Book Description

Excerpt from A Dictionary of the New Zealand Language: To Which Is Added a Selection of Colloquial Sentences It would be a great achievement, if it were possible, to obtain a collection of all known Maori words, with well authenticated examples of genuine Maori usage. This book makes no pretension to any such completeness. The difficulty of the task of collecting words can be fully appreciated by those only who have made trial of it. To make a collection at all approaching to completeness would require the cc-operation of a number of individuals, each working in a different district, for there are many words, which, though well known in one district, may be absolutely unknown in another. Nor is it so easy to procure good illustrative examples as it may be imagined to be. A large number of examples have been taken from the Mythology and Traditions of the New Zea landers edited by Sir G. Grey, and published in London in the year 1854. The numbers appended to many of the examples now given refer to the pages of that work from which they have been taken. The other examples have for the most part either been copied from Maori letters or other writings or they have been taken down on the spot from the lips of Maori speakers. The second part, containing the English and Maori vocabulary has undergone very little alteration. The Colloquial sentences re main as they were before, and the concise Grammar has been omitted altogether, as it may be considered to have been superseded by works which have been subsequently published. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.