E hoa ma! I'm excited to share with you the Maori language challenge I've set for myself. Basically, I'm introducing an old custom, an old practice that was quite common amongst our tupuna. That is implementing tapu onto our speech.
In the past, sometimes the name of a Rangatira would become tapu, which then meant that any utterance of any portion of their name was also tapu, and Maori had to come up with another word. This custom has been practiced all across Pasifika nations, and is not unique to Maori. A somewhat recent example of this was when the word "wai" became tapu, during that time, the iwi of the rohe could not utter that word. So for a short while, Waikato was known as Ngongikato.
My hope is that by reimplementing this practice into my life I can expand my vocabulary, and I can become a much better speaker of our taonga tuku iho.
At this time, I'm currently using Te Wiremu to find new terms, however the difficulty arises when only a word is provided and no context is given. I'm bound to make mistakes, and errors, and likely often will utter a word I've deemed tapu (I've already picked up a one's already after releasing this episode) however that's all part of the learning process.
Here is my current list of words that I have now made tapu:
Whakatauki: He uru a ki, he uru ti, e pihi ake - Even as the ti reproduces itself, so does the spoken word reappear. [Murdoch Riley, Maori Sayings & Proverbs of the Maori, 16-8]
Kia ora ra e te whanau whanuii! I have a Patreon where I hope to add some additional value. If you'd like the kaupapa, and you appreciate this mahi, you can give a koha here: