Nga Whakamaoritanga

Kei tetahi wharekura i te papakainga o Baile Beag, i tetahi hapori korero Airihi i te whaitua o Tonekara i te pito o te marama o Akuhata, i te tau 1833, nga mahi o te whakaari nei. E hopuni mai ana i tetahi parae tutata tetahi wahanga o te Kahui

Kaipukaha a te Kingi katahi ano ka tae mai, a, ko ta ratou mahi he whakaoti i te ruritanga whanui tuatahi. I te mahi hanga mahere whenua, i tuhia nga ingoa wahi Airihi ki te reo Ingarihi. E whakaatu mai ana a Brian Friel i te panga o te mahi whakahaere noa iho nei ki te ahurea me te tangata i roto i tana titiro ki te panga o tenei mahi ki te ao o tetahi hunga iti. E whakanui ana ia i nga tuakiri me nga whanaungatanga i waenganui i taua hunga me te whakatakoto tahi i te korero whakaara whakaaro mo te hitori mo te Airihi me te Ingarihi.

It is not the literal past, the facts of history, that shape us, but images of the past embodied in language, wrote Brian Friel (1929-2015). Indeed, there is no other literary text that embodies the complex relationship between language, identity, and power more directly than his play Translations, set in 1833. There is, however, another text that does: the founding document of Aotearoa, The Treaty of Waitangi, signed in 1840.

It is thus fitting that the story told in such a smart and smarting way by the great Irish playwright can now be read in te reo Maori. Hemi Kelly, one of this countrys foremost translators, and Peter Ryan, the first Ambassador of Ireland to Aotearoa, deserve our whakawhetai and our whakamihi for guiding the waka of multilingual and multicultural understanding from the Atlantic to the Pacific.