Blog Archives
The Truth About Language: What it is and where it came from Michael C Corballis Auckland University Press, $40.00, ISBN 9781869408633 Many people have remarked that, more than language itself, how we use language is what sets humans apart from…
The Raupo Dictionary of Modern Maori P M Ryan Raupo, $60.00, ISBN 9780143567899 Every household and office in Aotearoa New Zealand will have times when they need an easy-to-use Maori dictionary. As more te reo words and phrases drift into…
Q and Eh: Questions and Answers on Language with a Kiwi Twist Laurie Bauer, Dianne Bardsley, Janet Holmes and Paul Warren Random House, $39.99, ISBN 9781869793432 This book by four professional linguists at Victoria University aims to explain aspects…
The Ship of Dreams: Masculinity in Contemporary Pakeha and Maori Fiction of Aotearoa/New Zealand Alistair Fox Otago University Press, $45.00, ISBN 9781877372544 In this academic but engaging study of masculinity in contemporary New Zealand fiction, Alistair Fox of the University…
Look This Way: New Zealand Writers on New Zealand Artists Sally Blundell (ed) Auckland University Press, $44.99, ISBN 9781869403713 Art and letters have always had a close working relationship in New Zealand. Our cultural landscape is pock-marked with painter-poets, jacks-of-all-trades…
Languages of New Zealand ed Allan Bell, Ray Harlow and Donna Starks Victoria University Press, $49.95, ISBN 0864734905 When I returned to New Zealand in 1989 after a quarter-century in Europe, I was naturally curious about how European languages fared…
Books in Maori: An Annotated Bibliography, 1815-1900/ Nga Tanga Reo Maori: Nga Kohikohinga Me Ona Whakamarama compiled in the Alexander Turnbull Library by Phil Parkinson and Penny Griffith Reed, $120, ISBN 079000951X New Zealand has traditionally lacked “bibliodensity”. This term…
Tagged with:
Alexander Turnbull Library,
Hilary Stace,
Issue 68,
June 2005,
Penny Griffith,
Phil Parkinson,
Reed
Posted in
History,
Language,
Literature,
Māori,
Review
The New Zealand Oxford Dictionary ed Tony Deverson and Graeme Kennedy Oxford University Press, $130, ISBN 0195584511 Lexicographers are celebrating the 250th anniversary of the publication, on 15 April 1755, of Samuel Johnson’s dictionary, the book that made their profession…
Mihipeka: Call of an Elder Karanga a te kuia Mihi Edwards Steele Roberts, $29.95, ISBN 1877228222 The Tribes of Muriwhenua: Their Origins and Stories Dorothy Urlich Cloher (Maori translation by Merimeri Penfold) Auckland University Press, $29.95, ISBN 1869402693 Rere atu,…
Tagged with:
Alex Frame,
Auckland University Press,
Dorothy Urlich Cloher,
Issue 59,
Jane McRae,
Jenifer Curnow,
Kate Riddell,
Merimeri Penfold,
Mihi Edwards,
Ngapare Hopa,
Spring 2002,
Steele Roberts,
Victoria University Press
Posted in
Autobiography,
Biography,
History,
Language,
Māori,
Non-fiction,
Politics & Law,
Review
Nga Pepeha a nga Tipuna: The Sayings of the Ancestors ed Hirini Moko Mead and Neil Grove Victoria University Press, $59.95, ISBN 0864733992 Maori sayings are “ready bits of loftiness and sonority”, to use George Steiner’s apt characterisation of formulaic…