if you tap at each stress, it seems that the stresses are at roughly equal
intervals.
Catford sought more objective evidence of isochronism than hearers’
perceptions, and decided that standard English ‘feet’ are not equal regardless of the
number of syllables, but they are also not proportional to the number of syllables. He
referred to work by Halliday using speech samples controlled for tempo changes,
establishing ratios of duration of feet based on their syllabic length: one-, two- and three-
syllable feet produced durations of ratios 5: 6: 7. If isochronism were absolute, the ratios
would be 5:5:5: with absolute isosyllabism, they would be 5:10:15. Instead, isochronism
is a tendency to equalize time lapses between stressed syllables (Catford 1977:86-87).
Ladefoged’s (1993:84-5,118) analysis of English stress patterns was in
general agreement with Catford and Halliday. He discussed some strategies that speakers
of standard Englishes use to create unstressed syllables. In English unstressed syllables
often have a reduced vowel quality, sometimes represented by the schwa in phonetic
transcription. In the following sentence the SAE speaker pronounced the vowel in ‘to’ as
[ta] instead of [tu] — an example of reduced vowel quality.
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Aileen: Oh. And you didn’t want to do that?
[oa aen yu didij want ta du 9aet]
Ladefoged (1993:118) also differentiated word level stress and phrase or sentence level
stress, which drops some word level stresses. In the earlier example, the speaker dropped
the stress on the first syllable of languages, but the stress on languages occurs in the
following sentence.
I 'think I feel 'comfortable with both 'languages,
or I 'think I feel 'comfortable with 'both 'languages
Ladefoged derived the suprasegmental rule that English speakers avoid putting stresses
“too close together,” but it does not necessarily follow that they put stresses at regular
intervals.
it is as if there were a conspiracy in English to maintain a regular rhythm. However, this conspiracy is not strong enough to completely override the irregularities caused by variations in the number and type of unstressed syllables.... the interval between stresses is affected by the number of syllables within the stress group, by the number and type of vowels and consonants within each syllable, and by other factors such as the variations in emphasis that are given to each word (Ladefoged 1993:119).
So stress-timing, far from being absolute, does not even follow Halliday’s
ratios with any real regularity. Like loudness and stress itself, stress timing is too complex
to allow measurement. But like loudness and stress, listeners perceive stress-timing or at
least a regularity of rhythm, and although linguists may argue about its makeup and its
qualities, it is characteristic of standard English. The problem I have set is to determine
whether it exists in CIME.
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The major point of this section so far is that the analysis of suprasegmental
patterns is problematic because there is no agreed-upon technique. Broad categories such
as syllable-timed versus stress-timed may not be useful or particularly descriptive of the
complexity that occurs in speech of particular individuals. Nevertheless, the perceptions
of listeners are interesting and the perception that CIME varies rhythmically from standard
Englishes must be addressed. I mean to steer clear o f any sweeping statements about
suprasegmental features of CIME. Instead, using the features of Figure 6.7 as guidelines,
I have selected examples of CIME from my data for analysis based on the expectation that
CIME Speakers are influenced by the suprasegmental features of both languages, and that
the resultant variety differs from standard Englishes.
There are few more things to say about CIM and about Figure 6.7 to set the
stage for the analysis of suprasegmental features of CIME. There is no schwa in Cook
Islands Maori and there are no reduced syllables of any quality in CIM or in Polynesian
languages in general: all vowels are sounded, each vowel gets a syllable, and syllables are
of roughly equal duration (Figure 6.7 # 3 & 4). There are long and short vowels (Figure
6.7 #1) of the sort that Beckman discussed, which native speakers of English may not be
qualified to perceive. On the other hand, speakers of standard Englishes reduce some of
the vowels that fall between stressed syllables in both quality and quantity (Ladefoged
1993:84-5,118; see above). Forewarned by Beckman, I can nevertheless work with what
I can perceive: vowel quality and reduced vs. full vowels. Analytically, the schwa can
serve as an indicator that speakers reduce vowel quality and quantity. If CIME speakers
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. use significantly fewer schwas than speakers of standard Englishes, it follows that there
exists a rhythmic difference between CIME and standard Englishes.
Another reason for Maoris to use fewer schwas may be the phonetic purity
of CIM orthography, due to its relatively recent transcription (nineteenth century).
Literate speakers of CIM and CIME, accustomed to the phonetic purity of CIM writing,
may articulate unfamiliar English words as they are written, that is without reduced vowel
quality or quantity.
The vowel length, intonational and loudness features which exist in CIM are
not governed by rhythmic regularity. Vowel length, being phonemic, is lexically rather
than rhythmically determined. CIM intonation contours are flatter and more unidirectional
than are English intonation patterns. Speakers of standard Englishes can change the
direction of intonation on a stressed syllable in order to vary meaning. For example “Look
at the blue bird” has a meaning which differs from “Look at the bluebird.” In speaking the
second example, blue is both more stressed than bird and it marks a high point and
directional change intonationally. Tate (n.d.:43) called these stressed, directional switches
in intonation ‘glides.’40 If glides occur in CIM speech, they do not vary meaning the way
they do in the English examples above.
In the analysis that follows, I use the features listed in Figure 6.7 as
guidelines.
40 The semivowel segments 0] and [w] are also called glides by many linguists (Fromkin and Rodman 1993:197), but I use this term to mean the suprasegmental feature defined here according to Tate.
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I transcribed segments of each of my informants speech for the occurrence of
schwas, as compared with my own speech in the same tracts. The tracts I selected are
subsets of the transcriptions in Appendix A, consisting of about 250 words per informant.
I looked for speech samples that included paragraph length responses, not just single
sentences or phrases, since uninterrupted speech is more likely to show the speakers’
characteristic rhythmic patterns. These tracts with my phonetic transcriptions for vowel
quality are in Appendix B. This task is not entirely straightforward and I was required to
form judgments that may be biased by my native language, standard American English. As
a rule of thumb, I transcribed a schwa for all cases of vowel quality equal to a,, but with
the vowel itself ‘reduced’ in the sense that it was both unstressed and not given a full
syllable (so there is some judgement of vowel quantity required, but not between long and
short vowels — between fully uttered and reduced vowels). In my own speech, unstressed
syllables of this vowel quality were consistently reduced; in CIME speech, sometimes the
vowels were unstressed and reduced (schwa or a), sometimes they were unstressed (in
terms of my perception that no increase in loudness or change in intonation occurred) but
not reduced (a) and sometimes CIME speakers introduced a stressed syllable (a) where a
speaker of Standard English would use a schwa. English speakers reduce vowels other
than a while retaining vowel quality, but I limited my analysis to this one vowel (quality),
because schwa is both the most frequently used English vowel and it is not a vowel used in
CIM.
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The totals from Appendix B are listed here (number of schwas divided by
total number of words spoken).
Speakers: Daniel: 6/249 (2.4%) Aileen: 18/96 (18.8%)
Speakers: Helen: 23/256 (9%) Aileen: 22/101 (22%)
Speakers: Nancy: 17/243 (7%) Tangata: 25/254 (9.8%) Aileen: 47/299 ( 15.7%)
Speakers: Pamela: 17/235(7.2%) Aileen: 14/64 (21.8%)
Total(CIME): 88/1237 (7.1%) Total(control): 101/560(18%)
Summarizing, in my own speech, the percentage of words with schwas
occurring ranged between 15.7 % and 22 % with a combined measurement of 18%. For
the speakers of CIME the occurrence of schwas ranged from 2.4 to 9%, with a composite
percentage of 7.1% using the data for all five CIME speakers. With statistical
significance, CIME speakers reduced vowels less frequently than the control.41 This result
is evidence that CIME rhythm differs from SAE rhythms. In other words, CIME speakers
are less likely to incorporate schwas in their speech as a strategy to reduce unstressed
syllables, and schwa is one of the strategies that speakers of standard Englishes use to
regularize the timing of stresses. By implication, (and assuming that CIME speakers do
not make greater use of other tactics to compensate for reduced use of the schwa,) in
4lThis proof is in Appendix C.
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CIME speech, stresses fall at irregular or at least more irregular intervals than in SAE
speech. Also, speakers who incorporate fewer schwas must, inversely, stress more
syllables and this is consistent with an isosyllabic tendency.
To further explore the differential rhythm of CIME as well as some other
suprasegmental features, the remainder of my analysis focuses on some specific CIME
utterances in my data (Appendix A).
The first example is from Helen.
Text: H: I 'think I 'feel com'fortable with 'both languages 'now.
Transcription: [ai ■0mk ai 'fil k/\m 'for tabal wi9 TxjaG lacr^ wic^ iz 'na\v|
Time line: | I I I I I I I I I i I I
Rhythm: tap (tap) tap tap tap
Helen used reduced vowels in the last two syllables o f comfortable and she said the last
two syllables of languages rapidly. Both show the influence of stress-timed rhythm.
However, she did not eliminate the second syllable in comfortable and even stressed it.
perhaps because she was trying to keep to the rhythm she had set with the earlier part of
the sentence. However, the last two syllables of comfortable and with throw off the
every-other-syllable rhythm she had established earlier. She also did not reduce (nor
stress) the syllables of languages so there were three full syllables before now, the final
stressed syllable. I perceived all the stresses I indicated as comprising an increased
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. loudness and syllable lengthening, and all stresses except for the one in parentheses
included intonation changes.
Here is one way I might say the same sentence in SAE.
SAE Rhythm: [ai '0ink ai fil 'kAmftfbJ wi0 'boa0 laeq ad jaz naw]
Time line: ------1------1------1------1------1------1------1
tap tap tap tap
The stresses are due to syllable lengthening, loudness and intonation changes. I make
comfortable a three syllable word and I am inclined to either change the semivowel [w] in
languages to a vowel to reduce even further its second syllable, or to say all three syllables
very rapidly. Helen not only gave full value to the syllable I eliminate in comfortable, she
emphasized it (to maintain rhythm? See next paragraph.) and she did not reduce the first
syllable of languages at all or eliminate the semivowel ([w]) in the second syllable.
In the text, this statement from Helen came in answer to my question “And do
you feel more comfortable with one language than the other now?” In this sentence, I
pronounced comfortable as in the SAE rhythm sample above. Helen’s pronunciation of all
syllables of comfortable with an emphasis on the syllable I eliminated may well have been
a correction, based on her knowledge of orthography, rather than an attempt to maintain
rhythm as I suggest above.
Helen’s use of reduced vowels (schwa) and of changing intonation were
uncharacteristic of CIM and of syllable-timed rhythmic language, but neither was the
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rhythm of her speech isochronic. The overall impression was that this speaker of CIME,
while she was aware of stress-timing in English, did not shorten syllables to the degree
required to achieve the more equalized intervals between stresses of SAE speech. Her
(possible) correction o f my pronunciation of comfortable may also be an indication that I
am not a speaker of the variety of English she was accustomed to hearing.
The next example is from the interview with Nancy and Tangata. Nancy is the
speaker.
Text: N: I do when I’m ang ry.
Transcription: ['ai 'du wen'aim 'aer^ ri] I I I I I I
Rhythm: tap (tap) (tap) tap tap (tap)42
To a native speaker of English, this sentence stands out because of the regularity of the
syllables, with the vowel of each syllable maintaining its full quality, that is, not reduced to
schwa. A native speaker of English might pronounce the same sentence this way.
SAE Rhythm: [ai 'du wen am 'ae:r] gri]
tap tap
42 The parentheses indicate that intonation changes did not occur on those syllables.'
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The two stressed syllables in this SAE sentence are emphasized by intonation changes,
increased loudness and vowel segment lengthening, especially of the first syllable of angry.
The vowel lengthening in that foot helps to equalize it with the previous foot, which
contains more syllables, one o f them reduced to schwa. Nancy certainly did not introduce
a schwa for I'm , and if there is any variation in syllable length, it is not significant to this
analyst. However, she did vary intonation, and high peaks occur at the first, the fourth
and the penultimate segment (/, I ’m and ang in angry). She used intonation changes for
emphasis in the manner of SAE speakers. This interpretation suggests that a more
accurate parallel of SAE rhythm to Nancy’s statement would stress either the first or the
first and fourth syllables rather than the second in the example above.
SAE Rhythm: ['ai du wen 8m 'ae:ri gri]
I I I
tap tap
or
['ai du wen 'ai:m 'set] gri]
I I I
tap tap tap
In such cases, an SAE speaker might also reduce the vowel segment in when to schwa.41
43A segmental feature of Nancy’s utterance was more subtle. The final syllable of angry was not the blend gr as it is in the SAE versions. She did not pronounce the g segment as the onset of the last syllable, only as part of the ng which concluded and nasalized the preceding syllable. This may indicate a reluctance to use a blend as a
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The next example is from Daniel.
D: She’s lea ving us. Our tea cher is going to be changed.
Transcription: [§iz li vir^os awrti tSf iz gAnabi tsendz44
Timing: I I I I I ! I I I ! I
Intonation: ___ __ — — ______—
Rhythm: tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap
Like the example for Nancy above, the rhythm appears to approach
isosyllabism with the exception o f the reduced second syllable of gonna, or the eliminated
and reduced second and third syllables of going into a more literal interpretation. What
was absent from Daniel’s example was a glide (as Tate defined the term - a change in
characteristic of CIME. The use of ng does have precedence in CIM, however its use as a syllable coda is characteristic of English, not CIM. In this particular phrase, there were three consonants used in syllable codas (when 17n ang) and since consonant codas are so common in English, it seems unlikely to find a speaker of CIME who would eliminate them. In fact, early loan words from English to CIM did precisely that as in the lexical example, imene luka [fimene tuka], which adapts the English words hymn and sugar to CIM phonology.
