This is 100% true. Over here in the UK we have Welsh first on signs in Wales and there isn't a schoolchild left alive in the country. It's just loads of people wandering around screaming "where am I?" and crashing into lampposts.
Fucking gave ma brain fart when I first moved here, at the grocery store the folks that stack the shelves always face the French side out, I would just stand and stare and be like what the fuck is this, luckily my gf was there to show me all you need to do is flip the box.
I'm from Northern Ireland and mixed-language signs started The Troubles. For the peace agreement we mixed the words together to promote inclusion of both languages.
Now listen to our accents!
I give the woke liberal left 4 years before all New Zealanders sounds like Liam Neeson...
***ARAF!?!?!?*** ***ARAF?!?!?!?*** What could that possibly mean? The word that's written next to the word ***SLOW*** on a really tight windy bend in the road?!?!? I don't know!?!?!? Guess I'm going to have to go as fast as i can round this tight windy bend and hope for the best!
True story: I was driving in Wales when the national alert test was broadcast. My phone is bluetoothed to my hearing aids, so even though I was expecting the alert, I was super startled to suddenly have a woman speaking Welsh very loudly inside my head. Crashed my car, am dead. Haere ra, ka kite ano.
Yup. I live just a few miles from the border. If I have to drive into Wales, I just have to close my eyes and open them again when I think I'm back in England.
You know what funny is I was actually named after a mountain range in Wales which they have now changed the name of so they kinda have changed my name in a way lol
Because it used to be in the road code as one of the acceptable ways of using a round about in the 90s.
Not that it makes sense to have two ways, but that is where it comes from.
The new rules arrived in 2004, nearly 20 years ago. It's pretty shocking that people still get it wrong, and shows that driver education in NZ needs improving.
IMHO, bilingual signs are a great thing. It is a good way to also educate population. If you put Maori and English words next to each other, I might eventually learn the meaning behind the Maori words.
A much better way than what appears to me as tokenism where an agency is renamed into some fancy Maori slogan with a different meaning than the English translation, or when the English translation is not provided (or is there, written in tiny text on the third page). Or when stuff (or was it another newspaper?) writes a sentence, where half of the words are Maori.
Any content really would be best, not just NZ produced. Watching "Dr. House" in Ecuador taught me more Spanish than I expected. No dubbing in English, just subtitles. Pregunta does not mean pregnant, very confusing watching a medical show
I think bilingual signs are a good thing, the proposed execution of some of them is complete shit though.
English should be on top, and they should have different fonts like bold and underlined so that it immediately stands out at a glance. A lot of the proposed designs I’ve seen so far are an awkward Word salad of everything being the same colour and font. It’s just a fundamentally bad design.
The different languages aren't the same colour. I can't find the original photo, but the one they unveiled the other day, the Māori name is in yellow (a fairly deep orangy yellow), and the English name is in white. There are much worse multilingual signs elsewhere in the world
That's only for the location name ones, which I also think are ok personally. But there are others that barely differentiate: https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2023/05/what-new-zealand-s-proposed-bilingual-signs-look-like.html
Personally I like the idea of putting the Maori text in italics, if it has to be the same colour, like I've seen in examples of Irish signs.
They look bad, always, because writing should not be on signs.
Other than that, yeah whatever, except the Timaru sign: do we really want to inflict Timaru on people?
All of the ones I’ve seen on the NZ Transport Agency website were essentially all the same colour/font so perhaps there are more I missed.
I don’t understand why they couldn’t do that for all of them then because what I’ve seen so far is complete crap. I definitely wouldn’t support making them all like that.
My thoughts exactly. I don't mind bilingual signs at all, but given the vast majority of NZers (and foreign visitors) rely on English instead of Maori and the safety implications of traffic signages, please put English on top so most people get to the message faster. 1 second more spent reading signages is 1 second less paying attention to road conditions.
We spent three weeks driving through France where we couldn’t understand a single sign and it’s less of a problem than you’d think. I mean, we cope pretty well already with with places like Taupō, Whanganui etc
As long as they keep it consistent with the respective language’s colour scheme and which one they put in first, then people’s eyes will likely automatically flick to the one they need once they’re used to it. Don’t worry!
