402 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



which it is said one of our eminent legislators, having to refer 

 to a block of land known by this name, found a difficulty in 

 the pronunciation, and negotiated it in a somewhat summary 

 fashion. He wished to say something about the Kaukapakapa 

 Block, and, having got as far as " Kau," he disposed of the 

 rest of the name by adding " and all the rest of it " : " Kau — 

 and all the rest of it." It cannot be denied that much more 

 formidable-looking words are met with by those who have to 

 do with Maori names. In this case there are but three dis- 

 syllables, the third being a repetition of the second. " Kau- 

 kapakapa," one would think, is scarcely a word to be frightened 

 at. We will take a more difficult — or apparently difficult — 

 word, " Ngati-uenuku-kopako," which is the name of one of the 

 Kotorua hapus, or sections of a tribe. This word is divisible 

 into six portions, which — excepting the first and fifth — are 

 certainly dissyllables. With the first two there is no diffi- 

 culty. They are separable from the rest of the word as a 

 prefix common to names of tribes. The remaining four 

 form the name of the ancestor from whom the tribe takes its 

 name, and may also be separated into two parts, " Uenuku " 

 and " Kopako." If each of these pairs of dissyllables be 

 taken separately — making a dissyllable of "Ko," in "Kopako," 

 and following the simple rules previously referred to — there 

 ought to be no great difficulty when they are brought together. 

 The small difficulty, of course, is to know how the word should 

 be divided ; but a little familiarity with Maori names, and ob- 

 servation of their construction, will obviate this. 



I have heard of an objection to Maori names on the ground 

 that many of them are the reverse of euphonious. This ob- 

 jection is, I think, partly met by what has been said about 

 pronunciation of Maori words. I must admit, however, that 

 the redundancy of the "k" in Maori does not conduce to 

 euphony. In the South, more especially, is this noticeable, 

 as there the nasal "ng" is converted into a " k," giving a 

 somewhat jerky, harsh character to the Maori vernacular 

 there. In the North, however, I cannot agree that Maori 

 names are ill-sounding when pronounced properly. When 

 incorrectly pronounced, they may be open to the objection. 



In some cases our English names of places have been 

 adopted by the Maori, with such alteration as is necessary to 

 make them easily pronounced by Maori organs of speech. 

 New-Zealanders have long spoken of " Peowhairangi," Bay of 

 Islands; " Akarana," Auckland; " Niu Tirani," New Zea- 

 land, &c. Their attempts to render English names put to 

 shame those of the pakeha of the olden time to render Maori 

 names into English. 



The Maori has proved himself an apt scholar in appro- 

 priating English names and words. An amusing anecdote 