'“Daniel says change instead of the past participle changed. Because Daniel is proficient in irregular past tense verb forms (see Syntax section, below) and because he leaves word ending [d]’s off of other words (e.g., [bae] for /bad/) my interpretation is that Daniel left off the syllable ending consonant rather than that he chose the uninflected version of the verb. He was probably influenced by CIM word structure (no blends or final consonants) in omitting the [d]. I found few other instances in my data of simplified or omitted consonant codas, e.g., Pamela: [ar£t] for aren’t. Utterances similar to this example from Pamela also occur in standard Englishes. In general, the syllable structure of CIM and the differential use of consonants in CIM does not seem to have significantly influenced the use of blends and final consonants in CIME.
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directional intonation on a stressed syllable). Overall, his intonation had the flatness of
CIM intonation, and it rose slightly at the end o f each sentence. An SAE interpretation of
the same sentences might have rhythm and intonation more like the following.
SAE: She’s leaving us. (pause) Our teacher’s going to be changed.
Transcription: [?iz li viqas awr ti: tefz gAna bi tsendz,d
Timing: I I I ! I I ! ! I I
Intonation: — — — —
Rhythm: tap (tap)45 tap tap tap
My decision to put mid-sentence intonation peaks at the first syllables of
leaving and teacher's is more typical of SAE use of intonation to accompany stress and
emphasize meaning. However, this version may differ from Daniels’s meaning, since it is
conceivable that he chose to emphasizeus and therefore the loss that he and his classmates
were feeling rather than the action of the teacher. Regardless, the flat tone and
unidirectionality of Daniel’s speech distinguished it from that of SAE speakers.
It is worth mentioning again Daniel’s use of gonna. This is not textbook
English; but it does indicate a more colloquial standard English. Daniel did not pronounce
every syllable of going (asto Helen pronounced each syllable of the less frequently-used
word, comfortable), he used a reduced version of this expression which has become
45 Ladefoged (1993:119) gave examples of pauses between phrases as equivalent to audible stresses in maintaining the rhythm of English.
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common in spoken Englishes — gonna. Daniel, although his CIME contains rhythmic and
intonational features that are akin to CIM, switches gears on gonna, and abandons
syllable-timed rhythm for that word alone. I get a sense of someone truly between two
linguistic worlds — an eleven-year-old who has mastered some of the practices speakers of
English use to regularize stress timing, but who is still solidly grounded in the rhythm of
his native language, that was his only language for his first nine years of life.
In the SAE example, each sentence ends on a mid-level tone and
directionally the intonation is falling. Daniel ended each of these sentences with rising
intonation. The rise was slight, but that was the direction. Because CIM as well as
English intonation rises on some categories of questions, one possibility is to interpret
these sentences as questions. Perhaps there is a discomfort indicated by Daniel’s rising
tone — a request that the hearer accept or understand his utterance made with the shyness
he admitted to in other parts of the conversation (and the rising tone occurs elsewhere as
well). But he also told me elsewhere that his shyness was forPapa ’as, for speakers of
English such as myself. Was his question “Am I saying this correctly?” or was it a plea for
sympathy for the children who were losing a cherished teacher or both, or something else
entirely. Rises in intonation in otherwise non-interrogative statements occur frequently in
Helen’s CIME speech as well, but not among the other three informants. These are the
two youngest and the only school age informants in my population. Therefore, I must
raise the possibility that rising intonation indicates deference or is a feature of status in
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CIME. Some linguists point to this feature in the English of Australian women and
suggest that deference may be its source.
From these few specific analyses and the statistical evidence for the
occurrence of the schwa, I conclude that the rhythmic character of CIME does differ from
so-called isochronic standard Englishes, but neither is it isosyllabic like CIM. Numerous
strategies for isochronism occur, among them mid-phrase intonation shifts for emphasis,
vowel reduction and even syllable eliminations. Two of these speakers make intonations
changes that are more characteristic of standard Englishes than of CIM, but the other does
not, and this suggests that the intonational patterns of CIM still heavily influence some
CIME speakers. I heard use of full vowel quality as a strong rhythmic element in CIME
and found that two of these examples were still strongly isosyllabic, even though both
contained elements of isochronic rhythm as well. There is some evidence for deferential
use of rising intonation among young CIME speakers, but this cannot be substantiated
based on such a small sample and a single interviewer.
A syntactic feature - greater use of present tense
According to Tuaivi Mose (1961:42-3), the Maori concept of time is more
continuous than the western concept of time. There is only one form for present tense in
CIM and it is more like the present progressive than the present in English. In CIM, “the
present tense is the central point of time by and from which the other tenses are reckoned
and made to function.” An action which started in the past and continues can be stated
either in the past or the present tense in CIM. If an action has not started, but will start
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soon, it may be in the present or the future tense. According to Mose, “Maoris do not
speak exactly to time;” removing the western bias, Maoris express time differently than
native speakers of English. Since a number of tense particles occur in CIM speech that
have no counterpart in English and the combination of particles may not be translatable, a
comprehensive analysis of tenses in CIME and their antecedents in CIM is a subject for
future study. Here I give some examples of CIME tense usage in my data which appear
to illustrate Mose’s point about Maori concepts of time.
Here is Pamela’s response to my question about her use of English while
she was growing up.
Pamela: “At M (home island) see we don’t speak English. But, at my home we did, because my father - he passed away last year - he’s a teacher, he’s the principal, so more or less, we had English in the home. Cause he tries to make us speak English. Not all of the lime, but he speaks English to us and most of the time we always answer back in Maori. And he’s always speaking in English to us.”
In answer to my question about language use in her growing up years, Pamela replied in a
mix of the past and the present tense. The first statement regarding her home island, was
true in the past and remained substantially true on that island: “we don’t speak English.”
The choice of tense may have indicated a preference for the present tense for continuous
actions that began in the past, but continue into the present. But the other statements in
the present tense, though they were continuous in the past, do not continue into the
present because they involve interaction with someone who “died last year,” Pamela’s
Father. Her statement about the siblings “always” answering back in “Maori” also
describes a past event (by Western concepts of time) in present tense; Pamela told me
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. elsewhere in the interview that she and her feeding brothers,46 as adults, prefer to speak
English together.
Pamela had a command of the past tense forms (and other tenses and
aspects as well) and used them frequently in the interview I had with her, but she certainly
used them more sparingly than a speaker of standard English would. Here is another
quote that mixes tenses, and perhaps sheds some light on linguistic attitudes of Maoris.
Pamela: See like ... at all now, ‘cause I’m married to a foreigner. So unlike before I used to speak Maori a lot But not now. ‘Cause I think, I’m married to a foreigner, and my sister- in-law is a foreigner. English was always the language at home. So, when I have my mother and father, we always speak English, when they comes from the outer island. But when I go to M(her home island), it’s different. Like, I couldn’t speak English because people will think that you're just pretending or you’re... A: Being a little flash? P: Yes. Yes, they laugh at you and mock you, you know. It’s a bit different.
Pamela spoke CIM as she grew up among her CIM-speaking friends on her home island,
rebelling some against an educated father who wanted his children to leam English. On
the outer island, speaking English was still looked upon as showing off, but it was
certainly “a bit different” on Rarotonga where Pamela was constantly making linguistic
choices based upon the interlocutors. Like her father, she chose to emphasize English to
her daughter: she and her husband paid private school fees to send her to a school where
English was the language of instruction and CIM language and culture were de
emphasized.
‘“Cook Islanders, like other Polynesians, frequently adopt children, often of close relatives. Polynesians do not assume that natural parents will raise their own children, and frequently relatives, (grand)parents and siblings of the natural parents for example, will ask to adopt an unborn child or a newborn. These children are lexically distinguished from the natural children of a household by the term ‘feeding children.’
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The tense use in this second quote from Pamela goes from continuous
(“I’m married”) to past continuous (“used to speak,” “was always” ) to present (“have,”
“speak,” “comes,”) to present implying future (“go,” “speak”) and then clearly to future
(“will think”). The situation she describes which has occurred and will continue to occur,
is stated in present and present progressive tenses (“you’re pretending,” “laugh” “mock”).
None of this strays far from standard English tense usages (though the verb comes does
not agree in number with its plural subject). Again Pamela refers to her dead father in the
present tense, but because the death was recent and the parental visits may have continued
into the recent past, the present tense seems more acceptable by Western standards. What
this passage clearly demonstrates is the difference in attitudes to language use on an Outer
Island.
Helen also talked about her growing up experiences with language in
response to my questions. The text is in Figure 6.8. Helen seemed to be making some
pretty clear distinctions between actions completed in the past and actions that started in
the past but continue today. Four of the eleven verb phrases were headed by the word
started, three of those remaining, were clearly completed in the past and her use of past
tense emphasized this (marked perfect). The four remaining verb phrases were past
continuous and three of them referred to learning CIM. Three of four uses of started
referred to learning English, the fourth to writing CIM.
There can be multiple or complementary interpretations of this mix of verb
phrases.
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Figure 6.8 Tense Usages
Text Tense
A: And as you were growing up, what language did you speak? H: Well.. um .. I was speaking M aori.. Maori. past continuous (same as the question) A: Maori. And its the M dialect of Maori so its a little different? H: (inaudible) A: Did you speak any English at home at all? H: No. A: And when you went to school? H: Ah, that’s when I started to get some of the English language. ‘started’ A: Yeah? H: When I was .. five years old. past continuous A: Yeah? H: Yeah, I went to preschool, and then .. perfect that’s when I started to leam the language. ‘started’ A: They started to teach it in preschool? H: Yes. A: Did they teach you to write in Maori? H: Ah, yeah. They taught us how to write in Maori when perfect (same as the question) we were in grade one, and past continuous that’s when we started to write. ‘started’ and then as we (inaudible) learning how to write past continuous (withpossible aux deletion) A: An when did you leam to write English? H: Um.. I think we had to leam how to write in Maori first, so perfect (same as the question) that’s like .. second year at school/ that’s when we started writing in English. ‘started’
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• That learning CIM was a thing of the past though writing it would continue.
• That learning to speak and write English and to write in CIM had to start at some
point in the past but speaking CIM did not — at least not in the speaker’s memory.
• That learning to speak and write English would continue, but learning to speak
CIM was complete.
• That the English past tense form was sufficient for completed actions in the past,
but that actions that started in the past and continue required a clear statement of
that order of events, i.e., past tense of a specific verb ( started) plus the infinitive or
the participle for the continuing activity.
Like Pamela, in discussing her linguistic past, Helen was also telling us
about her attitudes toward English and CIM (and the attitudes of other Maoris by
extension here, and both specifically and by extension in Pamela’s case), as well as about
the meshing of the Maori with the English concepts of time. When what started in the
past continues in the present, speakers of CIME indicated the continuous action in
Pamela’s case with the present tense and in Helen’s with the infinitive or present participle
modifying the verb started. Only the starling itself was complete, the central activity
continued and its present tense existence was important to this CIME speaker.
Looking at the other interviews, the parents, Nancy and Tangata spoke
almost exclusively in present tense, partly due to the subjects chosen. They talked mostly
about their children and what they wanted for them. Data on the verbs from that interview
and from Daniel’s are in Figure 6.9. Nancy and Tangata’s data may prove nothing toward
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Mose’s statement that Maoris’ view time, and therefore use tenses differently, but it
certainly does nothing to disprove the centrality of the present. Since Nancy and Tangata
used a variety of tenses and aspects, there was no doubt that they had mastered them, but
their preference for the present and present continuous tenses dominated this interview.
Daniel’s verb counts differ in several ways. His greater use of non-present
tenses and especially of past tenses was due largely to the stories he told: one about his
teacher forcing him to “dance like a girl,” and another about falling asleep in church.
However, these stories included a mix of present and future tense verb constructions that
are worthy of study.
Here is an example of Daniel using present tense in discussing something
which started in the past and continues in the present, somewhat like Pamela did above.
The topic is a school he attended while he lived on his home island, which he left to come
to Rarotonga over a year prior to this interview.
D: I hate that school. Because, every Friday we always goes in church,
Certainly Daniel’s continued hatred of the school was clear, and even if he was not there
to go to Friday church, his classmates continue the practice.
Daniel told some of his history of schooling.
A: And when did you start to go to school here at N (the Rarotongan public school Daniel was attending at the time of the interview)? D: Uh ... Ah!... I startedover here in N in grade six ... but in M (Daniels’s home island), 1 started when I was preschool. My teacher was Sister U. A: Was it a Catholic School? D: Yeah. The name of the school was S school. A: So in M you did not speak English - or you did - when the sister was your teacher.
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Figure 6.9 Verb Tense Data
Tenses Counts
Nancy and/ Daniel Tangata Present tense:
Verb to be 50 34
Other simple present 66 72
With modals (can, should, would) 17
Present continuous: verb to be + present participle 27 (6 w/aux deletion)
verb + infinitive 12 12
verb to be + pres, participle +inf. 6 0 (4 w/ aux deletion)
verb to be + past participle 0
Past tense:
• Simple past 40
• past continuous: verb to be + participle 10
Future tense:
• simple future 12
• future continuous: verb to be + participle
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D: No, I just speak Maori there... most... most of the time I speak Maori. But if these... uh ... English people talks to me, then I speak English. Sometimes I don’t really know how to speak English.
Daniel began with the past and I reinforced his use of it with my past tense statements, but
then he switched to present tense as he referred to his past continuous behaviors on his
home island. It’s not clear if Daniel switched to describing current (and continuous)
actions - speaking and talking but - he certainly began saying something about the
continuing state of affairs on the outer island. At the time of the interview, he was no
longer speaking CIM there, but he would again when he returned and those he left behind
continued speaking CIM in his absence. Daniel seemed to be echoing Pamela’s view of
outer island life and linguistic choices, and though he was not currently participating in
them, they were a continuing reality to him. It is also interesting to find started, which
echoes Helen’s usage.47
Here is Daniel’s story about dancing at school.
D: Sometimes my teacher teach ... tells me to go up and dance/, and I won’t stand up/. PM go and hide behind um ... I ... Last year/, my teacher, Mrs. B, told me to go and ... and dance with this boy/. I’m going to dance the girl’s/. And he’s going to dance the... the boy’sV The boyjs AlanY And I was angry. I went ... I went at the... at the back of the door/. My other friend, 1 just really knew him at school, because he lives in ... he lives in D\. And spoke of him. And I was caught/. I was hiding at the back of the door/. She was looking forme/. Then ... she say, “come out before our... where you arc hiding over there/.” And 1 came out. And she say to me... say to me ... “dance.” She was playing the pate and dance, he dance with me and I was angry/. A: She made you dance like a girl, or like a boy? D: Like a girlV A: Oh. And you didn’t want to do that? D: Inside I was angry, outside was laughing.
47Helen and Daniel are from the same Outer Island.
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The first two sentences combined present and future when talking about an apparently
continuous event. The future provided contrast and time ordering with the present which
occurred before — the teacher tells prior to Daniel’s won 7 stand and I'll go and hide.
The tenses again imply continuity into the present: teachers are still doing the telling and
children continue to react. Then Daniel’s description of the specific incident begins with
the simple past: the teachertold precedes I 'm going to dance and he's going to dance. A
finished event in the past takes the simple past, but what follows it? The future
continuous! Other than sequencing the actions, its not clear why Daniel chose the future
here other than to echo the future tense (but not its specific formation) in second sentence.
For the next two phrases (7he boy is Alan. And I was angry...), a speaker
of standard English would more likely choose the past tense for the first sentence as well
as the second. However, Daniel chose to make it clear with his tense choice that ‘Alan’s
being Alan’ was still true. Though Daniel’s anger also appeared to me to continue, he
used past tense to indicate that his anger was now over, in much the same way as he
concealed his anger from his teacher and classmates by smiling. Daniel proceeded to
describe finished actions (went, knew, spoke, was caught, was hiding, was looking, came,
was playing, was), interrupted only by lives, a continuing action. The quotes were
appropriately present tense, and the aberrations here were the formation of the regular
past tenses for say and dance. However as I stated above in a footnote in the phonology
section, Daniel’s issue here was not the formation of the past tense or use of the present.
After all, he had no problem with constructions that are irregular or past continuous and
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formed with the present participle and the (irregular) verb to be. Daniel had a habit of
omitting word ending [d]’s (which are not in the CIM alphabet), whether they formed the
past tense or some other word (e.g., [da;] for dad, [bae] for bad.)
This story provides new data in its use of the future. It corroborates the
other examples in this sections by showing, once again, the tendency for CIME speakers
to either be very clear about actions which continue into the present or at least to prefer
using the present to the past tense. The sentence ending slashes refer to Daniel’s
intonation which was crucial to the mood of the story. He seemed to be asking me
questions or at least asking for my interest or agreement in his story. This also comes up
in the suprasegmental section above.
Another example of Daniel’s intermixing of the present for continuous
actions which also were continuous in the past occurs in his story about sleeping in church
— told in the past tense, except that “therels five bells at the evening church,” something
which likely continued even after he left the outer island which was the site of his story.
Then, at the story’s climax, Daniel switched to the present continuous.
D: My father’s just kneeling down too/. And our two childrens, they arc kneeling down/, and the people are singing. I’m iust kneeling right there asleep/.
Was this another example of things that continue into the present? Certainly Daniel was
no longer kneeling and sleeping when I spoke to him. Perhaps it was a dramatic device.
Regardless, it shows a clear preference for present continuous in a context that a speaker
of standard English would describe in the past tense.
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In summary, CIME speakers in their choice of verb forms and tenses seem
to indicate a preference for the present tense and to frequently use it in instances where
speakers of standard Englishes would prefer the past tense. If as Mose said, the present is
central, my informants have given some more indications of what that means to them.
Even though an action began or occurred in the past, its continuation into the present has
relevance, and probably greater relevance than its inception. Events that occurred in other
places, on islands where family and friends still reside, still have a reality: CIME speakers
acknowledge that those events continue despite their absence. This may have interesting
implications for the Maori sense of family, of community and of their identification with
their natal community. Finally, their native language is associated with those remote
places and with going back to them, and although the CIM language retains an importance
in relation to those places, English is the language for today, for Rarotonga and for the
future.
Summary and conclusions to Chapter 6
Certain features of CIME establish it as a unique variety. They include
individual lexical items and singular meanings to existing English words — both grounded
in cultural elements. There are CIME pragmatics to reflect island geography, and
reclassified collective nouns which indicate an interplay o f the syntax and semantics of
CIM and CIME. The distinctive phonology of CIME reproduces aspects of CIM rhythm
and reflects atypical segmental choices. Preferential tense usage suggests a group of
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. speakers focused on the present, who integrate the time continuum in a way unfamiliar to
Westerners.
CIME reflects its history and its colonial etiology. The archaeological
record explains why some categories of loan words common to contact languages do not
occur in CIME. In the long period of contact with Western culture prior to the
development of CIME, CIM speakers borrowed words from English to describe cultural
innovations developed in the missionary period, and the transformed words reappear in
English as loan words a century later. There is some evidence of Maori colonial history in
the CIME lexicon (e.g. papa 'a, imene luka), but the omission of words is the most telling
evidence — there is little social and no unique religious terminology. In general, the
dearth of loan words reflects the loss of unique cultural features. Just how much language
has been lost (and how much Maori culture) would be better analyzed from the
perspective of changes to CIM. On the other hand, some CIME words were given new
life with twentieth century cultural renewal or for the purpose of entertaining tourists.
Phonology of CIME is clearly influenced by CIM phonology both
segmentally and suprasegmentally. CIME speakers preference for full vowel quality and
quantity and for syllable-timed rhythm clearly differ from standard English phonologies.
CIME speakers take on some characteristics of English phonology in their speech: some
speakers employ intonational stress (glides), and most use reduced syllables though
sparingly. However, the sound of CIME is still its most distinctive feature, and in this
thesis, I have traced CIME phonology to its CIM antecedents.
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I did not find consistent occurrences of any of the syntactic features of
CIME that I researched based on differences in CIM and CIME grammar. Though there
were instances of many of the features I predicted (in Chapter 2), they were either isolated
or sporadic instances. I would theorize that this inconsistency reflects the variation in the
quality of teaching English in the Cook Islands as well as the variation in educational
levels of my informants. An homogenous population, for example of students at a
particular grade level in a particular school, would have probably turned up more
regularized results. Until there is a consistent quality to teaching English in the Cook
Islands, there is unlikely to be an invariable grammar of CIME. Since testing for the
NZSC is largely syntactic, this inequity directly impacts the educational success of Cook
Islanders.
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SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
CIME is a distinct variety of English and its unique features are attributable
to the uniqueness of Cook Islands Maori culture. CIME is rich in CIM elements in part
because CIM was promoted and preserved through the earliest colonial experiences.
Their literacy in Maori laid the groundwork for Maori literacy in English. Deprived of
English by missionaries and some colonial administrators, the Maoris recognized and
fought the dichotomy of English-speaking elites and Maoris-speaking colonial subjects —
they asked for English and knew that schooling could deliver it. However, poorly trained
teachers of English, mostly native speakers of CIM, and pecunious school budgets
precluded teaching a prescriptive standard or even an homogenous English. These
phenomena continue today, especially on the Outer Islands where foreign teachers, native
speakers of English, are still a rarity. Meanwhile the popularity of English has grown,
fueled by economics, migration, media and tourism.
Once nearly wiped out by the diseases and hardships that accompanied
colonization from the West, Cook Islands Maoris are now about 60,000 strong, with two
thirds living abroad. Unlike many indigenous, colonized peoples, Cook Islanders have
preserved their indigenous language through the colonial period and into an era of
language renewal and pride in native culture. However, the English language holds sway
135
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in the realms of political power and economic growth, and Maoris are no more willing to
pass up these enticements than other “People without history.”48 The English they speak,
initially developed in relative isolation from other Englishes, like all languages continues to
change and grow.
This thesis has not described CIME; it has delineated a few of its
characteristics. It has also not firmly established that CIME reflects the colonial heritage
of its speakers; it has suggested themes of domination and resistance, of adaptation to
ensure survival which nonetheless serves to diminish cultural identity. Substantiation and
refinement of these themes calls for extensive fieldwork and especially for giving voice to
the Maoris themselves. The evidence of CIME is on two levels. CIME exists as a result
of the desire and the perseverance of its speakers and it is a legacy of a colonial history
first of catastrophic change, adaptation, and renewal, then of deprivation, domination and
resistance. The features of CIME reassure its speakers and those who hear them that
Cook Islands Maoris are still the bearers of a unique ethnic identity, but they are also
poised between two worlds trying to play by the rules of both.
48 Wolfe 1982.
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THE TRANSCRIBED INTERVIEWS
Daniel
Interview with Daniel, an eleven year-old boy, outer islander, in the living
room of a home in his neighborhood where he frequently visits to play with some younger
children.
Word Count
A: This is D, who is 11, and you’re going to be 12 in October? Is that what you just told
me?
D: Urn? 1
A: How old are you?
D: Uh? 2
A: Tell the tape how old you are.
D: Fm eleven years old today/. 7
A: Today?, Today’s your birthday?
D: No, Ilm 11 years old today, and on September the second ... that’s on Saturday/, that
will be my date of birth/, [present with time adverbial for future - then future tense] 27
A: One month away.
D: And I just want my Mom to come over here!. 37
137
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. A: Where’s your Mom now?
D:SheIsinM. 40
A: Is she coming for your birthday?
D: I wish. 42
A: Aw, maybe not, huh?
D: I want her to come over here so ... and my Dad. I love my Dad too. 58
A: He's in M too?
D: Yep. [or [ye] with 'short' vowel - sounds clipped] 59
A: And who are you staying with here?
D: I’m staying with my Auntie ... Auntie D and T. 68
A: Is J your relative too?
Interruption by 8-year-old boy, children’s noises in background.
A. Are you related to J then? Is D, J's wife? Is that right? No?
D: No. J is A's Husband. They are married [marry], 76
A: Is he a relative of yours?
D: Urn. 77
A: Is he your auntie’s brother? Are you in a different house and don’t stay with J?
D: No, Jjs ... J should be staying in T, and ... but when he came back from ... P/ ? 94
A: Umhum.
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D: When he came back from P his ... the house was already ? so he came with my Auntie
D. 112
I want to go back, but I Hkg the school. 122
A: You like the school here?
D: Yeah, thatls why I don’t want to go back. [ye] 131
A: Which school do you go to? A?
D: N school. 133
A: You go to N.
D: Yeah. [yeA-clipped] 134
A: Tell me about the school.
D: Its urn ... The children always wears green and white ... The girls wears green and
white and uh ... theboys wears ... white and brown. But the A ... aah I hate that school
because too much ...too much Papa 'a people. 172
A: Eh? Not so many?
D: Em too ... I’m too shy. 177
A: Your’e too shy? You’re not too shy to talk to my tape recorder.
(Noise from children)
D: Yeah. [yeA clipped] 178
A: This is good, thank you. Why do you like it better than the school at M?
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D: I hate that school. Because, every Friday we always goes in church, and sometimes ...
uh.. u h ... theprincipals over there no isgood, [present continuous] 201
A: The what is no good?
D: Is too bad [ba], I like the principal over here. ... Her name is Mrs N, and our teacher is
Miss M and I think she’s leaving. She’s leaving us, our teacher is going to [gonna] be
changed [change], and I don’t know who is it. And I like my first teacher in ... in this
year, Miss W/. I like her. She's ... shels a smart but she went back to New Zealand.
She’s a ... shels a M. 274
A: Is she?
D: Yeah, but her husband I think is a New Zealand. [yeA] 288
A: So you have a different teacher now?
D: Yeah, [clipped ending, like yep without the ‘p’] [yeA] 289
A: And you’re in Form 1?
D: Yeah, [clipped, as above] [yeA] 290
A: Do you want to go to .. to Tereora or Titkaveka? Or have you thought about that?
D: I want to go to Tereora. 296
A: Yeah. Um .. so tell me about learning English in school. Do you speak English or
Maori when you’re in School?
D. We speak the same. 'Ihe both. 302
A: Both? Both English and Maori?
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D: Yeah, [short] [yeA] 303
A: Mostly Maori?
D :... No .. Most is English, [verb agreement, not plural usage] 307
A: Most is English? I thought it was a Maori school.
(laughter)
Well, when do you start? Did you speak English when you first went to school? that was
in...
D: No, grade six? 310
A: Grade six?
D: Yeah when I w ent... [yeA] 314
A: And when did you start to go to school here at N?
D: Uh . Ah! .. I startedover here in N in grade six .. but in M, I started when I was
preschool. My teacher was Sister U. [preposition missing] 339
A: Was it a Catholic School?
D: Yeah.[short] The name of the school was S school. [yeA] 348
(Interuption by child)
A: I think they’re going to buy some chicken for the umukai. Are you coming for the
umukai on Friday? Do you know about it?
D: Yeah, [short] [yeA] 349
A: Will you come?
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D: I don’t know. 352
A: Why not? Why would you not come? Would you come?
D: Too shy! 354
A: Oh no D. We like you.Too many Papa ’cisl We just invited the neighbors, it's not
Papa'as, it's other neighbors, other Cook Islanders, other Maoris. That’s who we want to
come... Urn .. So in M you did not speak English - or you did - when the sister was your
teacher.
D: No, I just speak Maori there .. m ost.. most of the time I speak Maori. But if these ..
uh .. English people talks to me, then I speak English. Sometimes I don’t really know
how to speak English, [present tense] 390
A: When you talk to your parents, what do you talk?
D: I just talk Maori most of the time. Just sometimes I speak English. 403
A: Do you have brothers and sisters?
D: Yeah [[yeA]], My brother.. is .. D and my sister is .. M. 413
A: Are the younger?
D: Um .. yeah. [[yeA ..short vowel] 415
A: You’re the oldest. Are they here or on M?
