"Gee, I'm dumb"

[Banditbandit]

Sorry but I think it is one of those snob things. Look I'm doing it right and you are wrong things. In English we are taught that the vowels have different sounds and don't use macrons for "bow". However the way we pronounce bow and the context of the sentence tells you if it is long or short vowel, if it is a thing to shot arrows with or to bend at the waist (nearly got the wrong waste ). The computers don't easily type the macrons and people will mis-use them with out education so why not just teach people the Maori vowels?

Hmm ... yes .. errrr ...

English is the most difficult language on the fucking planet ... the simple word "bow" has two pronunciations, and at least five meanings ...

A ships bow
To bow to the queen (sod that for a game of silly buggas)
Bow wow
Tie your bow
Shoot your bow ...

Then we have the same sound in "bough" - the bough of a tree ... and yet cough is not cow ...

Dunno .. I didn't invent the bloody silly language

Māori is much more simple .. five tonal vowel sounds - short or long, meaning 10 vowel sounds in total ... much easier to indicate the way to say the vowel with macrons (absence or presence) ...

Why do you want us to do do thinks your complicated way? White people have been telling us to "do it our way" for a couple of hundred years ... and the answer is still no ....

How would you feel if us people tried to tell you people how to write your language?

[Dave Lobster]

why not just teach people the Maori vowels?

Why not teach the maori English?

White people have been telling us to "do it our way" for a couple of hundred years ... and the answer is still no ....

If you did, instead of resisting like a truculent child, you might find the maori getting on a bit better.

[Banditbandit]

If you did, instead of resisting like a truculent child, you might find the maori getting on a bit better.

Just maybe, there are better ways of being than those of our European derived cultures ...

[oneofsix]

Just maybe, there are better ways of being than those of our European derived cultures ...

You don't have to do it the European way, NB: macrons are most associate with European languages like French
If you don't do it the "European way" then don't complain when you don't make the standards or have the life style and remember it was your choice so don't blame those that chose the European way.
Computers still don't have macrons as standard so you are still screwed at getting consistency of use and therefore IMHO doomed to failure.
BTW computers are the USA way in case you were wondering, like most of the other standards of the modern world. The European way was so last century.

[Banditbandit]

You don't have to do it the European way, NB: macrons are most associate with European languages like French
If you don't do it the "European way" then don't complain when you don't make the standards or have the life style and remember it was your choice so don't blame those that chose the European way.
Computers still don't have macrons as standard so you are still screwed at getting consistency of use and therefore IMHO doomed to failure.
BTW computers are the USA way in case you were wondering, like most of the other standards of the modern world. The European way was so last century.

You've missed the essential difference between ways of being and ways of doing ...

[Dave Lobster]

You've missed the essential difference between ways of being and ways of doing ...

Does one have a welfare state, and the other rely on dying before reaching pension age?

[oneofsix]

You've missed the essential difference between ways of being and ways of doing ...

Inter-related. Cause and affect over large populations.

[scumdog]

Māori is much more simple .. five tonal vowel sounds - short or long, meaning 10 vowel sounds in total ... much easier to indicate the way to say the vowel with macrons (absence or presence) ...

Why do you want us to do do thinks your complicated way? White people have been telling us to "do it our way" for a couple of hundred years ... and the answer is still no ....

How would you feel if us people tried to tell you people how to write your language?

(a) You would still have to learn different spellings for different locations. Wahola as said down here would be said as Waihora up north for example.

(b) Well...if you didn't have a written language to start with......

[Dave Lobster]

(b) Well...if you didn't have a written language to start with......

You'd expect at least a 'thank you, we hadn't thought of that. Put it over there, with that wheel thing'.

[oneofsix]

You'd expect at least a 'thank you, we hadn't thought of that. Put it over there, with that wheel thing'.

does that come with muskets?

[BoristheBiter]

Hmm ... yes .. errrr ...

English is the most difficult language on the fucking planet ... the simple word "bow" has two pronunciations, and at least five meanings ...

A ships bow
To bow to the queen (sod that for a game of silly buggas)
Bow wow
Tie your bow
Shoot your bow ...

Then we have the same sound in "bough" - the bough of a tree ... and yet cough is not cow ...

Dunno .. I didn't invent the bloody silly language

Māori is much more simple .. five tonal vowel sounds - short or long, meaning 10 vowel sounds in total ... much easier to indicate the way to say the vowel with macrons (absence or presence) ...

Why do you want us to do do thinks your complicated way? White people have been telling us to "do it our way" for a couple of hundred years ... and the answer is still no ....

How would you feel if us people tried to tell you people how to write your language?

Is that with or without a H?

And the answer has never been no, its been need more money.

[Banditbandit]

Inter-related. Cause and affect over large populations.

Of course ... and Marx's classic reverse of Hegel "the way we live influences the way we think" ...

Fundamentally, Māori ways of being in the world are different from those of the Western cultures. We have different ontologies and epistemologies ...

[Dave Lobster]

does that come with muskets?

Not if you want to swap back in two hundred years, no.

[Banditbandit]

(a) (b) Well...if you didn't have a written language to start with......

Once upon a time the European cultures didn't have a written alphabet ... it was borrowed from the Phoenicians (what is now Palestine) through Greek then Latin to become what is used today ...

Do your coments then apply .. You didn't have a written language to start with ..

And our numbering system - the oldest one is Babylonian (In Iraq) our current system has contributions from China .. but we largely used the system developed by the Hindu and Arabic mathematians ... so you didn't have a numbering system to start with either ...

If the basic ways of naming and counting the world are not European .. where does that leave your postion?

Can't we also make use of the development of knowledge of the rest of the world - just as the European cultures have done?

[Banditbandit]

Not if you want to swap back in two hundred years, no.

And who said we wanted to do that? Only the Pākehā ...