Google Māori hits the web
16 Jul 2008
New Zealand’s national Māori language week - te wiki o te reo Māori - will get a major boost next week with the launch of Google Māori.
The Māori-language version of the Google search engine has been spear-headed by a husband and wife team, Potaua and Nikolasa Biasiny-Tule, of Rotorua in the Bay of Plenty.
The couple, who are both learning Māori, run a media website that focuses on news and events relevant to Māori. While Mr Biasiny-Tule is a Maori, his wife is originally from Puerto Rico.
They hope the new service will encourage more Māori to use the internet.
Ensuring the language went new places was important, Mrs Biasiny-Tule said.
"Our oldest boy Atutahi is in kohanga [preschool] at the moment. He's almost four and using the computer. We've been feeling like unless our kids take up the reo, it'll be lost."
Enthusiastic response
After pitching their idea to Google’s US owners, and receiving an enthusiastic response, the Biasiny-Tule’s took on the challenge of developing Google Māori. They spent a year working with a team of 40 volunteers on translating the search pages.
New Zealand’s Māori Language Commission (Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori) was also involved in the project.
Technical phrases
Translations of technical words provided some of the bigger challenges for the team.
"It's not as easy as people think. You have to think technology but at the same time you have to think traditional in terms of the words," said Maori Language chief executive Huhana Rokx.
She described the process as "using old words in new ways".
An example was rorohiko - the Māori word for computer - which combines roro (brain) and hiko (lightning).
Māori Language Week
Māori Language Week has been celebrated for over 30 years. Running from 21-27 July, 2008, this year’s theme is "Te Reo i te Kāinga - Māori Language in the Home".
Google Māori will be officially launched in Rotorua on 23 July.
These topics may also be of interest to you
|