D: M. I am the firstborn/. My brother D is .. is the second bom, and the last js M. 433
A: M. And they speak all Maori too? Do they speak some English?
D: No. 434
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A: No English. So what about your friends here at N. What language do you speak with
your friends here?
D: English, most of the time. 439
A: Really? Do you prefer English or Maori? Do you like one better than the other?
D: I think I like um .. English, b u t. . uh .. English .. [decisive] I like both. English i§_better
so we are speaking English today. But if I don’t like to speak English, I speak Maori still,
(laughter) 472
A: If there’s a word you don’t know or there’s something you’re trying to say and you
don’t know the English?
D: Yeah. [yeA] 473
A: Does it ever happen that you don’t know the Maori that you need to say something?
D: Sometimes .. in my English .. English language .. I hate the English language just in our
test I hate the English language, but Maori language I don’t really hate. But Math [Mat]
thatls my favorite. 505
A: Math’s your favorite? Ah, good. I like it too. What do you learn in your math?
D: Uh .. sometimes ... when I want to order the .. order the., order a book. It's called
math [mat] rules. One dollar. 525
A: You can get it at school?
D: Yeah. [yeA] Go at the principal’s office. But our principal today is gone to .. to F.
[non-standard preposition] 540
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A: How long?
D: I don’t know. He .. She went with the.. with the Minister of Education. 553
A: Oh.
D: (inaudible) 554
A: I saw him when I went to parliament. I saw the Minister of Education. Have you seen
him before? Mr. Puna?
D: Yeah [yeA] I saw him abunch o f time. I saw him Sunday and going .. with her wife ..
with his wife (with emphasis - laughter). 574
A: Does he have children?
D: Yeah [[yeA clipped]. But I don’t know who. He’s got a .. a daughter and the
daughter got a daughter too. Shels Lela. Uh .. Lelajs in grade 6. 599
A: Ah, so his granddaughter. Do you say granddaughter in Maori? How would you say
that?
D: um .. mokopuna. [gloss:grandchild] 601
A: Mokopuna?
D: Yeah. [yeA] 602
A: And that means .. just granddaughter, or does it mean something .. more than that?
D: Grandaughter. [ final ‘r’ not pronounced] Sometimes I don’t know how to translate
the English name into Maori. 615
A: Sometimes there’s no word?
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(laughter)
Sometimes there’s no word in English for something you know in Maori.
Do you say kikau or do you say coconut?
D: I say kikau. 618
A: Can you think of words that you go ahead and say in M aori.. like that. That
everybody would say them in Maori anyway even though there’s an English word?
D: Urn .. I think .. iC§ .. um .. 623
A: It’s a hard question.
D: A pale tree. 626
A: A what?
D: Pate tree. 628
A: Pate tree?
D: Yeah. [yeA] 629
A: What’s that? Is that the tree you make the pate from?
D: No. Itls that tree. 633
A: Uhhh? (straining to look)
D: That one right over there somewhere. 639
A: That’s called a pate tree. And what’s it in English?
D: I don’t know. 642
(laughter)
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A: That one right over there. Okay. Do you say pawpaw.
D: Um... 643
A: What’s the word for pawpaw? Do you know what I mean by pawpaw? This?
D: Ah! I don’t know., ah .. pawpaw. 649
A: Yeah.
D: Um .. In Rarotonga .. in Rarotonga gaH it nita and in M it’s called vipua. 663
(subject pronoun deletion, aux deletion, final [d] omission)
A: Dipwa? Say again?
D: Vipua 664
A: Vipua
D: Vipua (emphasis on ‘a’) 665
A: Vipua
(laughter)
A: You speak much better Maori than I do.
D: Some limes if you come back, my .. me and my friend .. sometimes my other friend
comes with me, if you come back .. We speak English most of the time. Just sometimes
we speak Maori. If I want to speak Maori, I speak Maori to him, if he want to speak
English to me, he speak English to me. 722
A: Well with D, you have to speak English, right, (laughter) D might be learning a little
Maori, you know?
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D: I’m trying to teach him. 727
A: Oh good. Good. I think that’s good. I think he can probably learn. Um.. well let’s
see, you like math. What else do you like? Do you like music?
D: Yeah. [yeA] 728
A: What kind of music do you like?
D: Um. I .. disco musicY 732
A: Disco! (laughter) Do you like to dance?
D: I .. I hate dancingY 736
A: You hate dancing! You’re the first Maori I met who hates dancing, (laughter) I don't
like dancing either.
D: Sometimes my teacher teach .. tells me to go up and dance/, and I won’t stand up/. £]]
go. and hide behind um .. I .. Last year/, my teacher, Mrs. B, told me to go and .. and
dance with this boy/. I’m going to dance the girl’s/. And he’s going to dance the .. the
boy’sY [progressive in lieu of past tense] The boyjs AlanY And I was angry. I went
.. I went at the .. at the hack o .. f [at the back of instead of behind] the door/ My
other friend, I just really knew him at school, because he lives in .. he lives in DY And
spoke of him. And I was caught/. I was hiding at the back of the door/. She was
looking for me/. Then .. she say. come out before our .. where you are hiding over there/.
And I came out. And she sav to me .. say to me., dance. She was playing the pate and
dance, he dance [assume past tense] with me and I was angry/. 890
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A: She made you dance like a girl, or like a boy?
D: Like a girlY 893
A: Oh. And you didn’t want to do that?
D. Inside I was angry, outside was laughing, (laughter) [subject pronoun deletion] 900
A: Oh, really. That’s interesting. Did you do it?
D: Yeah [yeA clipped]. 901
A: You had to. So, a lot of the boys like to imitate girls. I’ve noticed sometimes, you
know, when I’ve gone to assemblies at uh .. at A, when D was there. They had a beauty
contest where the boys dressed up like girls and danced. Everybody thought it was so
funny. Do you think the other boys get angry, or do you think its just you.
D: I think they are all angry. 907
A: You think they are all angry. Is that something you don’t do at M at all?
D: Yeah. [yeA] 908
A: They do it at M, or no.
D: No. 909
A: No. So it's different here, maybe.
D: At M every Friday, we always poes in church .. and pray. And we ga in church at nine
o’clock and come back a t .. at half past nine. Itl§ an half.. half an hour we prav. And we
come back/, there j; half an hour for us to teach/ and then time for lunch/. Yeah [yeA
clipped] sometimes our church will go up to ten o’clock, come back, lunch. But I .. I like
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Friday. When I went over here some .. I went over here to .. Every Friday we walk up
over here to church and pray. I don’t care if I am not Catholic, (laughter) I just want to
go and pray. 1016
A: You like to go and pray?
D: (Nods?)
A: D doesn’t like to go to church. Has he told you. Maybe you should talk to D into
liking to go to church. Why do you like it? Tell me what you like about it.
D: (Background noise) tgU my sins. 1019
A: Talk to Jesus?
D: Yeah. [yeA] 1020
A: Its nice and quiet in church.
D: Sometimes I hate church [chich]. Too long.Sometimes I like church. 1030
A: It gets boring?
D: Yeah, [unclear] Sometimes, When I was small, I had to sleep in church. 1042
(laughter) [sometimes with past tense ...]
D: If I don’t sleep .. In M. that was 1992. I was in grade 4. I was in grade 4 in 1992. But
.. um .. but, there was uh .. evening [every syllable proounced] church [chich]/. When
we .. when we hear the .. the first bell/, therels five bells at the evening church and for the
first bell/, I went back home and have my bath/. Then I didn't [final cluster not clear] hear
the second, third and the fourth/. And I came to church/. And I just stepped at the .. at
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the stairs/., at the place you go inside/. I heard the bell. The bell was .. this was the thing
.. and that was the bell. And I didn’t see the woman going inside the .. place where you
hit the bell. I was happy I .. I wasn’t late. Sometimes therewas some .. some people
inside the church. I wasn’t late/. I went inside the church .. And I was kneeling down/,
and we was kneeling down, the people was kneeling down, I just went like this/, and went
to sleep. 1205
A: While you were kneeling?
D: Yeah. [yeA] 1206
D: All the [da] first row was .. (Inaudible) My father’s just kneeling down too/. And our
two childrens, they are kneeling down/, and the people are singing. I’m just kneeling right
there asleep/. [progressive in lieu of past tense] Lucky me .. Lucky me, I goi
um .. didn't [didna] come back here and smack my head so I can wake up. 1256
(Laughter)
A: K woke you up. You were kneeling down asleep, was everyone else standing and
singing?
D: Sometimes when uh .. when my .. cousin beside m e/,.. he was at the hack me.,o f he
was sitting at the back of me. he told me all about i t .. while I was sleeping/. [at the
back instead of behind] Nearly all of us was kneeling down and some are standing
up. [mixing tenses] But my .. my cousin was laughing at us, all those rows.
And there was a little boy, he’s just like T. I was going like this. 1327
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(laughter)
A: When did this happen, recently?
D: 19 ... 1328
A: Oh, a few years ago.
D: Yeah. [yeA] 1329
A: How old were you?
D: I was .. eight. Yeah [yeA], 1 was eight. That’s .. I think it was on March. [non
standard preposition] I was laughing at her when he .. when she told me all about it.
She said to me that .. lucky me .. the ? didn’t come and smack me. 1370
A: Lucky .. I don’t know if its lucky to get smacked.
D: But if itls ■ it keeps like .. like I, she’ll come and smack the head [’ed]. 1384
A: Like.. (laughter)
D: Sometimes if um .. the first church comes ... the morning comes. The first church.
Sometimes he will smack those people and .. and he will be angry .. and .. he .. will warn
to us to say not to sleep again in the .. in the church. [non-standard use of
prepostion] 1426
A: When I went to the CICC Church, the church over here? (Its nearby in the
neighborhood, gesture with the over here - not the same usage as the Moari 'adverb.')
D: Yeah. [yeA] 1427
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A : I went to hear the music. There were a lot of children there and they would run up
and down the aisles and go in and out. It was all very casual, but when I went to Catholic
church that didn’t happen so much. Do you think that’s right? Do you sometimes see lots
of children running around the aisles? Yeah, I think thats nice. To, you know, .. make it a
place for children, not make everyone be quiet, and behave.
D: But at the Catholic Church you don’t see much children coming outside and play.
Only in M. 1444
A: Oh, in M, you did.
D: The childrens always have .. um .. babies, like T and L. They will stay at the back with
the mother. But us. we will go right in the front. But not over here. I won’t go in the
front, I am too shy. I486
A: Why are you shy here and not in M?
D: Because thepeopleJs too much English. And I don’t really know them, but in M I am
1504
A: Do people tell you you don’t talk right? What do people.. Do people say “Are you
from M?” when they hear you talk? Do they say ..
D: No. 1505
A: Oh, good. Because in M, some of the .. I can’t even say it right, M? Some of the
children said when they come to Rarotonga and they talk, people laughed at them.
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D: Yeah, I know why, because their voiceis different. Their voice goes up .. like A.
[yeA] 1520
A: Oh, at A too.
D: Yeah [unclear]... they say to you .. to this man over.. a man over there, he say to me
..[Maori phrase in a fast changing intonation], (laughter) I was laughing at him (inaudible)
I was speaking in English most of the time. 1542
A: And everybody sounds the same when they speak English.
D: Yeah. [yeA] 1543
A: So you can’t tell where they’re from. What happens if they speak Maori?
D: In Maori isclifferent, but the EnglishJsgood. 1552
A: So M is more like Rarotongan? The Maori in M is more like Rarotongan?
D: I think so. 1555
(interruption by children)
(two of three times I said "over here" were in this interview)
Helen
Interview with Helen, 19 year old female, outer islander, student.
Setting: living room of home of friends (‘H’ babysits for the children.)
A: You grew up in M?
H: Yes. [yes] short vowel 1
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A: Am I pronouncing it right?
H: Yeah that’s right?, [ye oats ..] 4
A: Um .. How many brothers and sisters do you have?
H: Um . . I have .. I only have two brothers. [brAoerz] 12
A: So they still live on M.
H: Nah. One is in New Zealand/ and one is A /. [Iz .. ziltend ..Iz] 22
A: Oh, that’s your brother.
H: Yeah. [ye] 23
A: And as you were growing up, what language did you speak?
H: W ell.. um .. I was speaking M aori.. Maori. .. aIAz spiklrj.. 30
A: Maori. And its the M dialect of Maori so its a little different?
H: (inaudible) 31
A: Did you speak any English at home at all?
H: No. 32
A: And when you went to school?
H: Ah, that’s when I started to get some of the English language/, [all s's] [statld tu git
oi] 44
A: Yeah?
H: When I was .. five years old /. [wAz] 50
A: Yeah?
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H: Yeah, I went to preschool, and then .. that’s when I started to learn the languageY
[ye .. priskul.. oasts ..statld .. ] 65
A: They started to teach it in preschool?
H: Yes. [yes] 66
A: Did they teach you to write in Maori?
H:Ah, yeah. They taught us how to write in Maori when we were in grade one/, and
that’s when we started to write/, and yeah that’s the beginning of learning how to writeY
[yeA] 97
A: An when did you learn to write English?
H: Um.. I think we had to learn how to write in Maori first/, so that’s like . second year
at school/ that’s when we started writing in English. 124
A: And do you feel more comfortable with one language than the other now? [kAmftfbAI
H: Um .. I think I feel comfortable with both languages now/. [kAmfgtAbAl] 134
A: What about Rarotongan, in addition to M?
H: Um .. since this is like second year over here/, its like .. um .. two languages of dialect
are the sameY 153
A: Yeah. So there wasn’t a whole lot to learn. So this is your second year here. Did .
but in your school, in M, did they teach you Rarotongan?
H: Ah noY (They taught different ? with M dialect?\) We had to learn our own dialectY
168
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A: Okay. So now, if you were at home, you would still speak Maori all the time?
H: M dialect (of it?). 172
A: Do your parents know any English at all.
