Pronunciation Hilarity

Thinking back over the past two weeks, wondering what to write about, I was forced to admit that we have done nothing blog-worthy at all. We do have the excuse, however, that I have gone straight from the misery of vomiting to the head-spinning torpor of dehydration to the vexation of a chest infection and barking cough. I have therefore spent every moment that I wasn't at work trying my best to heal so that I don't miss any more work. We are still a teacher down, as a teacher on my team resigned and the position hasn't been filled yet, and so is temporarily filled by substitutes who, while well-meaning, do not pull the weight of a team member. This means that it is a huge challenge for the remaining teachers to get everything done even when we're all there, and a mammoth task when someone is away. I hate leaving my team in that situation, so I'm really trying not to miss any days, but have already been forced to take 4, which is too many. I've been resting all weekend, but I can't get my chest clear, so I'll be going back to the doctor again, and hopefully I can get fixed up.

Anyway, I did discover a little gem that I'd forgotten to post about, so I thought I'd share that today.

I saw this picture in an early childhood centre that had lots of Samoan children, and so was encouraging the teaching team to use some simple Samoan greetings. I almost laughed out loud, and couldn't resist taking a picture. Do you notice what's interesting about the phonetic spellings?

I will keep this picture forever, and pull it out whenever one of my Kiwi friends asserts that Kiwis do, in fact, pronounce their 'r's. I believe that this definitively proves that they do not.

What I do not understand is what the added 'r's actually do to help pronunciation. Based on how I know to pronounce those Samoan words, it seems that the 'r's accomplish the same thing as adding an 'h', which is to show that it's a soft 'aah' sound and not a hard 'ay' sound. But as they also use the added 'h' (like in 'Tah-low-far') I suspect that there must be a difference. The way I've been taught to say Talofa, I would say that the two 'a's sound the same, but there could definitely be subtlety that I'm missing, as I know very little Samoan.

Really, in this situation, I'm just happy if it works for them and their Samoan pronunciation is good. But even after four years in NZ, I can't look at that and not hear those 'r's completely ruining the beautiful Samoan words in my American accent. 

Any Kiwis reading this, I would love some insight into how the way these are spelled phonetically helps you to say them properly. 

While we're on the subject of language, I should mention that I've been increasingly aware of my own failings in completely accurate pronunciation when it comes to 't's. I do fine with most of them, but it's words like 'pretty,' 'dirty,' 'little', and even 'tomato' where I discover that I replace that clear 't' sound with a 'd'. Mostly I forget about this, as it's just the way I've always spoken, but sometimes it's brought to my attention. For example, we're currently having a lot of discussions about chickens at Whare Kea, because a child is bringing his in next week. I read out loud from a book that the thing that hangs down from a chicken's chin is called a 'wattle.' One of the children said, "Like a penguin?" It took me a moment to realize that he was associating it with 'waddle,' and then another to become aware that that was a totally logical response, because I say those two words exactly the same, whereas Kiwis would say them very differently. Hmmm. I don't like it when accents result in different words sounding the same, and here it is happening with my own accent! I'll have to think about that.

Language is infinitely fascinating to me, and it is so delightful living in a place that still speaks English, but with so many interesting differences to discover. Once I add Māori and French into the mix, my life is a linguistic feast, and I love it!