List of English words of Māori origin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The following English words are loanwords from the Māori language. Many of them concern native New Zealand flora and fauna that were known prior to the arrival of Europeans in New Zealand. Other terms relate to Māori customs. All of these words are commonly encountered in New Zealand English, and several (such as kiwi) are widely used across other varieties of English, and in other languages.
The Māori alphabet includes both long and short vowels, which change the meaning of words.[1] For most of the 20th century, these were not indicated by spelling, except sometimes as double vowels (paaua). Since the 1980s, the standard way to indicate long vowels is with a macron (pāua). Since about 2015, macrons have rapidly become standard usage for Māori loanwords in New Zealand English in media, law, government, and education.[2] Recently some anglicised words have been replaced with spellings that better reflect the original Māori word (Whanganui for Wanganui, Remutaka for Rimutaka).[3][4]