I realize that you were not serious in suggesting that (White) New
Zealanders are to be pitied because they have to learn Maori names for plants,
in addition to English and Latin names.
I find it entirely appropriate, as a matter of fact. Since the Second
World War the Kiwis have been marketing themselves as in some sense "White
Maoris," and I am told that there is even some obligatory study in national
schools of the Maori language. They should want that, after all, many of the
place names on the map of NZ are Maori. Wouldn't you want to know what those
mean?
And yet, I know a man here in Boulder, Colorado, a university professor,
who came back from New Zealand outraged because people there are expected to
study and maybe even learn a bit of Maori. To him that was a waste of time.
(There are many in the Irish Republic who chafe at having to study Irish,
again, presumably, a waste of time. I suspect that at least some of the
gripers are English parents of children sent to Ireland to study because they
had grades too poor for the UK system, but that is another matter...)
Instead of resenting that, they should be happy to gain the insights into
the history of their countries that the study of the earlier language gives. O
tempora, o mores!
Allan Taylor
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