H: Yes they do\. [yez 0e du] Like my grandfather/, he went to New Zealand for
.. for many years/, but he’s back thereV and my grandmother, she is .. like um, when the
priests came overt, they were teachersV and she attended that schoolY It’s a Catholic
School. And .. she learned a few English. 121
A: She learned what?
H: A few English!. 124
A: Yeah, and .. um .. do your parents encourage you to leam English?
H: Oh, I didn’t .. I didn’t live with my parentsY 133
A: Oh, you didn’t. Who did you grow up with?
H: My grandparents. My parents live in New Zealand/. 140
A: Oh yes, I’ve heard sometimes grandparents .. you know . so did your grandparents
encourage you to learn English.
H: Not reallyV 142
A: Okay.
H: When I um .. When you go to school here its to leam the English languageY Our
parents don’t have to .. you know .. they don’t encourage it/. They mainly encourage us
to speak Maori languageY [missing determiner] 177
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A: I like to hear that. I think a lot of .. have you heard the children here say that their
parents encourage them with English more?
H: Yeah. [yeA] 178
A: Its different.
H: Its different in the outer islands. Our parent encourage us to speak MaoriY [outer
= [aute] no flap or voicing to d] 192
A: Do you think that’s good?
H: I think\ that’s goodY You have to learn your own culture/,‘where you liveY 206
A: Um .. okay .. so now you’re living here. When you get up in the morning, what
language do you speak, in this house?
H: I speak MaoriY Yeah, [yeA] I speak Maori. The only time I speak English is when
I go to school, or when I’m with my friends/, because my friends, most of them speak
EnglishY 239
A: Do you have any friends here who speak Maori?
H: Ah .. a few. A few, yeah, [ye] 245
A: So when you come home at night you speak Maori.
H: Yeah, all the timeY [ye:] 249
A: And do you take Maori culture when you go to school?
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H: Ah, I don't.. I don’t now\. But I used to. When I was .. when I was in .. my primary/
and then third form up to fifth form. Because in the schools here that’s when they stop.
285
A. They stop in fifth form?
H: Yeah. [yeA] That’s when I stopped learning Maori language? 299
A: So now .. tell me about what you want to do now.
H: Um .. 300
A: You were saying before, so just tell me for the tape.
H: Um .. What I want to do is .. um .. to study medicine/, [medlsln and I want to
serve my country in the future/, and I want to upgrade the standard of living of my friends
and my family/, and to workV To work for my people on my island (Inaudible) 350
A: So will it be important to keep your Maori even when you go to University?
H: Yes. I think it‘s simple to keep my Maori/. Yeah .. to .. till.. If s your —it's my
identity. [yeC] .. [yeA] 369
A. Is it?
H: Yeah, [ye] 370
A: So, but if you go to A, you may not have other Maori’s to talk to.
H: That’s right. Um .. though I might take tapes there/. Um .. Yeah, radio tapes/ because
there’s a lo t.. lot now. Oh .. and there’s .. there’s a lot of Cook Islanders in A too. I
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might get into contact with some/. There (and then?) I might speak the languageV [ye]
416
A: How come you’re interested in medicine? What made you decide on that?
H: I know in the future. There’s my parents, my family really, my family is gonna
struggleV Getting old, (*pain?) maybe too old for (?) just now. Um .. you know the
hospitals here/, they are starting to get patients to pay their .. u m .. medicines/.
[omission of preposition 'for1] And maybe when I become one, well when I start working
that area/. My family may not be .. may n o t.. um .. I know they haven’t got that much
money to get the um .. medicines. So maybe when I work/, they’ll get it for ffeeV
502
A: Yeah. Do you have a big family, do you have cousins?
H: Yes, I have a lot of extended family/. I have a lot of cousins/, I have a lot of (aunties,
so .. ?) [ylz] 523
A: Yeah?
H: YeahV [ye] 524
A: So is your family .. um .. uh .. very well-known family on M?
H: Ah. Yes. Yeah. My grand’father was a fisherman\and he sells/ and .. [yes yA]
536
A: Does he still fish?
H: Yes. He still .. he is still fishingY [yeA£] 542
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A: This is the grandfather you grew up with.
H: Yeah. [ye] (clipped) 543
A: Is this your father’s father? Your mother’s father or your father’s father?
H. Uh . my mother’s father .. stepfatherY 548
A: Did you ever go out fishing with him.
H: No, I never went out fishing/ (laughter). 554
A: Do you know how to swim.
H: Yes, I do. [yez] 557
A: Do most of the children here, know how to swim?
H: Yeah, they nearly every/ ‘day\ kids go out swimming. [yeA] 666
A: I haven’t seen them. Which beach do they go to?
H: Here .. um .. the social center/. And the kids mainly around Avarua area, mostly go to
the uh .. to the wharfY 686
A: Do they? In Avarua?
H: Yeah. Avarua. But in M there’s .. everybody goes to the beach. It’s nearby, [ye]
699
A: Did B and D tell you they’re going to go to M?
H: Yeah. [yeA] (but short) 700
A: Are you homesick for M?
H. No. I once was. but I’m used [juzd] to it nowY 710
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A: How long since you’ve been back?
H: Pardon? 711
A: How long since you’ve been there?
H: It’s been how many months now, six months? Since I went back, for a holiday in
December. A few weeks. Then I came back. 731
A: So, do you have times for other things besides studying?
H: Um. No. (laughter) 732
A: No music or dancing?
H: Noo!! (more laughter) 733
Walking up the mountain, yeah, [ye] (clipped) 738
A: Yeah? Ah. We might go. Have you done the cross-island walk?
H: Yeah, I have, [yealasv] 741
A: I’d like to do that sometime. Is it nice?
H: (laughter) Oh it’s a long way. Yeah and it’s tiring. You have to climb a lot. [yeA]
756
A: Maybe I’m not fit enough. (laughter).
H: I don’t know. 759
A: Well, I think that’s about all that I want to hear about. Its nice to hear that you like the
language because a number of the children I’ve talked to .. Well, do you like speaking
English?
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H: Yes, I do like speaking English, and I .. but most of the time I like to speak Maori.
[yez] 777
A: W hy.. can you say why?
H: Um .. Yeah .. urn. I know how to express myself more/. [yeA] 787
A: Okay. Thank you, H.
(later)
A: The school at M and the school here, can you compare the two schools?
H: School here is more, I think .. well .. I would say more advanced/. Like, over here they
have computers/, typewriters, electrical typewriters, um .. a lot of teachers, teachers are
from overseas/, and a lot more subjects choose from, options/, and there’s a lot more
competitions here because we have a lot of students/ (?) Say my class/1 would be the ..
say, um .. one or two will be the only good ones in the whole lot/. 867
A: (?) good students.
H: Yes. You get to compete head on here. [ye(] 875
A: Do .. um .. Cook Islanders like competition?
H: Oh, I’d say .. I would say yes. [yis] 882
A: I think they do.
H: Yeah. [yeA] Like with classmates of mine from New Zealand, um . . we will talk
about competitions going on at school. He would say .. ah .. in New Zealand, they don't
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have to compete during school. (Inaudible) you don’t have to compete with the students.
And when he came here seeing all this competition going on. 938
A: Do they rank you.
H: Yes. [yeC] 939
A: That’s the competition?
H: Yeah. [yeA (short)] There’s a lot of ranking here. 946
A: Is it like after every test, or after every ..
H: Yes, [yeC] after every test [tist], after every assessment/, projects/,
assignments/, and major tests like .. uh ..‘major tests, yeah [yeA] there’s a lot of
moderations after the major tests, and then .. 978
A: Moderations?
H: Yeah. [yeA] 979
A: What does that mean?
H: Um.. (iaudible) adjustments (?). Yeah and at the end of the year there’s another big
competition? [ye] 995
A: So are you doing pretty well?
H: Um.. At the moment. Not really well/, but that’s [thaz] all right. 1007
A: Are you worried about any of your subjects?
H: Yes [yez] lam. 1010
A: Which ones?
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H: I’m worried about m y.. all my science subjects. Ail the subjects that I took. Even
though they’re .. um .. I’m scoring 70’s .. 80’s and 70’s, but I’m still worried. 1038
A: Oh that’s good though, you know. So what science are you taking?
H: I’m taking Biology. Physics. Chemistry 1043
A: Difficult.
H: Yes, they are a bit difficult. [yeC] 1049
A: But, so when you decided on medicine, it wasn’t because you love science. It was
because you want to be a doctor. I have a friend who became a doctor who is not very
good at science. So, you can do it. And she did n o t.. she didn’t go to medical school till
she was, oh, 39, and she had four children.
H: Oh that’s good. 1052
A: So, determination.
H: Yeah. [yeA] 1053
Nancy and Tangata
Interview with Nancy and Tangata, a married couple in their thirties. They have four
children and are from two different outer islands. The three younger children live with
them, the oldest, with his grandparents in New Zealand. Both have government jobs. I
interviewed them in their living room.
A: I don’t know your surname, what is it?
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N: M. 1
A: M-XXX Is that ‘xx(gloss)’?
N: Uh huh. Yeah, [ye] 4
A: I think mainly want to ask about, well, first, where are you from. You’ve told me
before, but go ahead and say it for the tape, I think. Which islands are you two from?
N: We’re from two different \islands. 9
A: Yeah.
N: Hels from \M, Ijn from YA?). 15
A: Ah yeah. So you speak different dialects.
N: Yes. [yes:] 16
T: Yeah different dialects, uh \yeah. [yeA] [ye] 5
A: Yeah. But you both speak Rarotongan pretty much now?
T: Yeah thatis all there \]s, almost similar ['to' omitted] each other \now? Almost the
same Nwords [wudz] Only a few Words are \different. [yeA] 26
A: Where ... Its like the difference between America and England, or New Zealand and
Australia, maybe, you know, that they have a few words different..
N: Itls just the \accent. Itjs not the actual Words. 25
A: We have different Words.
T: The words and the accent as well. 33
A: We don’t . . . do they have the boot of the car here? We call it the trunk of the car.
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T: O h , yeah, yeah. [yeA] [ye] 36
A: There’s a lot of different words. .. Maybe not as many.
So when you're just home with family, what language do you speak?
T: If we arg alone at home? I see, uh .. 45
A: No Papa’as.
T: English. 46
N: We speak English. 28
T: English. 47
A: Do you?
T : And a few Maori.. I would sav um .. what? Perhaps 80% English, and 20% Maori.
Eh? Like that, yeah. [yeA] 66
A: Well if you’re drinking with you’re friends.
T: Well it depends on what sort of people I’m drinking with. If I’m drinking with a more
higher class of people, it would be all English. 91
A: Ahh. Higher class, (laughter).
And then again if they’re a lot of fun you’re speaking Maori, right?
T: Yeah, yeah. [yeA ye] Well we start off .. we start off in Maori. We start
off the conversation, the drinking, start with the local language/, and then as every body .
uh .. gets a bit tipsy(?) [dlpsi] then English comes in. 128
A: More English?! (laughter)
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T: English mixture of local language, [with and the omitted] 133
A: Do you agree with that N? Is that what you notice too.
N: Yes, yes. [yes, yes short almost voiceless vowel] It is. 32
A: Do you know why that would happen. Think about how you feel.
T : I think itls just a change of., uh life .. is happening yeah. [ye] 45
I think we are in the middle of uh .. a change from um .. our local uh .. style to a Western
style. 66
N: Sometimes I think itls to be polite/. (For example, for instance) maybe this one person
in that particular (company who?) speaks English only, and (??) 56
A: Since you all know English, and that person doesn’t know Maori, you end up speaking
English. It doesn’t seem fair (laughter). Ah .. you’re too polite, (laughter) And so with
your children its 80% English, because that’s what you speak at home. Do you say Maori
words to them?
T: Yeah, we say Maori words. [yeA] 71
N: I dfi when Fm angry, [ai du wen aim xr\ ri; each syllable given equal time]] 61
T: When shels angry .. yeah, [ye] Maori words, (laughter) 77
A: No wonder kids don’t like Maori! You're talking when you're angry at them.
N: (?) Maori, (laughter) 62
A: Yeah, really. Somebody said to me, Parents only give commands in Maori. When
they’re just talking to you its English, but if they tell you to do something its in Maori.
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T: Yeah, Maori, yes, Maori. [yeA ..yes] 81
A: Really, is that true?
T: Yeah, Maori, yeah. [yeA .. ye] 84
A: What about at work?
T: At work, yeah, English. English, I would sav the same. It would be about 70%
English. [yeA] 101
A: And what work do you do?
T: XX. 102
A: Ah. Uh huh, great. .. Nancy, you’re working too?
N: Yes [ylC:], I’m in a XX office. 68
A: A XX office? Ah. And so is that mostly Engish.
N: Mostly English. 70
A: Is it a big office .. er
N: Very small. Therein about five staff. Every body (goes on?) in English. 82
A: Yeah? Its all Cook Islanders, its all Maoris?
N: Itls all Cook Islanders. 86
A: Do you think people might use English because they speak different dialects, because
they’re from different islands?
T: No, no, no. I don’t think so thatls the reason. The reason .. I think the reason is that
because the curriculum [ku 'rl 'klum] in school is English. You know to get a job, you
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must have English. I think thatls the main reason everybody speaks English. Plus the
local language is (Inaudible). If you want to speak Maori, you can speak it., you know.
you know the language. 170
A: W hat.. what do you think in. When you’re thinking, are you thinking in English.
T: Oh. I think itls a mixture. A mixture, (laughter) 178
A: It depends on what you’re talking in?
T: Yeah, it’s a mixture (laughter) Itls mixture of Maori, our local and uh .. [yeA] English
language. ... I don’t know/ (laughter). 195
A: You never really thought about it, right?
