Talk:Moriori language

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): DKYL808.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 04:28, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Ling 102
Nice article! It has a lot of good sources and info. If possible, for improvement I would include syntax (such as sentence order) along with some grammar (particles, common words). The text states that the language is similar, but also different from Maori. Perhaps elaborating on the similarities/differences would add more text to the article along with providing the reader a better understanding of the language. Looks good though! -Travis


 * I appreciate the feedback! I will definitely try to look for more information on syntax and grammar but I am having difficulties finding information on those specific categories. I will also dig into elaborating on the similarities of Māori and Moriori. Thank you

DKYL808 (talk) 02:04, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

Untitled
Not really POV, but it is rife with unsourced 'some people say...' statements. Ashmoo 03:29, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
 * There's apparently source material there, it's just that the article's worded as if the author is hedging. If someone with access to those sources could be more explicit about what they say and where, it would improve things a lot. --Tirana 02:55, 25 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't see what the fuss is about. Maybe it needs to be rephrased, but the fact that some people say what they say remains the same. It's worth mentioning what some people think (because it's true, I've heard them talking about it here in Auckland) It should say that this hasn't been proven yet or is subject to debate. But to put a "weasel" templete on it, just because you cannot be bothered to rephrase it is unfair to those people. In fact, I am going to rephrase it straight away!--B. Jankuloski 08:43, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


 * It's not about not being bothered to rephrase. See WP:WEASEL. Basically when it says 'some people say' the question wikipedia editors ask is: who are 'some people'? WP requires verifiable sources for all text in articles. Even if you have heard people speak it, or speak it yourself, that is not enough for Wikipedia, you also need proof in the form of a cite from a reliable source. Ashmoo 09:14, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I am aware of all that (I am a wikipedia admin), but I just wanted to mention the existence of another view without proving it right or wrong (authoritative or not). I added to this that it's being disputed, so no one can be mislead to think that there is something proven in it. This sound pretty complete to me. --B. Jankuloski 23:56, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Sure, we should present all points of view, but we should say where they come from, not merely that they exist, so that people can judge for themselves their authoritativeness. "Some say" could mean the guy at the pub who also thinks Moriori are the remnants of an ancient Celtic tribe, or it could be a professor of linguistics, and the reader should be told which. Is it a genuine dispute, or ignorant contrarian musing? Hence verifiability. It's on the bottom of every edit page for a reason. --Tirana 02:35, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

The claim that Moriori is still being used needs more than "some people claim" if it is even to be mentioned here. This is not something that is subject to varying points of view. If it's true, it can be verified. The views of people who have no expertise in a subject, and who are not themselves the subject, have no place in an encyclopaedia article.

From Neutral point of view:
 * NPOV says that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a verifiable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each. Now an important qualification: Articles that compare views need not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views, and may not include tiny-minority views at all (by example, the article on the Earth only very briefly refers to the Flat Earth theory, a view of a distinct minority). We should not attempt to represent a dispute as if a view held by a small minority deserved as much attention as a majority view, and views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views . To give undue weight to a significant-minority view, or to include a tiny-minority view, might be misleading as to the shape of the dispute. Wikipedia aims to present competing views in proportion to their representation among experts on the subject, or among the concerned parties.
 * (Underlining mine, as is the bold brint in the last sentence.)

This rules out what you heard in Auckland, unless the speaker was a Chatham Islands resident who knows the users of the language, or else a linguist with specialised knowledge in the subject. In the latter case, the expert's published views need to be cited. Unless this claim is backed up by such an expert source, it should be removed. Copey 2 00:02, 30 November 2006 (UTC)


 * A citation for that claim has been requested since August 2006, with no response, so I've deleted the claim (and added a citation for the claim that it is extinct). -- Avenue 01:29, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand says there has been a linguistic revival movement, starting in 2001. I've added that to the article, with reference & link. Aridd (talk) 13:52, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Sarah Galbraith's work
Sarah Galbraith's publication, A Grammar of the Moriori language, mentioned in the references, does not seem to be generally available. The only other reference I've found to it on the web that is not derived from this article is a comment on a page about the Chathams, where it appears that this is a Ph.D. thesis from the University of Auckland. Can anyone offer any further information on it, and where it can be obtained? Koro Neil (talk) 11:37, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I'd try simply writing to the University and asking for a copy. Perhaps that's not possible, but purposes such as Wikipedia or academic research should certainly justify the attempt if there is no other way to get hold of a copy. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 22:08, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion: You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 11:21, 20 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Moriori.gif

