Talk:Otakou

what a mess
The sentences are all the time contadicting themselves. The article has to be rewrited by one author to make a synthesis of the debate :otago (should be written otango) and otakou. In the main page about New Zealand place names, it is said that otago is a deformation of Otakou... It would be funny to explain the meaning of Ruatitiko... ha ha ! stefjourdan@caramail.com (user motunono in the french wikipedia) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.173.190.18 (talk) 20:56, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

neutral POV in question
The neutrality and accuracy of this entire article is questionable. I have studied Te Reo Māori (language) for many years, and was always told that Otago was a gaelicization of Otakou. The Kai Tahi (southern Māori) dialect uses a 'k' sounds where most northern dialects use a 'ng' sound, so it seems highly unlikely that the name was originally "Otango". This country is full of amateur historians who present a very skewed history of pre-colonial Māori, based on the biased and self-interested testimony of the European settlers whose records they read, without balancing this against the broader historical record. strypey@disintermedia.net.nz — Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.224.104.184 (talk) 03:01, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

"Otago" vs "Ōtākou"
"Ōtākou" is the correct Māori name for the settlement (within the region with the English name "Otago"). 

While the pronunciation of the name "Ōtākou" in an historical local dialect may have been closer to "Otago" than "Ōtākou", this by no means makes "Otago" the 'correct' written form for the settlement (although "Otago" has been adopted as the English name for the area). For instance, the pronunciation of "Internet" in the USA is often closer to "Innernet", I think, but I've never seen anyone write it that way (and if they did, they were probably taking the piss). Neither is an older form of spelling necessarily more 'correct'. For instance, I believe "magic" used to be spelt "magick", but that doesn't mean the spelling "magic" is 'incorrect'. (And I believe there were various conflicting spellings in early transcriptions of Māori anyway.)

There are variations in spelling sometimes used within different regions. Where "ng" is used in the standard written form, this is replaced with "k" in the southern local written form (reflecting southern pronunciation), but this doesn't affect "Ōtākou", since it has a "k" in the standard form.

Here is a relevant official page that uses the name in the context of both the standard and southern forms:   It is titled "Te Rūnanga o Ōtākou" (which I believe means something along the lines of "The Council of Ōtākou"), and then continues "Ōtākou Runaka is near the end of Otago Peninsula, Dunedin." (i.e. "The Ōtākou Council is near..."). Note that there are two spellings used for "Rūnanga" (standard form in the heading) / "Runaka" (southern form in the text), but "Ōtākou" remains the same in both. — Preceding unsigned comment added by James-gnz (talk • contribs) 10:47, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

I'd like to provide some linguistical input into the whole debate regarding Ōtāngo/Ōtākou vs Otago. There is no 'g' phoneme present in the Māori language, neither in any form of dialect. The phoneme is not even present in other similar eastern Polynesian languages. This means this implication of a Southern Māori dialect having the word 'Otago' present in its vocabulary, sounds made up to me. I would like to suggest that this portion of the article be removed. --Jordan — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.126.197.68 (talk) 22:57, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

@Jordan: Apparently an historical local southern dialect pronounced 'k' as 'g'. See . -- James — Preceding unsigned comment added by James-gnz (talk • contribs) 12:10, 1 April 2015 (UTC)


 * @James-gnz As with any attempt to match the phonemes of one language to another, this one is complicated. I've heard native speakers of Te Reo Māori all over the country pronounce the sound represented by 'k' as a cross between the 'ck' (eg clock) and hard 'g' (eg glock) sounds in English. Just as the sound represented by 'r' is a cross between the 'r' (eg Roger) and 'd' (eg dodger) sounds in English.
 * Kai Tahu dialect uses a 'k' sound in place of 'ng' used in standard Māori (thus not *Ngai* Tahu, at least in their own dialect). So it seems logical that their pronunciation of the sound represented by 'k' in standard Māori would tend more towards the hard 'g' aspect of the standard pronunciation. Danylstrype (talk) 23:10, 10 June 2024 (UTC)