Ads feature te reo blooper

What does it mean?

Greater Wellington Regional Council has apologised after publishing hundreds of posters that contain nonsensical te reo Ma¯ori, encouraging people to vote in council elections.

The posters, which pose the question ‘‘Why will you vote?’’ in English, also contain an attempted translation of the phrase into te reo Ma¯ ori. However, a Greater Wellington spokeswoman admitted the translation, ‘‘Me pe¯hea koe atu’’ was incorrect.

‘‘Greater Wellington apologises for any offence caused by the incorrect translation of this slogan and will be removing all signage used as part of this campaign.’’

It comes after the poster was challenged by speakers on social media, where some suggested the work had been done courtesy of ‘‘Matua Ku¯ kara’’, or Google.

One suggested that was insulting to Google, and the translation had instead been done by rival search engine, Bing.

The spokeswoman said the phrase had been used on all its material, including 650 posters, and several newspaper advertisements, costing about $3800. ‘‘Campaign materials were planned for Facebook and bus backs, however these were caught in time and have not gone live,’’ she said.

Ma¯ ori Language Commission chief executive Ngahiwi Apanui said the phrase had ‘‘no immediately obvious meaning in te reo Ma¯ ori and did not appear to be a reference to any common whakatauki or proverb’’.

‘‘It does not follow grammar.’’

The mysterious phrase ‘‘was not a translation of the English words’’, he said. ‘‘A Ma¯ ori translation of this would be: He aha e po¯ ti ai koe. There is no word corresponding to ‘vote’ or ‘why’ in the poster ‘Ma¯ ori’ phrase.’’ Ma¯ori As explained by the Ma¯ori Language Commission, the sentence ‘‘Me pe¯hea koe atu?’’ has no obvious meaning and does not follow te reo Ma¯ori grammar. However, the parts of the sentence have individual meanings. Me pe¯hea: How should it be done?

Koe: You.

Atu: A directional indicator meaning ‘‘away’’; or ‘‘other’’; or ‘‘next but one’’; or ‘‘including’’; or ‘‘apart from’’.

Despite the garbled message, Apanui said the commission was eager to see organisations promoting their activities in te reo.

‘‘Publishing errors and typos are not confined to te reo Ma¯ ori.

‘‘A mistake is not the end of the world, or even a big problem if an organisation regularly uses correct te reo Ma¯ ori: keep using te reo Ma¯ori and have a good checking process.’’

Meanwhile, the council spokeswoman said the phrase was translated by another council, which amended the mistake before its campaign went live.