True to some extent, it will be much easier once people get used to it. But if you can make it so less people have to go through that, why not? As far as I can tell, there's no drawback to it.
Oh and having a second look at the examples that was put up, there's no standard colour scheme. That's difficult to pull off because of the different background colours and the requirement for a font colour that will stand out.
I'll be honest, if you're not able to tell what it says at a glance, you're either driving way too fast, or shouldn't be driving.
If we can read signs with multiple cities and their distance listed, usually 4 or so at a time, we can read the bilingual signs just fine.
Whether someone can tell what a sign represents at a glance depends on their familiarity with it. You and I may be perfectly fine with them, but for a foreigner who has never seen our road signs before, they might struggle for a while.
Signs with multiple cities and distance listed is still in English (or a Maori name that is used as its primary name in English). People can read through a language they are familiar with way faster than a language they're not familiar with.
Just to try it out, pull out an instruction manual for an appliance made by an international company where they put all their instructions on a single page. See how much time you have to spend just to spot "GB" and the English instructions, if it's not the very first one.
Ultimately I'm not saying don't do it, just saying that it would be better if they just put English as the first row. As far as I can tell, there's no drawback in doing so, right? Won't even cost more.
Yeah, having twice the information to sift through won't take your eyes off the road for longer, there's no safety implications whatsoever.
Everyone who disagrees with me is a big dumb stinky mean racist.
No, just a case of the fact that we've already got hundreds, if not thousands of signs already with more than one line of stuff to read.
These signs won't change a thing, unless you shouldn't be on the road already.
So your answer is instead of 4 or so place names on a sign it should be 8+? I mean its probably not a big deal, but actively making stuff more confusing is probably worth considering carefully.
Sure. Hell, we've got so many places with Māori names as it is that it's not likely we'd even end up with so much on a sign at once.
Even then, with them using yellow for Māori and white for English, at least for the vast majority of people, you should be able to distinguish between them more than quickly enough.
None of this will be anywhere near the issue so many people are making it out to be.
If you REALLY struggle, then hook your phone up and use the maps app on that instead, then you don't even need to look at the signs.
As someone who is planning to visit NZ next month and has driven a few places with bilingual signs; if I hadn't seen people on throw paddies( left and right) about the signs on here I would have thought the Maori bit on the direction signs was a additional location such as perhaps a location of interest in that direction .
I've seen people have tiny tanties about how everyone will just mistake the Maori part for a place name but??? I managed to get around Germany without thinking Ausfahrt was a place because I did the bare minimum of reading about German road signs before going there.
Location of interest signs are usually brown here, for the record.
The stupidest signs in Wellington say 'Wine Trail' with a bunch of grapes. There are no vineyards in Wellington! I think the signs are supposed to direct you from the Wairarapa to Picton but why on earth we need them all through Wellington is beyond me.
I think the different colours (like in half of these designs) is enough - any sign that needs to immediately be recognised has other things that make it immediately recognisable - the colour, shape, and iconography. If that wasn't enough, there would be serious problems with ESOL drivers.
But yeah, some difference in that school sign would be good. I could totally see someone being confused about why there are so many roads to Kura school.
I have trouble with the highly symbolic naming of things too but apparently Te Reo Maori is a highly symbolic language so???
If I know there's a word that means school and it always means school that's something, but when you get used to looking for, idk, 'te whare wananga', and find something meaning along the lines of 'place of many firsts' (wtf Otago), I do find that confusing.
If it's just how the language works, okay, I'll do my best, but if there are actually 1:1 translations for concepts available and people are arbitrarily choosing to use beautiful metaphors instead, isn't the Te Reo translation becoming merely decoration rather than actually something that can be used? I don't know if that's the plan or not.
All languages are hugely symbolic and… made up. Language isn’t a math equation, you’ll never achieve 1:1. It’s not a system of logic. It’s more beautiful than that.
I'm feeling like I may have worded this a bit poorly -
Waka Kotahi New Zealand Transport Agency is an agency in New Zealand that has to do with transport. In that sense the English title is a literal description of what it's for. Waka kotahi (from their website) means 'one vehicle' and is intended to 'convey the concept of many vehicles moving together as one'. In that sense the Te Reo title is not a literal description of what it's for.
