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Sequence of Letters to Broadcasting Standards Authority on Maori Linguistic Racism -- Letter No. 1 Peter Zohrab 2012

• “The committee found itself perplexed by your complaint,” their reply states.  It is hard to know how to respond to this comment without appearing sarcastic.  Obviously the committee is not competent in this matter, and so – if (as is obviously not the case) it was genuinely interested in understanding the issues – it should have sought clarification from myself and/or some other competent person before abusing its power to dismiss my complaint;

• TVNZ’s letter states that TVNZ has an in-house “language expert”, which is a ludicrous and unprofessional turn of phrase, which – in all my approximately 41 years of studying and teaching languages and Linguistics – I have never heard used by one competent scholar about another.  The field of “Language” (in which I have a BA (Hons) from the University of York, as well as having published articles on Theoretical Linguistics in journals) is far too broad for any one person to be an “expert”, and if there were such a phenomenal person, they would hardly be likely to be working for a New Zealand media organisation !   In fact, even the TVNZ “Mastermind” research team declined my request to have “Human Language” as my specialist topic in 1989, and I was forced to appear on the programme with my second choice:  “The Treaty of Waitangi.”

• TVNZ’s letter asks, “Who decides what the current pronunciation of a Maori word in “New Zealand English’ should be?”  I was not talking about the pronunciation of a “Maori word” in New Zealand English, but about the pronunciation of the New Zealand English place-name “Waikato”, which happens to have been borrowed from Maori.  Everyone knows that this word has its own traditional pronunciation in New Zealand English, and everyone also knows that TVNZ has long been arrogantly and undemocratically trying to force another pronunciation of this word onto us, which is closer to the original pronunciation in Maori.  The History of English by Jonathan Culpeper (Routledge, 1997), in Chapter 4: Borrowing Words, states on page 24 that “… 70 per cent of today’s English consists of loanwords.”  Does TVNZ’s “language expert” teach TVNZ staff to pronounce all these loanwords in the way they are/were pronounced in their language of origin – even if these languages are now extinct?  Of course not !  TVNZ just has a policy of saying “Yes” to Maoris and women, so if Maoris or women demand some racist or sexist preferential treatment, TVNZ automatically agrees to it.

• Then TVNZ answers its own question with another question: “Is it simply usage – and, if so, whose usage?”  Yes, it is simply usage – the usage of the native speakers of New Zealand English – not the usage of the native speakers of Maori (who have enough to do sorting out the pronunciation of their own language) or the arrogant whim of power-mad TVNZ mandarins. Varieties of English by G.L. Brook (Macmillan, 1973), in Chapter 6 Usage, states on page 141:”The usual English practice is to anglicise the pronunciation of loan-words which have been in the language long enough to become familiar.”  

'I am writing to complain about yet another example of your routine anti-non-Maori linguistic racism: In the Maori-language programme Te Karere on TV One at 06:11 a.m. on 27 March 2002, you  used the word kooti/koti to refer to the Porirua District Court.  This Maori word is, like countless others used on Te Karere, a “Maorification” of an English word – the word court.  I am not complaining about this perfectly routine, normal, common process of one language borrowing words from another language and adapting them to the syllable-structure and phonemic inventory, as well as to the morphology, of the target language – in this case, Maori.

However, on the English-language 6PM News on 29 March 2002, you mispronounced the English-language place-name “Waikato”, as you routinely do, giving it a pronunciation approximately midway between the original Maori pronunciation and its current pronunciation in New Zealand English (which, I must point out, is a language with its own rules and its own right to linguistic equality).

This racist double standard breaches the “safeguards against the portrayal of persons in programmes in a manner that encourages denigration of, or discrimination against, sections of the community on account of  race” contained in Broadcasting Standards Authority Code Requirements (s21(1)(e).  Your double standard on pronunciation and morphology (e.g. the presence or absence of “-s” at the end of plurals of words borrowed between English and Maori) encourages the denigration of New Zealand English, and portrays its speakers as being a group of people who are dependent on the approval of Maoris for the way they speak their own native language, while only Maoris are permitted to speak their own language in a (rightfully) autonomous and dignified manner.'