T: Yeah, [ye] I’ve been thinking about it. veah. [yeA] I’ve been thinking
about it. But not on myself, but on the kids, on the children. Are they thinking in ..
thinking in Maori and speaking in English. Interpreting. I think they are. I’ve been
thinking about that. But I never thought on myself though. (?) probably thatls the way
they.. 250
A: Well, most of the language teachers say you can’t really learn a language unless you
think in it. ‘Cause you can’t .. Translating it is too slow, so, you know, to really talk in it.
you know, they’re probably thinking in whatever they’re talking in too.
T: They’re thinking in Maori, and speaking in English. 258
A: You think they’re thinking in Maori?
T: Oh, I think... oh, I don’t know. I’m not sure. 268
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A: What do you think, N?
T: Well it could be a mixture. Could be a mixture: Maori and English. The thought is ..
local and speaking in English. 286
A: You think so, Nancy, your’e looking a little b it.. (laughter) You’re not so sure.
N: (?).
A: Yeah. I .. you know .. we’re not bilingual at home, so I don’t know anything about it,
which is part of why I wanted to study it. We only have one language, and there are a lot
of people from other countries who come, you know, and we make them learn English, or
we don’t talk to them. And here, you know, its really nice, that you’re bilingual.
N: See for us, see, he comes from a different island where his own people come from
over there, they speak their own dialect. 109
A: Yeah, so when you go home to your islands, are you speaking Maori, or are they
speaking English.
T: Oh they .. they speak .. most of them speak their local language, the Maori language
298
A: I went to M. And I heard a lot o f English there, but mostly I heard Maori, so I think
M and A are about the same.
T: Yeah, about the same, yeah [ye; voiceles or short e] 305
A: Some people say if you go up to the northern islands, you hear no English, except P.
Like M, you know, they don't speak any English at all. If you really want to get pure
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Maori, you have to go way up North, so I can understand absolutely nothing. .. Well, do
you have a preference for English then, if you speak it.
T: I think, yeah, [ye; voiceles or short e] 309
A: Can you say why?
T: Well, um. Mainly .. uh .. the job. That’s my own reason, and the introduction of ideas
[al di:z] which are (inaudible) all English, nothing in Maori. Thatls the reason I continue
to speak English. 340
A: Are there things which can’t be said in Maori that you need English for? Yeah? Some
people tell me English is easier.
N: It is actually, when I come to think o f it ..English(?). Since our girls are learning local
(?) I can’t think what it is I can’t know what it is since we’re speaking English all the
time. 145
A: Yeah, well some .. you know like .. I went to the parliament one day. And a lot of
words .. You know how they translate everything. Have you ever heard parliament on the
radio? Going from English to Maori, they just take the English word. Like the translater
will be talking in Maori, and he’ll say 'accountant', or you know, 'financial minister', or
something like that. And I asked them and they said, you know there’s no good word in
Maori for that, or I'd have to use 20 words to explain what accountant is in Maori, or
something like that.
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T: Oh yeah. [yeA] (all of T's dipthongs are also short.. if not clipped, certainly not
long) 342
A: Do you ever notice that?
T: Yeah, [ye] For example the accountant, we .. itls almost in a sentence if we explain
accountant. Itls almost in a sentence, yeah. [yeA] 362
N: That’s what they mean with (?) 150
T: So whatls happening now they coining the words now, yeah, [yeA] to make it
short, [aux deletion] 376
A: Uh huh. Are people learning them, and using them.
T: Nah, nah, no (laughter). To hear it is so fimny, you know, very, very funny (laughter).
390
A: Who’s doing it, I mean, like I know .. I know NN
T: Yeah, they doing it, they doing it. [aux deletion w/progressive] 397
N: (His uncle?) But he’s gone overseas, yeah. [ye:] 155
T: But he’s gone overseas. NN 401
A: Oh, I’ve heard about him. Yeah. He’s in New Zealand.
T: (Does he speak New Zealand Maori?) 407
N: (?) this year. 158
T: What they [aux deletion] trying to do is, they [aux deletion] trying to simplify the Bible
— the Maori Bible? Yeah. They [aux deletion] trying to bring it down a bit for this
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generation to understand. I think some words are a bit hard. Cause it’s been coined from
Hebrew words or Greek words. [yeA] 554
A: Oh, oh.
T : Itls like uh the (?). 558
A: It was translated 150 years ago and probably Maori has changed too. You know.
‘Cause languages do.
N: Some words are very ancient. Words like ?? or whatever. 168
A: Old. The children just say, you know there'll be a song that they’re learning for like
Consitution Week or something, when I was at the school and I would say what’s that
word. “Oh that’s one of the old words.” (laughter) Okay.
Well that’s mainly .. that’s really pretty much all I wanted, but you said you’ve been
thinking about it, is there anything else you’d like to say. .. Oh, you’ve been thinking about
the children.
T : Yeah, [yeA] um .. now we are trying to to coin the English word [no ' r’] into
M aori.. some, some English words where we have no words for that word in English. 589
A: Can you name some of those words?
N: Kiritimiti. 169
A: What?
T: Ah, yeah [yeA] , that Christmas, Christmas, Kiritimiti. The sound j§ .. is 599
A: Can you spell it?
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T: K-I-R-I-M-I 600
N: No, K-I-R-I-T-I-M-I-T-I 171
A: Yeah, yeah.
T: Christmas, Christ - mas. 603
A: Well someone was giving me some of these that he knew of. He said, tuka is sugar.
T: Sugar, yeah. [ye] 605
A: That wasn’t coined, that probably happened a long time ago, but its still borrowed from
English.
T: Yeah, yeah. [yeA, yeA] 607
A:Mati he said is match and its also lighter. That’s on Mauke..
T: Yeah. [ye] 608
A: Batikara.
H&T: Batikara. Bicycle. 173 610
A: Batikara matine.
T : Batikara matini. 6 12
A: Matini. Oh that’s an ‘i’, I got that wrong.
Yeah. I was trying to get him to tell me some more, because those are fun to me. If you
think of more you tell me, okay.
T: And like what? .. excuse me again, the word for excuse me I don’t know what N has
told you. The word for excuse me. We have no word for excuse me. 643
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A: So what do you say.
T: Oh, like, if you hear it. it’s rude, but it’s not (laughter). 654
A: It sounds aide in Maori.
T: Yeah. It sound. yeah, it might sound impolite in Maori, but itls not. 667
[yeA ..yeA]
A: That’s the problem with coining words, you end up with rude words. (laughter) So
when you’re trying to be polite, you just end up being rude. So why try.
T: Excuse me, I don’t know what is the word for excuse me, the Maori word. So we just
say excuse me, in English. Excuse me. 692
N: It could be ina 177
T: Yeah, ina means excuse me. [yeA] 697
A: Its true, when I was on Mangaia, the children, you know I was sitting somewhere
where a lot of them had to go, and they all said excuse me, and they’d just been speaking
M aori,.. so that explains that. No I didn't know that.
T: Yeah [ye] The expression and the action will tell you tharis excuse me. 709
A: Uh huh, yeah.
T: And what these two are doing, that, N, eh, collecting some Maori New Zealand words.
introducing them to our language. 729
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A: He was telling me he thought of one for computer thats, uh .. electric brain, or
something like that. He could say electric brain in Maori, so that’s what he was going to
try to get people to call a computer, you know.
N: Comaputa 178
A: Comaputa (laughter). Or do people just say computer.
T : Match our alphabet 732
A. Right.
(plane noise)
A: Ah so, do you .. what do you want for your children? What do you .. do you want
them to be fluent in English and get good jobs..
T: Yeah, yeah. [yeA ye] 734
A: What about their education. Have you told them what you want for their education.
T: Yeah English education, yeah. [yeA .. ye] Cause their education is English. The
first thing is English. So, We encouraging our children to learn English. [aux deletion
w/progressive] Thatls uh .. the main thing. Leam English. Maori comes later.
Because Maori, this area, literally, you walk around here, itls always Maori. .. Maori.
780
A: Less and less.
N. ?? Thatls what he wants. I want the other way. 187
A: You do? Uh oh. Uh oh. (laughter)
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T: I don’t want the Maori, I don’t want lo be emphasized onMaori. I want to be the
emphasis on English. 801
A: And what do you want, N?
N: Itls just not what I want, itls what they want. 197
A: They want Maori?
N: Yes. [lost] It’s just that they speak English most of the time, but itls really
strange like when you go to places where they have to speak in Maori, they can’t
pronounce anything/? Now that they’re bringing the um Maori syllabus at A school. T.
shels very strongly coming from a Maori background, she picks up more English than I
heard (inaudible) 256
A: I think that’s the way its going.
N: She can understand everything, it’s just communicating. If I speak everything in
Maori to her, she knows exactly what I’m saving. 277
A: Yes, but maybe that’s just you. Do you think she understands Maori from other
people, as well.
N: Maybe. 278
A: But she probably doesn’t speak it a lot herself. A lot of people tell me, the children
understand it, but they don’t speak it. You know, they know what you’re saying, but they
don’t say much themselves.
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T: Well I still, um .. say that we should encourage our kids to know English and this
should be in English. Because Maori, you can learn Maori anywhere you go around on
the island, but as for Engish, no. 839
(continued on next tape)
N: (Inaudible) They tell me they de it(?) 284
A: They speak to their friends in English. They tell me different reasons, they tell me its
easier. One kid told me jokes are funnier in Maori, but other than that she likes English
(laughter). And they tell me their friends, you know, know English. On Raro they say
that, but on M, they all prefer Maori.
N: Over here is more English dominating, (word order) 290
A: Do you think you all would ever go back to the Outer Islands.
T: Nah, nah, nah. 842
A: Never?
T: You gQ back to the Outer Island you going back ten years or twenty years back.
Thatls why people are coming to Rarotonga. Absolutely, yeah. [yeA] Thatls the
reason. If you gQ back there. Some people gQ New Zealand, and they come back, they
don’t go to these Outer Islands. They don’t want to go to these Outer Islands, they prefer
stay here, because Rarotonga is almost like New Zealand, [prefer stay instead of prefer
to stay; go new Zealand instead of go to NZ] 911
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A: They’ve gotten used to having the things that they can have here. So, its going to get
more and more crowded here, do you think?
T: It win. [wull] 913
N: Probably it will be overcrowded. 295
T : It will be crowded. Oh yeah [ye] they looking about at thirty, twenty years.
926
A: Well, maybe by then, you know, one of the Outer Islands will be developed a lot. If
they developed more, would you be interested in going there.
T: Uh, I don’t think so. 931
A: Aitutaki, I’m told, is pretty, pretty .. kind of closer to Raro than the other islands.
T:Yeah, [yeA — short vowels] definitely a bit closer to Rarotonga, yeah. [yeA —
short vowels] The whole lifestyle. 942
A. They also told me it was the best island, that I should go there.
N: (Inaudible)? I think I still prefer to stay here, (laughter) My job is here.
Good education here for the kids. 3 13
T: Yeah [yeA] the education is (?) 946
A: Where are T and N? We haven’t seen them.
N: At my parents. 316
T: At their grandmother’s. 949
A. Oh, They’re still a t .. The children have been saying, where’s N?
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T : They’re still sick. 952
A: Oh they’re sick Aww.
N: I’ve been dying to bring them back, but my Mom is sayingno, no no. (?) 331
A: Aw, yeah. I’d like to see them. We saw T in town today, she waved to us, you know
N: That was a hard one. Asking my mum .. 339
A: Do you think they’ll be well to come on Friday to the party, the umukai? I hope they
can. We’ve been buying lots of food so people better come, or we’ll have to eat it all
ourselves.
T : Did you see the big (inaudible)., making of the umu. So we should light that umu by
about eleven. But, we’ll be going to Consti’tution Day, thatls on the fourth. 981
A: Will you? Okay.
N: (inaudible) ‘con’ducting the ‘whole ‘cere’mony in ‘town. 345
A: Are you? It starts at like 8:45. Does it go on all morning?
T : It ‘finishes at a’bout ‘twelve or ‘one. 986
A: And what is it; is it lots of speeches?
T: A ‘few ‘speeches, some ‘items, ‘dances. 992
N: Dancing, yes. [yls] 347
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Pamela
Interview with Pamela, mother of a six year old girl, graduate of a South Pacific
university where she me her Samoan husband. The interview took place while seated on
the front steps of Pamela’s home.
A: Okay, this is P, otherwise known as K.
P: yes [yls:] 1
A: What’s your surname.
P: XX 2
A: From M, by way of S, where she went to university and married a Western Samoan,
named N, and they have a daughter, M, and there’s not a lot of time left on this tape, so
we’ll see how we do. I just wanted to ask you more, we talked a little bit before about
what language you think you should bring M up to speak and you were saying English,
not Maori, is that what you said before?
P: Ah, What we planned th at.. you know, We still think .. I think English will be her first
language. I think at the same time we need to teach .. the local language which is
Rarotongan and the Samoan language, too. At the moment she knows basic of both,
(inaudible) two languages. 51
A: I bet she can understand them all.
P: Mmm? 52
A: Yeah? And what do you speak,.. language do you speak at home most of the time9
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P: English. Well both actually. Like most who stay in Raro, speak both English and
Samoan to her. 69
A: Is M in school yet?
P: Yes. [yls:]. But she didn’t go today. 75
A: At N?
P: No, she goes to T School. 81
A: Oh, really. So that’s .. She will leam English there. I talked to the principal, what was
her name, NNN,
P: (Corrects me.) 83
A: At work, what language do you speak?
P. Um. Both English and Maori. 88
A: I noticed when we were together the other night, you spoke English most of the time,
but sometimes, if you were just talking to H, or just talking to A, you would speak Maori.
P: You notice that with us, we .. most the time., like if it’s a local, we speak , you know,
in our own language. But other than .. But there are some locals, some local people who
speak Maori. So if you speak English to them .. It depends who you’re talking to. There
are some people, they don’t understand much Maori because they aren’t [aret] from here.