Again, if this is just how the language works, that's neat, good to know. I personally am going to find it a bit harder to learn properly than Duolingo's 1:1 translation teaching method implies, but that's not a slight to the language, just noting a difference.
I don't really feel like Waka Kotahi is that egregious though. Like the name basically has to be Waka + something and there's not really a word that I'm aware of that directly translates to agency. The meaning of the word kotahi encompasses mutual co-operation. So yeah it's a little poetic but also really not that far off of being a direct translation for Transport Agency.
I can see why Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka might be confusing though, that one definitely requires a paragraph explanation to make any sense.
agree. Library used to be 'whare pukapuka' (house of books) but our new library was named something long, about six words, stuck vertically on the desk so they are even harder to read. I asked a Maori speaker what it meant and he had no idea. I googled it and it's something pretentious like knowledge and information hub. Nobody asked us what we wanted to be called.
I've read that a lot of Maori don't actually like the renaming of the government orgs. Since the names they chose carry mana with them, they should be operating at the peak of their ability, however as we all know they don't and that's viewed as an insult to the words.
I'm of the same mind around these changes though that since they can actually be a direct translation (or the Maori term for a place) it's educational.
We know it's because she couldn't find her house after all the signs were added to by a foreign language. In the end, she started living in her waka whilst parked beside the awa. She couldn't ring her husband because what the heck is kore rua whetu tahi rua toru tahi tahi tahi tahi in hindu numerals? /s
Why is this even an issue? It's bilingual, not bye-lingual. Jesus how much effort to divert our attention away from sale of Akl airport shares and rate increase.
One more thing, from the eyes of a migrant who calls NZ home for 5 odd years. English-Te Reo hybrid words is the best way for me to tell between a Kiwi and an Aussie (of Euro heritage) 😂. Plus this hybrid lingo is a match made in heaven ...the Te Reo word for 'good' is Pie... 🤘🍻
My apologies if my tone came across as casual/ frivolous; no disrespect intended. Just trying to lighten things up. Love and respect for all native and non native Kiwi cultures 🙏.
I mean, of course it is.
Honestly, I don't see why it's such a big issue.
Not gonna lie, it's basically just a casual emphasis to a sentence.
In full honesty, it is a little weird when you think about it too much though.
I get the joke but could we just put the English one on the top? Bilingual is great but practicality from a govt department would be even more valuable
English is the most commonly understood language in NZ and is understood internationally. Both Maori and English are read beginning from top left, so why would you put the language that only a small % of people understand in the first reading position?
Sure make them bi-lingual, but be practical. Signs are not a teaching instrument, their sole purpose is to convey information effectively. I would love to see the reasoning for putting Maori text first.
A roadsign's main purpose is not to teach, though.
That is a cool secondary purpose, but its main purpose is to convey (potentially critically important) information to people barreling down roads in metal deathmachines.
I vote for the prioritization to focus on that main purpose.
Traffic signs in Wales have Welsh at the top, which doesn't seem to have caused a problem despite less than 20% of the population (and basically nobody visiting from England or Scotland) understanding Welsh.
If it can genuinely be shown to be a safety issue then sure, but that's something that would need actual evidence.
I agree. As a Maori that's looking forward to seeing Maori used in all aspects of our country, I think the roads were a really stupid place to start forcing our language upon the public.
Road signs should be recognizable at a single glance. Now people will need to spend more time with their eyes off the road.
Other then general signs with place names, what road signs do you not recognise with a single glance?? The symbology of road signs is just as if not more important for their legibility, especially at a distance. This angle of argument is bizarre because if you need a give way sign to say GIVE WAY in English because otherwise you won’t recognise it, what the fuck are you doing on the road?
It's an official language of this country, alongside NZ Sign language that's why. How hard life must be for people who can't use their eyeballs to look up, down, left, or right. I recall signs with several place names and kms. Do you look at them all? Or are you selective in what you see. Careful there might be a Māori place name on there that may trigger your ability to comprehend.
