Commentary and free digital resources that promote and normalise the Māori language including spell checkers, dictionaries and mew terminology.
The vowels with macrons indicate the vowel is pronounced longer. 1. E Ihowā Atua, O ngā iwi mātou rā Āta whakarangona; Me aroha noa Kia hua ko te pai; Kia tau tō atawhai; Manaakitia mai Aotearoa 2. Ōna mano tāngata Kiri whero, kiri mā, Iwi Māori, Pākehā, Rūpeke katoa, Nei ka tono ko ngā hē Māu … Read more
I gladly accepted an invitation to participate as a practitioner for the on-line dialogue on Using Citizen Media Tools to Promote Under-Represented Languages from November 16 to 22, 2011 from New Tactics http://www.newtactics.org . I am writing this post in the hope to raise more publicity of this key initiative which will allow anyone with a … Read more
It is hard to believe that a decade ago I nervously released Te Ngutu Kura Māori Spell Checker for Windows: then just last week I released version 3 with over 58,000 words for a wide range of applications and systems. It was about 12 years ago I created Moana Kupu Māori spell checker, which is … Read more
Macrons can be simply created with Māori keyboards available for all computer and smart phone systems. No longer does the need to press multiple keys to create a macron exist, despite the many articles which suggest otherwise. As an advocate and developer of macron technologies for more than 12 years: I am shocked that so many articles … Read more
Google Māori is still in dire need of translations to complete its user interface in Māori language. The statistics below show that many parts of Google are still 100% English. Contrary to popular belief, anyone with a Gmail account, can begin translating Google into Māori. You do not have to commit to plethora of translations, … Read more
Te Ngutu Kura Macintosh download has been updated with relevant information to OSX. While Te Ngutu Kura does not directly offer the software, there is a link to the Hawai’i keyboard with creates macrons. Considering the small market for Māori language software and the fact that Hawai’i also use macrons. I felt that it was … Read more
If you are reo txt’a, send thru the kupu or how you create the txt Mri or txt them thru to 027 845 7200 so they can include in the reo txt list below, and in the Papakupu project. Txtn in te reo Māori is not a new phenomenon and has been developing over the … Read more
A discussion about the reason why Māori Dictionaries should stop being genre specific and be more inclusive of all Māori words. I use loan words as an example here. As a child who was brought up with te reo Māori (including Te Karere Māori News) in the late 70’s and early 80’s, I heard a … Read more
It may appear that this Papakupu project has arisen out of nowhere, but the truth is that the original idea began over 16 years ago as a budding young IT probie. I was the architect and builder of Te Reo Tupu Māori dictionary (now known as Reo Tupu). Many said Te Reo Tupu is and … Read more
There are many published Māori Dictionaries, some general and others specialised that much tax payers money is consumed funding the creation of multiple resources of which many have major cross over in terms of words and definitions. The Papakupu project has referenced over 200 various dictionaries and glossaries. The Canterbury Public Library online book catalogue … Read more
I am working on a new Māori Dictionary that will revolutionise the way we think of, and use Māori Language Dictionaries.
Creating umlauts for macrons is no longer acceptable and is an outdated practice. Free and supported macron software is available on the web and should be installed.
With the introduction of the 5 Māori macrons in .nz web addresses at the end of July this year, there has been little Domain Name registrar attention with most simply choosing not to advertise the fact that it is possible to register such names. There has also been little media attention to the fact that … Read more
Google announced today. It was made possible by Dr Te Taka Keegan of the University of Waikato while on secondment to Google. Google Translate Toolkit is a translation tool that is edited by humans not automated by computers such as Google Translate. Google Toolkit relies on the community to add words and translations. It then … Read more
A number of months ago the professional networking site LinkedIn announced the ability to offer multilingual professional profiles via a set of existing languages and custom language options. The task is simple and can be used for any language in the world no matter how small the language population may be. Bilingual profiles in English … Read more
Twitter today announced that it would offer Twitter interface in multiple languages with other languages to be offered in the future. Currently Twitter is available in two languages English and Japanese. Twitter are calling for volunteers to assist with translating Twitter into French, Italian, German, and Spanish. The Twitter team have made it clear that … Read more
For many years there have always been small groups of people fighting for what they believe is a natural right – to have software and online services presented in Māori. Most groups are short lived while others achieve results, often in a modest fashion. One-day translation issues and will not be an issue, it will … Read more
Recently and with minimal media attention in New Zealand and the Pacific, the ability to write non English characters into Web addresses became a reality for many of the worlds popular extensions such as .com, .org, .net, .tv and so on. Thus giving Māori the ability to correctly spell macron Māori words in web addresses, … Read more