So you speak in English to them. But unlike us, we’re all from the outer islands. XX is
from A and XX is from M. So, basically we all speak Maori to each other. 187
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A: Then it’s not a problem that its different dialects, there’s a few words, but you learn
what they are ...
P: Yes, [yls] ‘Yeah. [yeA] As you grow up you know what’s the
difference. 198
A: I think its like me trying to leam how the Australians speak or the New Zealanders
speak.
P: Ah. yes [ylC] 200
A. A little further away, but. Do you feel like um .. do you feel happier speaking Maori. 1
mean is it more who you are?
P: Um? 201
A: Do you have a sense of that at all? Do you think in both languages?
P: Yes [ylz], I do. I do. I do think in both languages.
I don’t know. It’s funny because, like myself, I find that in English I can express myself
better [bitter - no flap] than in Maori. You know when you’re expressing yourself/? 242
A: There must be some things you like expressing in Maori. When you're talking to the
people from the outer islands?
P: The outer islands, yes [yels]. Well, yeah, [yeA quick, short vowels] you know.
248
A: Who do you think instigated the speaking Maori. Who was more comfortable with it.
P: Mm. 249
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A: Was it you? I didn’t notice. Once someone starts, everyone joins in.
P: I guess, yeah. [yeA} 252
A: You don’t have a feel for that?
P: Uh uh. See like .. at all. now, cause I’m married to a foreigner. So unlike before I
used to speak Maori a lot. But not now. Cause I think, I’m married to a foreigner, and
my sister-in-law is a foreigner. English was always the language at home. So, When I have
my mother and father, we always speak English, when they comes from the outer island.
But when I go to M, its different. Like, I couldn’t speak English because people will think
that you're just pretending or you’re ... 343
A: Being a little flash.
P: Yes. Yes, [yelC *2] they laugh at you. and mock you, you know. Its a bit
different. 358
A: If you ask the children here, most of them say they prefer English. If you ask the
children on M, most of them say they prefer Maori, except for the ones who lived in New
Zealand or something.
P: I think its where you are [you er] staying. 365
A: Yeah, but you grew up without a lot of English. You learned it going to school.
P: Yes, yes, [yels] true, yeah. [ye] At M see we don’t speak English. But, at
my home we did, because my father, first of all, he’s a teacher/, he’s the principal, so more
or less, we had English in the home. Cause he tries to make us speak English. Not all of
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 185
the time, but he speaks English to us and most of the time we always answer back in
Maori. And he’s always speaking in English to us. 442
A: It was important to him that you learn English?
P: Since I moved here. See like me and my other feeding brothers we all speak English
now to one another. 463
A: Oh yeah? Oh my goodness.
P: Um. Oh don’t know, its just that we moved here. life has changed a bit for us, so we
all speak English. 485
A: Its a different environment here.
P: Oh we still all talk .. uh .. speak in our dialect when we’re together. We never talk in
Raro. We speak in our own dialect when we’re with my brothers. We speak in our own
dialect. M language. (Inaudible) Otherwise we still [aux deletion] speaking in English. I
don’t know why. It’s just (?) talking in Maori. 534
A: Do you think it will be a problem for M to have three languages?
P: No, I don’t think so. Cause .. like I speak Maori; I speak English and I learned my
husband .. I can speak Samoan. So, it should be all right for her. Its quite easy to speak
the Samoan language. And of course at school here [plane noise] I always (?) her that she
has to learn to speak Maori and English at school. 603
A: But they don’t have a lot of Maori .. teaching at T, right?
P: Uh, no. 605
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A: So she’ll have to get that from you.
P: Yes [ylC], at home. It won’t take long\ cause see she mixes with the kids around here.
See like this one comes from M, and always speaking Maori to them. [aux deletion
with progressive] 635
A: Oh really, some o f the children? Oh, D?
P: No, no, the little [no flap] one now, ‘XX. 642
A : Oh, A? T?
P: XX and A. They are speaking Mao’ri/. But then this sometimes they are speaking
English. I think they are trying to pick up .. 663
A: Ah, that’s interesting.
P: Yes, [ylC] I think its good. 668
A: I didn’t know that. But that's true because you do have children, like .. that come
from the Islands. They’ve been with their grandparents.
P: Yes, yes [yIs,yIC]. They still speak Maori. I guess they understand the basics/. Like,
to “come here” (Maori phrase). Or “go get what I wanted,” I say it in Maori, and she’ll
go do it. Or things said in Samoan, she’ll understandV She’ll do it. But answering back is
always in English. 719
A: Yeah, she always answers in English.
P: If you say it in Maori or Samoan, she’ll answer back in English. 732
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A: Do you think most parents .. you know, T and N kind of disagree. He thinks English is
most important, it doesn’t matter so much about Maori. N thinks both are important. Do
you talk to parents about this at all, do you know what other parents think?
P: To me . . aw .. both. To me both is really important, [collective noun singular verb]
742
A: But do you talk to other parents about this? Do you know what other parents think?
Do they think more like you?
P: See like uh. I only talked to M. See, I know here she uses more Maori. Because she
speaks Maori all the time to .. 766
A: Who’s this?
P: W. 767
A: Okay.
P: I noticed that the kids .. her daughter understands more Maori than my one. Because
she always speaking Maori all the time to her.. and M 792
A: And where’s she from?
P: Uh .. actually she’s a M, but I think she was brought up here. Brought up here on
Raro. So M’s English is more advanced than the little one, because, you know, more
Maori spoken. But then I say that’s good; that’s all right/. They can learn English at
school. That’s all right. (Learn a fourth language?) It’s English I want. 849
A: Well, this is good. Because this gives me ..a little..
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P: (?) She still has to learn Maori. I w ant.. I don’t want her just English, [infinitive
deletion] 863
A. I’m glad.
P: (?) She has to learn Samoan too. 869
A: Of course.
P: Well we just start little [no flap] things at this age. Asshe grows up/ she will leamV
Because that’s how you learn too — the Samoan language. 891
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. APPENDIX B
USE OF THE SCHWA IN CIME
Dialog # scwhas/# words
Daniel
D: Um .. In Rarotonga? .. Rarotonga call it nita and in M its called vipua.
a i aoaOA a o ao a a i i as I I a iua
(Later)
D: Sometimes if you come back, my .. me and my friend .. sometimes my other friend
A a i I u A ae ai iaeaie Aai ai A0 £
comes with me, if you come back .. he speak English most of the time. Just
A i iiuAae iiiioaAAai I
sometimes we speak Maori. If I want to speak Maori, I speak Maori to him, if
a ai i i aw i i ai a u i aw i ai i aw i u I I
he want to speak English to me, he speak English to me.
iauiiiuiiiiilul 1/
A: Well with D, you have to speak English, right, (laughter) D might be learning
SiOuasaiiiai 9 ai iAi
a little Maori, you know?
8 I 0 awi 0 oa 6/18
189
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D: I’m trying to teach him.
ai ai I u i I
A: Oh good. Good. I think that’s good. I think he can probably learn. Um.. well let’s
oa a a a i l ae a a i i i a a a i a a a s
see, you like math. What else do you like? Do you like music?
i u ai £ A S uuai uuaiui 9/47
D: Yeah. [ySA]
SA
A: Which kind of music do you like?
i ai a u i u u ai 10/54
D Um. I .. disco musicY
a ai i oa u i
A: Disco! (laughter) Do you like to dance?
I oa u u ai a as 11/60
D: I .. I hate dancingY
ai ai e ae I
A: You hate dancing! You’re the first Maori I met who hates dancing, (laughter) I don’t
ueaei AaAawiaiSue aei aioa
like dancing either.
ai ae I i a 13/77
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D: Sometimes my teacher teach .. tells me to go up and dance/, and I won’t stand up/.
a ai ai i a i £ i u oaA ae as as ai oa as A
I’ll go and hide behind um .. I .. Last year/, my teacher, Mrs. B. told me to go and ..
ai oa as ai i ai a ai as i ai i a n (noa) oa i u oa as
and dance with this boy/. I’m going to dance the girl’s/. And he’s going to dance
asae I 101 aioaiuas a a asi oaiuas
the .. the boy’sV [progressive inlieu of past tense] The boy is AJanV And I was
a a oi a oi i as ae ae ai a
angry. I went .. I went at the .. at the back of .. [at the back of instead of
aeiai£ ai£ asA asAasa
behind] the door/. My other friend, I just really knew him at school, because he
AO ai A a £ ai A i i (mute) I ae u i o i
lives in .. he lives in DY And spoke of him. And I was caught/. I was hiding at the
i i i l l ae oaai asaiAO aiAaiiasA
back of the door/. She was looking for me/. Then .. she say come out before our ..
ae a a o iAOioi £ ieA aw i 0 aw
where you are hiding over there/. And I came out. And she say to me .. say to me..
£ u a ail oaa £ asaie awae ieui eui
dance. She was playing the pate and dance, he dance with me and I was angry/,
as iAei Aaeaeas iae I iasaiAael 6/
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A: She made you dance like a girl, or like a boy?
i e u as ai 3 A 3 ai 0 01 16/88
D: Like a giriY
ai a a
A: Oh. And you didn’t want to do that?
oa s u i a a a u ae 18/96
D: Inside was angry, outside was laughing, (laughter)
I ai A as i aw ai A ae I 0/249
Totals: D: 6/249 (2.4%) A: 18/96 ( 18 8%1
Helen
A: And when do you learn to write English?
as SuuAuaiii
H: Um.. I think we had to learn how to write in Maori first/, so that’siike ..
A ai I i ae u A aw u ai I aw i A oa ae ai
second year at school/ that’s when we started writing in English.
£9iaeuae siaiaiiiii I /
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A: And do you feel more comfortable with one language than the other now?
x u u i 0 kAmftjt>l i a £ i aeiAaaw 3/
(Counted as 2 schwas)
H: Um .. I think I feel comfortable with both languages now/.
A ai I ai i [kAmfot 0 b a I] I oa x I I aw 3/
A: What about Rarotongan, in addition to M?
Aaawaaoaiaiau 8/
H: Um .. since this is like second year over here/, its like .. um .. two languages
A i iiaiSA ioaai I ai a uaen
of dialect are the sameV
a ai a £ a a e 51
A: Yeah. So there wasn’t a whole lot to learn. So this is your second year here. Did
£A oa£A80oa auA oa I I 0 £ a i ii
.. but in your school, in M, did they teach you Rarotongan?
Aiauiieiusaoa 13/
H: Ah no\. (They taught different ? with M dialect?\) We had to learn our own
a oa i x u A aw oa
dialectV
ai a £ 6/
A. Okay. So now, if you were at home, you would still speak Maori all the time?
oa e oa aw I u a x oa u o I i aw i 0 a ai 15/
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H: M dialect (of it?),
ai 0 s 7/
A: Do your parents know any English at all.
u 0 ae 0 oa ae I I ae o 17/
H: Yes they do\. Like my grandfather/, he went to New Zealand
[ySz 0e du] ai ai ae a 0 i £ u u i 0
for .. for many years/, but he’s back thereV and my grandmother, she is .. like
0 0 ae i i a i a e £ a e i a e A0tiai
um, when the priests came over/, they were teachersV and she attended that
A £ A i eoa0e£ i 0 a 2 l 0 £ £ a e
schoolY It’s a Catholic School. And .. she learned a few EnglishV
u I a ae a I u ae I A Au II 12/
A: She learned what?
i 0 A 18/83
H: A few English/.
A u I I 12/115
(Later)
A: Can you compare the two schools? [on her home island and on Rarotonga]
ae u 0 £ 0 u u 20/89
H: School here is more, I think .. Uh .. I would say more advanced/. Like, over here they
u t i o ai i ai o e o ae ae ai oa 0 i
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 195
have computers/, typewriters, electrical typewriters, um .. a lot of teachers, teachers are
ae A u 8 ai ai £ 8 S 1 3 ai ai £ A A a A i a i A a
from overseas/, and a lot more subjects choose from, options/, and there’s a lot more
Aoa&i $ a a a as u A a a ae £ Aao
competitions here because we have a lot of students/ (?) Say my class/1 would be the
aaiA i id i ae a a a u s e ai ae ai a i i
say, um .. one or two would be the only good ones in the whole lot/.
eA ao u o i a oa i o a I a oa a 19/189
A: (?) good students. /91
o u a
H:Yes. You get to compete head on here. 19/197
S u £ u A 1 £ o l
A: Do .. um .. Cook Islanders like competition? 22/97
u a d aiasai a a i a
H: Oh, I’d say .. I would say yes. 19/204
oa ai e ai o e I
A: I think they do. 22/101
ai I e u
H:Yeah. Like with classmates of mine from New Zealand, um .. we will talk about
£A ai I ae e a ai a u i a a i I o a aw
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competitions going on at school. He would say .. ah .. in New Zealand, they don’t have to
aOiAoaiOaeu i oe a iu i 3 eoa aeu
compete during school. (??) you don’t have to compete with the students. And when he_
A i a i u u oa as u A i I a u £ as £ i
came here seeing all this competition going on. 23/256
e i ii Ola aiAoaiO
Totals: H: 23/256 (9%) A: 22/101 (22%)
Nancv & Tangata
N: We’re from two different \islands. /5
i a u I £ ai as
A: Yeah.
£A
N: He’s from \M, I’m from YA?). /8
i A (no a) ai A (no a)
A: Ah yeah. So you speak different dialects.
a £A oa u i i a ai a £ 2/
N: Yes. [yCs:]
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(Later)
N: Its just the \accent. It’s not the actual Words. 2/21
I A ae £ i a a ae ua u
(Later)
N: Yes, yes. [y£s, y£s] It is.
£ £ I I
A: Do you have any idea why that would happen. Think about how you feel. 5/14
u u ae ae ai I a ai ae u ae a I a aw aw u
T: I think its just a change of.. uh life .. is happening yeah. [y£]
a i i i A A e A a ai I ae a I £
I think we are in the middle of uh .. a change from um .. our local uh . style to a
a i l i a I a i a A a e aa awoaAAai ua
Western style.
