My grammar communications

My Grammar Communication

In Cook Islands Maori we use sounds when we are speaking and sounds doesn’t have one to one correspondence with the sounds in English. These sounds are represented by letters in the written language.

In Cook Islands Maori also, this is a language which is phonetically written. Each letter represents only one sound and when we write a word we use the letters which represent the sounds we make in saying that word.

Words in the spoken language are made up of sounds. Some words consist of single sounds, while the others are made up of two or more sounds.

Here are some examples of those sounds

mā clean)

māmā mother or easy

pā hit)

papa foundation/bra

pāpā father/ to hit

Here are some of the words that contrasts

kana grate

kena boundary

kina type of banana

kona drunk

kuna littlies

The vowels in Cook Islands Maori are written below in a structured form in order as how each one of them are pronounced and at which part of the mouth (Front to the back)

i u

e o

a

There are short vowels and long vowels.

Examples of short and long vowels (long vowels are identified by the macron on the top of the vowel):

maro loin-cloth (both vowels sounds are short)

marō dry (the vowel o gives a long sound)

mārō hard (both vowels sounds are long)

manga branch (both vowel sounds are short)

mānga food (the first a (vowel) gives a long sound)

mangā snake fish (the vowel a gives a long sound)

keke chainsaw

kēke cake

kēkē armpit

There are also sounds formed by building a breath pressure in the glottis then letting it go with a sharp sound’ known as the glottal stop. When the vowels are pronounced the sound begins in the throat and in the written language an apostrophe (‘) is used (not necessary as the meaning defines what the word is) to identify those vowels and using thus changes the whole meaning of a word entirely.

The following are examples of words with short and long vowels with and without the glottal stop.

Example:

pai banana pancake

pa’i taro patch

pa’ī boat/ship

pā’ī to bath, to have shower

tai sea/coconut sauce

taʻi number 1

Tāʻī name of a person