Moriori language

Short description: Extinct Māori-related language of the Chatham Islands

Moriori

Ta Rē Moriori
Native to| New Zealand
Region| Polynesia
Extinct| 1898, with the death of Hirawanu Tapu[1]
Revival| 20th century-2001

Language family

Austronesian

* Malayo-Polynesian
* Oceanic
* Polynesian
* Eastern Polynesian
* Tahitic
* Māori–Moriori
* Moriori

Writing system

| Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3| `rrm`
Glottolog| `mori1267`[2]
IETF| `mi-u-sd-nzcit`

Moriori, or ta rē Moriori[3] ('the Moriori language'), was a Polynesian language most closely related to New Zealand Māori and was spoken by the Moriori, the indigenous people of New Zealand's Chatham Islands (Rēkohu in Moriori), an archipelago located east of the South Island.

## Contents

* 1 History
* 2 Alphabet
* 3 Comparison with Maori
* 4 References
* 5 Further reading

## History

The Chatham Islands' first European contact was with William R. Broughton of Great Britain who landed on 29 November 1791 and claimed the islands which he named after his ship, HMS Chatham. Broughton's crewmen intermarried with the women of Moriori.

The genocide of the Moriori people by mainland Māori iwi (tribes) Ngāti Mutunga and Ngāti Tama occurred during the autumn of 1835.[4] Approximately 300 were killed, around one sixth of the original population.[5] Of those who survived, some were kept as slaves, and some were subsequently eaten. The Moriori were not permitted to marry other Moriori or have children with them, which caused their survival and that of their language to be endangered.[6] The impact on the Moriori population, culture, and language was so severe that by 1862 only 101 Moriori remained alive,[7] and by the 1870s few spoke the language.[8]

The three principal documents on which knowledge of the Moriori language is now based are a manuscript petition written in 1862 by a group of surviving Moriori elders to Governor George Grey; a vocabulary of Moriori words collected by Samuel Deighton, Resident Magistrate from 1873 to 1891, published in 1887; and a collection of Moriori texts made by Alexander Shand and published in 1911.[9]

The death of the Moriori language went unrecorded,[9] but Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Baucke (1848–1931) was the last man who could speak it.[10]

Samuel Deighton's vocabulary of Moriori words was republished as an appendix of Michael King's Moriori: A People Rediscovered (1989).

The language was reconstructed for Barry Barclay's 2000 film documentary The Feathers of Peace,[11] in a recreation of Moriori contact with Pākehā and Māori.

In 2001, as part of a cultural revival movement, Moriori people began attempts to revive the language, and compiled a database of Moriori words.[12] There is a POLLEX (Polynesian Lexicon Project Online) database of Moriori words as well.[13] A language app is available for Android devices.[14]

The 2006 New Zealand census showed 945 people choosing to include "Moriori" amongst their tribal affiliations, compared to 35 people in the 1901 census.[15] In the 2013 New Zealand census the number of people who identified as having Moriori ancestry declined to 738, however members of the imi (Moriori equivalent for iwi)[16] estimate the population to be as many as 3,500.[17]

In 2021 an app called Ta Re Moriori was launched in order to teach the Moriori language to as many new people as possible.[18]

## Alphabet

* a - [a]
* e - [ɛ]
* i - [i]
* o - [ɔ]
* u - [u]
* ā - [aː]
* ē - [ɛː]
* ī - [iː]
* ō - [ɔː]
* ū - [uː]
* p - [p]
* t - [t]
* k - [k]
* m - [m]
* n - [n]
* ng - [ŋ]
* wh - [ɸ]
* h - [h]
* w - [w]
* r - [r][19]

## Comparison with Maori

Words in Moriori often have different vowels from their Māori counterparts.

The preposition a in Moriori corresponds to e in Māori, the preposition ka to ki, eriki to ariki (lord, chief), reimata to roimata (tear), wihine to wahine (woman), and so forth.[19]

Sometimes a vowel is dropped before a consonant such as na (ena), ha (aha) and after a consonant like rangat (rangata), nawen (nawene), hok (hoki), or (oro), and mot (motu), thus leaving a closed syllable. In this regard, it is similar to the Southern dialects of Māori, in which apocope is occasionally found. A vowel is also sometimes dropped after a vowel in the case the preceding vowel is lengthened and sometimes before a vowel, where the remaining vowel is lengthened.[20]

The consonants [k], [h], and [t] can sometimes be aspirated and palatalised, such as Motchuhar instead of Motuhara.