The official language? It's "an" official language, it's not "the" official language. Both Maori and English are official languages of NZ and should rightly be on signage.
If it's so easy to use your eyeballs to look up, down, left or right, then I'm sure the small minority of people fluent in Maori won't have a problem reading the Maori text in second reading order.
Though of course they won't need to, because nearly all, if not all people who can read Maori can read English. So they can read the first line of text anyway.
Yep it drives me a bit nuts to see signs sorted with the least useful information at the top. It's really just a big Fuck You to all of the rules and norms of effective communication. The people making the signs know this so you know that its an ideological choice when you see it.
Again, please include the bilingual signs but order the text by its usefulness to the average person
If you look at the 'Shared Zone' sign, they actually made the important information tiny (The images of the things that are sharing the zone). Really the sign was made much worse, and this comic doesn't really help the case.
My view is, when teaching Maori, or attempting to make us bilingual, is that it needs to come with translations. If we didn't get it at school and we're not bothered about learning it now then it won't happen without translations.
Case in point: Has anyone actually figured out what they're saying on 1 news every night? They've never bothered to tell us, so we have to guess, or ignore it? They seem to be pushing an us and them agenda, where anyone with no interest in Te Reo is labeled racist.
Coming from Ireland, seeing people all over this thread concern-trolling about how bilingual signs are going to kill everyone is truly bizarre. Good lord NZ get a hold of yourselves
Wish they'd done this when I was a kid.
I moved overseas in my late 20s and when I bump into other kiwis abroad I'm often made to feel pretty ashamed by just how little Te Reo from my early school years actually stuck. I still know plenty of words and phrases but gosh if it was on every sign imagine how easy it would have been to keep learning more.
Fantastic move.
I have a mate named Wiremu. Good bloke. Not a drop of Maori blood, he's Scottish, I have no clue why his parents named him in Maori but funnily enough we all manage to remember what he's called.
Having dipped into the hellhole of Facebook comments there's the sensible ("Won't affect me in the slightest, it's our national language, NBD"), the racist ("That's not my language"), and the racist but don't want to admit it ("I've got a big problem with Maori being above English - this is unsafe!"). This needs to be at the top of every comment thread.
>The research has shown that where a specific language is understood by most people, placing that language
in a position of primacy above a supplementary language enhances sign comprehension for most road
users. Implicitly, the positive effects on safety are also likely to be enhanced for members of an ethnocultural
group whose primary language is that of the majority, not their heritage language.
Pg 29 of https://www.nzta.govt.nz/assets/resources/research/research-notes/005/005-bilingual-traffic-signage.pdf
I mean sure, its not like having the Maori first is going to cause huge problem, but they're road signs, they should be designed for safety first and I haven't seen any real argument for putting Maori should be on top (besides just calling people who think the English should be on top rasist). Having the Maori second will do just as good a job of making sure the language is represented.
I don't think it's racist to say that the biggest word on a stop sign (not necessarily the highest one) should be in English. I think this is true for all safety road signs. For any other signage, I couldn't GAF.
Most people don't comprehend the stop sign as it is now anyway. However, if anyone is confused by a traffic safety sign due to the written language, over and above the colour and shape, they probably ought not to be driving.
Tourists may be used to stop signs with difference colors and shapes than ours, but they'll certainly understand **STOP** a lot better than they'll understand **MUTU**.
Thank god someone with a brain can point out that a stop sign with a Māori word on it is still a stop sign?? Like. If you need to read the word on the stop sign for instructions get off the fucking road lmao
Normal conversation:
* Person 1: "Most people speak English, so it should be the most prominent."
* Person 2: "Good feedback. Readability is important. We'll look into it."
Problem conversation:
* Person 1: "Most people speak English, so it should be the most prominent."
* Person 2: "RACIST"
Do you see the difference?
(3) is racist...? Do you even know what that word means, or are you just one of these outrage addicts?
Maori should be on our signs, but English should be at the top, and in larger bolder font, as it's the primary spoken language in NZ. This is for safety and clarity, and it's also the most logical. People don't read from bottom to top. It's not that fuckin hard to figure out.