Changes in Consonants
This section is a shoddy piece of work. It's not clear whether the use of for indicates that the first item has been replaced by the second, or vice versa. Probably both, since we have K for NG as well as NG for K. Some of them are nonsensical, like M for K, along with others. It doesn't mention that Māori T is represented by T, R and TCH in MŌRIORI. Or that NG in Māori appears as both NG and K in Mōriori. I wonder if the editor has been doing his own not very expert analysis of texts or word lists—original research, in other words. I am taking it on myself to delete this section. Some of the other stuff needs fixing.

Recent changes (October 2018) have been made to this article by editors who lack an understanding of the field of Polynesian linguistics, and this lack is obvious. Mōriori and Māori are not "distantly related" to Hawai'ian and Rapanuian; they are closely related, though more closely related to Cook Island Māori and Tahitian. They are less closely related to Samoan and Tongan, less closely still to the Fijian languages and Rotuman, distantly to the languages of Melanesia and Micronesia, more distantly still to the languages of Indonesia and the Philippines, and very distantly to the indigenous languages of Taiwan.

The connection made to the reo ā rohe of Kai Tahu is simplistic. For one thing, there is a difference historically between the speech of descendants of the first wave of Ngāi Tahu invaders who intermarried with Waitaha and Kāti Māmoe women, and spoke the K dialect, and the later wave who brought their women with them, and retained the dialect they brought with them from the East Coast of the North Island. And as I said, Mōriori has a mix of ng and k forms.

The style of the changes also needs fixing. Sorry to be picky, e hoa mā, but this is an encyclopedia, and needs information that is both accurate and clear, and it needs good writing. Koro Neil (talk) 04:06, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Deleted sections
I deleted several sections as unintelligible and self-contradictory gibberish. Couldn't be bothered to verify, as when an article is this bad it's easier to just delete and write a new one.

There was an interesting claim that Moriori was closest to the Maori of S.Island, which would suggest it was a dialect of Maori, but this was in the geography section and unref'd. Since a statement of whether Moriori was a dialect of Maori or a separate language could be contentious, I thought it best to delete rather than let it stand unsupported. — kwami (talk) 06:49, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks, kwami. I have been trying to confirm the South Island conection, it is a little hard to find and does not seem to have too much traction. Could be very relevant if it is more than idle speculation. I can not speak to the bad sections, have been working over at the Moriori page. (Dushan Jugum (talk) 07:01, 3 May 2019 (UTC)).

Sure, Dushan. I haven't been able to find Galbraith, BTW. I'll look a bit more. — kwami (talk) 07:03, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Extinct when?
VeryRarelyStable and Gsueso2 editted the infobox today about when the language became extinct, on the death of William Baucke (1931) or Hirawanu Tapu (1898). It might be worth bringing up here. IMO a language is not necessarily extinct on the death of its last L1 speaker. I think that is the current view within linguistics, although I am no expert on this topic. Languages can have a healthy life long after the last L1 speaker has died, or after it has evolved into some new language. When did Latin become extinct, or did it ever? It might be better simply to spell it out that Hirawanu Tapu was the last native L1 speaker of the language. A dead language however might be easier to define, as when a language reaches the stage of having no active use in any form: Punic. I am not sure if Moriori has reached that stage yet. The infobox parameters are not too helpful in this respect because they require a short simple answer when one does not always exist. Should we simply not the 'extinct' field empty and explain more fully in the article body? Roger 8 Roger (talk) 06:29, 5 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Seems like a plan. I could find no reliable references for this exact question either way. However Omniglot says "Moriori is the formerly extinct language" as to what that is worth I have no idea. If there is uncertainty we have room in the text to explain that. As an aside 'Moriori: language death' was interesting but something from 1996 may not solve this problem. Dushan Jugum (talk) 07:06, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

Māori-Moriori
I removed this from the language family list and replaced it with Māori. This is also being discussed here. Talk:Māori_language Maungapohatu (talk) 23:35, 15 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Answered on that other discussion thread. —VeryRarelyStable 03:26, 16 March 2024 (UTC)