Weta - when a macron means the difference between insects and excrement

Friday, 13 September 2019

Te Wiki o te reo Māori often prompts a lot of flat white orders in te reo - he kawhe mōwai māku - but at Parliament there are some MPs putting in the hard yards to improve their reo Māori pronunciation longterm.

OPINION: If you had accidentally given your business a name that meant something quite different from what you intended, wouldn't you want to change it?

Weta Workshop – and subsequently Weta Digital – has become one of the biggest names in New Zealand's entertainment industry.

Founded in 1987, it's had a hand in everything from Hercules and Xena to The Lord of The Rings.

But while it might claim to take its name from the hardy New Zealand insect that comes skittering out of the bush at you when you're not looking, it hasn't quite managed that.

* The island life for hundreds of giant wētāpunga

* Marlborough weta have a taste for grape vines**

Weta is one of the most well-known names in New Zealand's entertainment industry.

Hēmi Kelly, a lecturer in Te Ara Poutama, the faculty of Maori Studies at AUT, says the correct way to spell weta, as in the insect, is with a macron on the ē and the ā to elongate the vowel sounds. Like weh-taa.

Without the macron he says, it means something quite different. 'It's excrement. S***.'

It could be argued that some of New Zealand is only just working out how to find the macrons on the keyboard, let alone putting them in the right place. So maybe we should let it slide.

But when it's a company representing New Zealand to the world in an often high-profile way, and accidentally presenting a word that has such a different, and unfortunate meaning, it seems extra important to set it right.

Kelly said he'd had conversations with people who thought that once a word, such as weta or tui, became part of 'New Zealand English' people could argue for dropping the macrons. 'But it's either right or wrong.'

Bodo Lang, head of marketing at the University of Auckland, agrees it is worth changing for Weta. 'I think that would be an easy change to make for the brand,' he said.

'In a sense it would actually add to the brand because the usage of macrons is rare. Therefore, using macrons would make the brand name even more unique – which is one of the holy grails of branding - and make the linkage with its origins in Aotearoa far clearer. So, adding the macrons would likely increase its brand equity.'

I tried to ask Weta why they had not addressed this but no one had responded to me by deadline.

The macron is an important part of the written Māori language, improving pronunciation and making meanings clear.

The Māori Language Commission has been advocating their use for 30 years.

Weta benefits from the unique culture that Māori offer New Zealand. The least it could do is spell one of their words correctly.