£ a ai 4/30
N : Sometimes I think its to be polite/. (For example, for instance) maybe this one
Aaiaiiiuiuai eilA
person in that particular (company who?) speaks English only, and (??)
fiaiaeaiua a i u i £ I oa i ae 5/
(Later)
A: Do you say Maori words to them?
u u e aw i £ u a 6/21
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 198
N: I do when I’m angry, (each syllable given equal time)
[ai du wen aim asr| ri]
T: When she’s angry .. yeah. [y£] Maori words, (laughter) 4/36
S i x i £ awi o
A: No wonder kids don’t like Maori! You're talking when you're angry at them.
oa a 0 I oaai awi £ 00 £ £ ae i ae 0 8/34
N: (?) Maori, (laughter)
aw i
(Later)
N: Yes [yif:], I’m a XX officer. 5/62
1 ai A (no 0) 0 1 a
A: A XX office? Ah. And so is that mostly English.
0 00 a ae oai s oa i 1 1 10/44
N: Mostly English.
oa i 1 1
A: Is it a big office .. er
1 I 0 I 0 I 11/50
N: Very small. There’s about five staff. Every body (goes on?) in English.
£ i o £ 0 aw ai ae £ i a i i£i 6/
A: Yeah? Its all Cook Islanders, its all Maoris.
SA I 0 o ai 0 0 I 0 aw l 13/58
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N: Its all Cook Islanders.
i o o ai ae a 7/
(Later)
N: See for us, see, he comes from a different island where his own people comes from
iOAi iA A A I £ aiA £ i o a i a A A
over there, they speak their own dialect.
oa a £ e i £ oa ai a £ 10/
(Later)
A: Well, do you have a preference for English then, if you speak it.
A u u a e a £ £ a e i £ i u i i 15/71
T: I think, yeah.
ai I £ 4/39
A: Can you say why?
a u e I 16/75
T: Well, um. Mainly .. uh .. the job. (Its ?) and the introduction of ideas [ai di:z] which
£ A e i A Aa ae i I a A a A [ai di:z] I
are (country?) all English, nothing in Maori. That’s the reason I continue to speak
a o i l Aiiawiae AiaaiAiuui
English. 7/65
£ I
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A: Are there things which can’t be said in Maori that you need English for? Yeah?
a e I iaeieiawIaeuiiiOEA
Some people tell me English is easier.
A i 0 e i I I I i i e 1 7 / 9 7
N: It is actually, when I come to think of it ..English(?). Since our girls are learning
iiaeuai eaiA ui aiii i aw e a e i
local (?) I can’t think what it is. I can’t know what it is since we’re speaking English
o a a ai as i aii ai ae oa aiii i i ii
all the time.
0 0 ai 1 3 / 1 3 9
(Later)
T: And like what? .. excuse me again, the word for excuse me I don’t know what N
ae ai a £u 1 0 S 0 O 0 £ u taioa oa a
has told you. The word for excuse me. We have no word for excuse me.
aeoau0OO£u I i ae oa o 0£u i 1 3 / 9 6
A: So what do you say.
oa A u u e 1 7 / 1 0 2
T: Oh, like, if you hear it, its rude, but its not (laughter).
oa aiiu i I I u Ala 1 3 / 1 0 3
A: It sounds rude in Maori.
I aw u 0 aw I 1 8 / 1 0 7
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 201
T: Yeah. It sound, yeah, it might sound impolite in Maori, but its not.
ySA I aw ySA I ai aw I oa ai I aw i AI a 13/117
A: That’s the problem with coining words, you end up with rude words, (laughter) So
aeaaoioiis u £ a i u £ oa
when you’re trying to be polite, you just end up being rude. So why try.
£ £ ia u i aai u a £ a iI u oa ai ai 24/134
T: Excuse me, I don’t know what is the word for excuse me, the Maori word. So we
£ u i ai oa oa A I A u 0 £ u i a aw i o oa i
just say excuse me, in English. Excuse me.
I e £ u i I £ I £ u I 14/143
N. It could be ina.
I D i i a 13/143
T: Yeah, ina means excuse me. [ySA]
£A i a i £ u I 14/148
A: Its true, when I was on Mangaia, the children, you know I was sitting somewhere
i u £aiaaaaiaai£ u oaaiAiiA £
where a lot of them had to go, and they all said excuse me, and they’d just been
£daaa aeuaoaeeO££u i ae e a I
speaking M aori,.. so that explains that. No I didn't know that.
i I aw i oa ae £ e ae oaail a oa ae 32/178
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T: Yeah. The expression and the action will tell you that’s excuse me.
[y£] a e £ a ae i aea i £ u a e f i u I 16/160
A: Uh huh. yeah.
A A £A 3 2 / 1 8 1
T: And what these two are doing, that, N, eh, collecting some Maori New Zealand
ae A i uaulae eA£l A awiuia
words, introducing them to our language.
a ioaui £ uOAa 1 8 / 1 8 0
A: He was telling me he thought of one for computer thats, uh .. electric brain, or
ia£i I I o a a o a u £ $ a i £ i eo
something like that. He could say electric brain in Maori, so that’s what he was
A iaiaeio e i £ I e I aw i oa ae aia
going to try to get people to just call a computer, you know,
aa u aiu £ i a ai o a a u £ u oa 4 1 / 2 2 4
N: Comaputa
a a u a 1 3 / 1 4 4
A: Comaputa (laughter). Or people just say computer in English.
a a u a 0 l a a e A u r I I I 4 4 / 2 3 2
T: Match our alphabet
ae aw aw a a 6 / 1 8 3
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A: Right,
ai
A: Ah so, do you .. what do you want for your children? What do you .. do you want
a oa u a AuQaoo I a a u u u u a
them to be fluent in English and get good jobs..
e u i i a i i i ae £ a a 41/260
T. Yeah, yeah.
[y£A y£] 18/185
A: What about their education. Have you told them what you want for their education.
a a aw £ £uea ae uoa £ a u a ae£uea
45/274
T: Yeah English education, yeah. Cause their education is English.
[y£A £ I £ u e a y£] 0 e£ueaiii 20/194
The first thing is English. So, We encouraging our children to learn
a £ i iii oa i 8 a a i aw i £ u a
English. That’s uh .. the main thing. Learn
i i a e A a e i a
English. Maori comes later. Because Maori, this area, literally, you walk around here,
i i aw i a e a i o awi i£iai£aiu OAawi
its always Maori. .. Maori.
I 0 e aw i aw I 24/223
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 204
A: Less and less.
£ 0 S 4 6 /2 7 7
N: ?? That’s what he wants, I want the other way. (laughter)
ae A i a ai a i a 0 e 1 4 / 1 5 3
A: You do? Uh oh. Uh oh. (laughter)
u u a oa a oa 46/283
T: I don’t want the Maori, I don’t want to be emphasized onMaori. I want to be the
ai oa a a aw I ai oa a u i £ A ai 0 aw i ai a u i i
emphasis on English.
S 0 I 0 I I 25/254
A: And what do you want, N?
ae A u u a 46/289
N: Its just not what I want, its what they want.
iiaAaiaia ea 14/163
A: They want Maori?
e a aw I 46/292
N: Its just that they speak Englishmost of the time, but its really
iaaee I i i oa a a ai a I i I 15/176
strange like when you go to places where they have to speak in Maori, they can’t
e ai Euoaues S eaeui lawl eee
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 205
pronounce anything/? Now that they’re bringing the um Maori syllabus at A school,
oa aw S i I awtee II i A awi I aa a; u
T, she's very strongly coming from a Maori background, she picks up more English
isioiAl a a awi a: aw ii aosi
than I heard (?)
ae ai A 15/222
A. I think that’s the way its going.
ai I ae a e I o a i 4 7 / 2 9 9
N: She can understand everything, its just communicating. If I speak everything in
iaeA aaesiiiAA uiei iaii sill
Maori to her, she knows exactly what I’m saying.
awiue i oa 8 ae i G ai e I 17/243
Totals: A: 47/299 t!5 7%^ N: 17/243 H%\ T: 25/254 (9.8%1
Pamela
P: You notice that with us, we .. most o f time., like if its a local, we speak, you
u o a i a e i az I oa 8 ai ai I I a o a a i i u
know, in our own language. But other than .. But there are some locals, some local
oaiawoaaei AA0ae Ae aA oa A a oa a
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people who speak Maori. So you speak English to them .. It depends who
i 3 u i aw i oa u i I I u £ I i S u
you’re talking to. There are some people, they don’t understand much Maori
a o i u s a a i s e oa a £ as a a w i
but they aren’t [aret] from here. So you speak in English to them. But
s e a s a ioau i i I I u £ s
unlike us. we all from the outer islands. XX is from A and XX is from M. So,
a ai A i 0 a i aw a ai as I a as i s oa
basically we all speak Maori to each other.
e I S i i 0 i aw i u i A S 1 0 / 9 9
A: And it’s not a problem that its different dialects, there’s a few words, but you learn
a s i a s a s as I i ( s ) 8 ai s £ £ S u a a u a
(2 syllables — count as S)
what they are...
a e a 5 / 1 9
P: Yes, yeah. As you grow up you know what’s difference.
[yis] [y£A] asuoaAu oa a is£ 1 1 / 1 0 8
A: Do you have a sense of that at all? Do you think in both languages?
uuasSE Sasaso uu iioaassi 8 / 3 4
P: Yes. I do. I do. I do think in both languages.
yiz ai u ai u ai u i I oa ae I I 1 1 / 1 1 9
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I don’t know. Its funny because, like myself, I find that in English I can express
ai oa oa I a i i 0 ai ai £ ai ai ae I I I ai ae £ I
myself better [bitter - no flap] than in Maori. You know when you’re expressing
a i f i i A aeiawiu oa £A ££i
yourself/? 11/146
A £
A: There must be some things you like expressing in Maori. When you're talking to
£ A i A I uai££ I 9 awi £ A O iu
people from the outer islands?
i a A i aw a ai 0 1 2 / 5 3
(Later)
A. You don’t have a feel for that?
u oa ae a i 0 ae 1 3 / 6 0
P: Uh uh. See like .. at all now, cause I’m married to a foreigner. So unlike
a a i ai ae 0 aw o ai ae i u a o £ a oa a ai
before I used to speak Maori a lot. But not now\. Cause I think, I’m married to
i 0 ai u u i aw i a a A a aw o ai I ai ae i u
a foreigner, and my sister-in-law is a foreigner. English was always the
A O £ 0 a e i i 0 i o i a o £01 i A O e a
language at home. So, When I have my mother and father, we always speak
ae i ae oa oa £ ai ae ai A 0 ae a 0 i 0 e i
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English, when they comes from the outer island. But when I go to M. it's
i i £ e A A i a w A a i A a £aioau I
different. Like, I couldn’t speak English because people will think that
i (a) £ ai ai a a i i i i o i a i i ae
you're just pretending or you’re ...
A I i £ I 0 A 17/235
A. Being a little flash,
i I A 1 3 ae 14/64
Totals: A: 14/64 f2I.8%l P: 17/235 (1.2%)
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. APPENDIX C
COMPARATIVE USE OF THE SCHWA: CIME AND SAE
Given the following data, as presented above in the suprasegmental analysis
section of my thesis, I will prove that the proportion of schwas in the CIME of my
informants differs significantly form the proportion of schwas in my own Standard
American English^
Speakers: Daniel: 6/249 Aileen: 18/96
Speakers: Helen: 23/256 Aileen: 22/101
Speakers: Nancy: 17/243 Tangata: 25/254 Aileen: 47/299
Speakers: Pamela: 17/235 Aileen: 14/64
Total(CIME): 88/1237 Total(control): 101/560
I am indebted to Austin Barron, Ph.D. from the Mathematics and Statistics
Department of the American University for the following proof. Dr. Barron is not
responsible for the rigor or appropriateness of my data collection techniques, but for the
following calculations, given my assumptions about my data.1
'See also Sincich 1990:446-450.
209
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Ho! ps = p2 vs. H,: p, * p2
p,= the proportion of schwas in CIME (of my informants).
p2=the proportion of schwas in (my) SAE
ft= 88/1237 = 0711
f t = 1 0 1 / 5 6 0 = . 1 8 0 4
0 = 88 + 101/ 1237+560= 189/1797 = .1052
Opl.p2= /pa-fr(l/n, + l/n2)
= V.094113 (1/1237+ 1/560) = /0000244 = .0156
2 — (ft “ ft )/0 pl-p2
.0711 - .1804/.O il 56 = -6.995
So clearly reject M, at any a.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. APPENDIX D
MEANINGS OF MA 'A TA IN CIM
Some examples of much in CIME:
Daniel: Too much papa’a people
At the Catholic Church, you don’t see much children.
Because thepeople is loo much English.
Field notes: much words
Some meanings of ma 'aia in Maori:
E ma ’aia ia ta ’au - moniHave you got a lot of money? (Carpentier and Beaumont
1995:55)
Meilake ma 'ata - Thank you very much
ma 'ata rava - too many; quite a lot (Carpentier and Beaumont 1995 :82)
tualua ma'ala - speak loudly (Carpentier and Beaumont 1995:41)
E kapcirala malie ma ’ata - This leia. is a big green cupboard (Carpentier and Beaumont
1995:97)
211
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Ma’ata as much or many
E ma 'ata te paiete There - are many passengers (Rere 1994:48) (N.B. count noun).
E ma 'ata te kako - There is much cargo (Rere 1994:48) (N.B. collective noun).
E ma 'ata te malaki laki. There - are many spectators (Rere 1994:36)
E ma 'ata rava te moni (It costs) - too much money (Rere 1994:34).
E ma 'ata tana moni- He has plenty of money (Rere 1994:32).
E ma 'ata te (iaorangi - It is very cloudy (there is much cloud) (Rere 1994:20).
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