A bill to recognise English as an official language of New Zealand has cleared its first hurdle in parliament amid ridicule from opposition parties and linguists who say it is “unnecessary” and “cynical”.
The bill seeks to give English, which is spoken by 95% of the country, the same official status as te reo Māori (Māori language) and New Zealand sign language. The bill said the status and use of the existing official languages would not be affected.
How dare the normies, with their normie language, get what we speshul folk have?
And I do think it fun that sign language is official but English is not. Because, well, sign language is normally based upon an underlying and what is NZsl but upon English?
Sign languages aren’t necessarily based on the spoken language. I believe British SL and American SL are very different. Not sure about the relationship of the NZ variety to either.
Yeah, how would you signal that all-purpose NZ vowel sound “uh”?
There’s some people who would say that American English and
EnglishBritish English are different languages.Especially some of the dialects in Britain.
“a language is a dialect with an army” anon.
This is correct, sign languages may have the ability to finger-spell words from written languages (eg for names and places) but that’s the exception rather than the rule. Most of what is being signed has no direct correspondence to any spoken or written language. BSL is not “signed English”. The grammar and lexicon are something else entirely. Which is why British and American sign languages are so different.
In fact ASL is a form of Francosign because it was initiated by a Frenchman, Laurent Clerc, who taught at the American School for the Deaf. Russian sign language is also Francosign in origin, while BSL belongs to a separate family. American English might sometimes be confusing to British English speakers but you couldn’t say it’s closer to Russian. Similarly the main sign languages used in different Arabic-speaking countries are mutually incomprehensible. Tunisian Sign Language being derived from Italian Sign Language, for example.
In fact Italy is an interesting case because there is such a thing as “Signed Italian” – a system of communicating in the usual Italian language using hand gestures, which is basically what Tim is thinking of. But Signed Italian isn’t classified as a sign language by linguists (instead it’s a “Manually Coded Language”) and has no relation to, and is mutually incomprehensible with, Italian Sign Language.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sign_language#Linguistics
As ever, commentators know more than the original writer.
I’m sure it helps that spoken Italian is mainly communicated using hand gestures too!
I wouldn’t describe British Sign Language as having an “entirely” different lexicon from English. The sign for a garage, for instance, is just the sign for the letter G repeated twice, and it wouldn’t be that if the English language didn’t play some part in its basis.
Oddly enough, the BSL sign for G is the same as the sign for £50 or 50/1 in racecourse tictac. Just to make life that bit more confusing for those of us who are deaf punters.
I’ll have a garage with a poodle on the quarter.
Yes that’s fair, it’s obviously influenced by people’s spoken/written language. And technical terms often need to be finger spelled from that language if no sign has been developed for them. But still, the sign you’re describing isn’t a ‘sign for the English word “garage”‘, even if it’s been influenced by that English word. It is simply the ‘sign for garage’. A nitpicky distinction but worth making, since what a lot of people don’t realise is that the BSL isn’t the English language being represented by signing, and signs generally don’t relate directly English words.
As far as I can tell, *all* Italians communicate through hand gestures 🙂
I spent most of my life in the inner northern suburbs of Melbourne, the original Italian and Greek enclaves. Even picked up the habit myself. Keep ahold of your wine glass when I’m talking or it will end up on the floor.
There is a special absence-of-awarenrss amongst that cadre of ‘progressives’.
I saw it recently. Reading an article about a rainbow painted zebra crossing ( Bristol, I think ), the comments were full of complaints about the waste of public money.
There was one dissenting voice who said something like “LOL, fancy getting triggered by some colours painted on the road.”
I concluded that that was enough Internet for the afternoon.
Yes, see what that dissenting voice says when someone does donuts on said crossing.
Disgusting. Completely contrary to the Traffic Signs and Road Markings Manual!
Maybe the Moriori language could be given equal status as a reminder of the actual genocide carried out by those self-righteous but historically murderous Māoris.
Quite right. And in the style of left-wingers on other topics, if nobody now speaks Moriori, just make it up. A bit like Cornish.
What’s Maori for “fuck off, I’m full”?
Before European arrival, the Māori did not have a conventional written language
Retarded, eh?
Funny about the Maori. Proper Stone Age existence, no wheels or writing. No large animals on NZ, so made clothes out of reeds and long leaves. But never really occurred to them to thresh the plants to make fibres.
Bizarrely had a good grasp of astronomy and could accurately calculate the year and phases of the moon.Have a little book about it.
It’s hard to believe they could have colonised NZ without a good grasp of astronomy. You have to have an exploratory voyage that finds the place, then it has to find its way back to its base somewhere in the rest of Polynesia, then the colonising expedition has to travel to NZ.
As far as I can see the only remarkable navigators in human history are the Polynesians (I’m including the cousins of the Polynesians who discovered and settled Madagascar) and the Western Europeans. Unless, of course, it’s true that the Phoenicians circumnavigated Africa. Then they would make three.
As far as I’m aware PiP, and bear in mind I’m well out of date on this stuff, no one really knows how the Polynesians did it. Forget NZ, how do you hit Easter Island reliably? The settlement there failed of course, trade distance too far and not enough local resources, but it was there for a while.
The Polynesian colonisation was a remarkable achievement.
The next logical step, in the minds of progressives of course, is that government documents may only be written in an official language. I assume that something written in sign language would be pictographic. Not really necessary as you’d expect the deaf to be able to learn to read, though eventually there will be demands to stop teaching them to read English as that is oppressive, colonialist, bigoted, etc.
Dear Mr Worstall
I wonder how long it will be before our beloved government, PBUI, feels the urge to make English an official language of these sceptered isles.
DP
But wouldn’t that be racist, DP???
Winston Peters, leader of the New Zealand First Party is a superb wind up artist. He is himself Maori and delights in provoking a reaction from the Woke and wonderful. All public buildings in New Zealand have two names and the one usually displayed most prominently is the maori one.The one that amuses me most is for the local polytechnic,I have visions of young maori being taught advanced flax skirt manufacture back in the old days.