## References

1. ↑ "Hirawanu Tapu Peace Scholarship". http://www.moriori.co.nz/_w/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/HIRAWANU-TAPU-PEACE-SCHOLARSHIP.pdf.
2. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds (2017). "Moriori". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. http://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/mori1267.
3. ↑ "A mission to wake up the Moriori language". University of Auckland. 2023-11-16. https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/news/2023/11/16/waking-up-the-moriori-language.html.
4. ↑ Mills, Keri (2018-08-03). "The Moriori myth and why it's still with us". https://thespinoff.co.nz/atea/03-08-2018/the-moriori-myth-and-why-its-still-with-us.
5. ↑ "Moriori Claims Settlement Bill 238-1 (2020), Government Bill 8 Summary of historical account – New Zealand Legislation". https://legislation.govt.nz/bill/government/2020/0238/18.0/LMS238062.html.
6. ↑ "The Genocide". https://moriorigenocides.weebly.com/the-genocide.html.
7. ↑ Davis, Denise; Solomon, Māui (28 October 2008). "Moriori: The impact of new arrivals". The Encyclopedia of New Zealand. NZ Ministry for Culture and Heritage. http://www.teara.govt.nz/NewZealanders/MaoriNewZealanders/Moriori/4/en. Retrieved 7 February 2009.
8. ↑ King, Michael (1989). Moriori: A People Rediscovered. Auckland: Viking. p. 136.
9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Clark, Ross (2011). "Moriori: language death (New Zealand)". Atlas of Languages of Intercultural Communication in the Pacific, Asia, and the Americas. I. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 173–175. ISBN 978-3-11-081972-4. https://books.google.com/books?id=lFW1BwAAQBAJ&pg=PA173. "The death of the Moriori language was not documented in any detail..."
10. ↑ King, Michael (2017). Moriori: A People Rediscovered. Penguin Random House New Zealand Limited. p. 120. ISBN 978-0-14-377128-9. https://books.google.com/books?id=W_acDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT120. "Baucke was eventually the last man alive to know the Moriori language."
11. ↑ "The Feathers of Peace". https://www.nzfilm.co.nz/films/feathers-peace.
12. ↑ Davis, Denise; Solomon, Māui (28 October 2008). "Moriori: The second dawn". The Encyclopedia of New Zealand. NZ Ministry for Culture and Heritage. http://www.teara.govt.nz/NewZealanders/MaoriNewZealanders/Moriori/5/en. Retrieved 7 February 2009.
13. ↑ Greenhill, SJ; Clark, R (2011). "POLLEX-Online: The Polynesian Lexicon Project Online". Oceanic Linguistics 50 (2): 551–559. doi:10.1353/ol.2011.0014.
14. ↑ Hokotehi Moriori Trust (1 March 2021). "Ta Rē Moriori Language App Launched" (Press release).
15. ↑ Davis, Denise; Solomon, Māui (28 October 2008). "Moriori: Facts and figures". The Encyclopedia of New Zealand. NZ Ministry for Culture and Heritage. http://www.teara.govt.nz/NewZealanders/MaoriNewZealanders/Moriori/6/en. Retrieved 7 February 2009.
16. ↑ Devere, Heather; Te Maihāroa, Kelli; Solomon, Maui; Wharehoka, Maata (2020). "Friendship and decolonising cross-cultural peace research in Aotearoa New Zealand" (in en-GB). AMITY: The Journal of Friendship Studies 6 (1): 53–87. doi:10.5518/AMITY/31. https://amityjournal.leeds.ac.uk/issues/volume-61-2020/friendship-and-decolonising-cross-cultural-peace-research-in-aotearoa-new-zealand/. Retrieved 2022-05-14.
17. ↑ Wall, Tony; McKeen, Chris. "Divided Tribe" (in en). https://interactives.stuff.co.nz/2019/01/divided-tribe/.
18. ↑ Hokotehi Moriori Trust. "Ta Rē Moriori Language App Launched". pacific.scoop.co.nz (Press release). Retrieved 2023-01-05.
19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 Ager, Simon. "Moriori (Te Rē Mōriori)". http://www.omniglot.com/writing/moriori.htm.
20. ↑ Taiuru, Karaitiana (2016). "Word list and analysis of te reo Moriori". http://www.taiuru.maori.nz/wp-content/uploads/Dictionary-of-Moriori.pdf.

## Further reading

* Clark, R. (1994). "Moriori and Maori: The Linguistic Evidence". in Sutton, D.. The origins of the First New Zealanders. Auckland: Auckland University Press. pp. 123–135.
* Galbraith, Sarah. A Grammar of the Moriori language (Thesis).
* Richards, Rhys (2018) (in en). Moriori: Origins, Lifestyles and Language. Paremata Press.
* Taiuru, Karaitiana N. (2016). Word list and analysis of te reo Moriori. Karaitiana N Taiuru. ISBN 978-0-9582597-0-5. https://ndhadeliver.natlib.govt.nz/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE26613846.

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