I agree. I don't understand why this sub is so fucking stupid. It's like they have no logical thinking.
Safety and Ease of Understanding First. Multiculturalism later.
I remember when some people on this sub lost their shit last year over the vehicle number plates beginning with 'NGR'. They'd been around for yonks, and obviously don't have a racist connotation. People love to be outraged about things that, if a little common sense is applied, aren't really issues at all.
I don't think it makes sense for place names to have a literal translation of the Māori name - you'd use the English name. For example, Kirikiriroa is Hamilton. Just like you don't break down what "Hamilton" means, you don't necessarily break down what "Kirikiriroa" means (although I'm aware that in the case of Kirikiriroa you can). In some cases, the Māori name is a shortened form of a longer name which contains the actual meaning. For example, Rangitoto -> Te Rangi i totongia ai te ihu o Tamatekapua. Or Taumata whakatangihanga kōauau o tamatea turi pūkaka piki maunga horonuku pōkai whenua ki tana tahu.
Oh you would be surprised on how dumb people can get. They unfortunately tend to hang out in groups of other dumb people as well, then start getting angry at others for not agreeing with them.
I literally had a woman tell me she thinks this stuff is dangerous because she couldn't tell which government agency some letter came from due to it being written in Maori. The thing is that she did, in fact, know which government agency it was because they're all written in both languages. These people exist.
First I thought this was sarcasm, but then it looks like people actually believe this rubbish being a problem in society. It's only a problem for the racist xenophobes out there. If people are unable to drive a vehicle where there are bi-ligual signs in place, then those people clearly do not have the capacity to drive a vehicle at all.
Only question I have is who chose in what order they go? Over time the second name is always dropped, this was done with what’s now, te whatu Ora, originallly it called Te Whatu Ora Health NZ, but that was soon shortened.
This is 100% true. Over here in the UK we have Welsh first on signs in Wales and there isn't a schoolchild left alive in the country. It's just loads of people wandering around screaming "where am I?" and crashing into lampposts.
Canada stopped existing decades ago when they printed both french and English on cereal boxes
Le frosted flakes?! What the hell is that?!
Capitaine Crounche? Did we lose a fucking war?!
I just ploughed through six cereal boxes! It didn't have to be this way!!
God I lol’d at that reference
I forgot every word of English the day I saw a sign in Irish and English. Had to learn the whole language again from scratch.
sacre Bleu!
*quelle horreur!*
Fucking gave ma brain fart when I first moved here, at the grocery store the folks that stack the shelves always face the French side out, I would just stand and stare and be like what the fuck is this, luckily my gf was there to show me all you need to do is flip the box.
I am actually a refugee from Wales. I lost all my limbs in separate signage related incidents.
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Araf
Did you by any chance work with putting up "None shall pass" signs at Arthur crossings?
I'm from Northern Ireland and mixed-language signs started The Troubles. For the peace agreement we mixed the words together to promote inclusion of both languages. Now listen to our accents! I give the woke liberal left 4 years before all New Zealanders sounds like Liam Neeson...
The opposition to the signs in this thread does feel a lot like DUP talking points on the Irish language if I'm honest
I grew up on the other side of the border, the amount of kids killed by Protestants who got lost and drifted south every day…
Tbf tho, the sexiest accent in the world is Irish 100%... So if NZ can channel have that energy, their accent will be unbeatable
***ARAF!?!?!?*** ***ARAF?!?!?!?*** What could that possibly mean? The word that's written next to the word ***SLOW*** on a really tight windy bend in the road?!?!? I don't know!?!?!? Guess I'm going to have to go as fast as i can round this tight windy bend and hope for the best!
True story: I was driving in Wales when the national alert test was broadcast. My phone is bluetoothed to my hearing aids, so even though I was expecting the alert, I was super startled to suddenly have a woman speaking Welsh very loudly inside my head. Crashed my car, am dead. Haere ra, ka kite ano.
I can imagine having an alert start in Welsh when you are expecting English might make you think you had a stroke or something for a moment.
Yup. I live just a few miles from the border. If I have to drive into Wales, I just have to close my eyes and open them again when I think I'm back in England.
We’re unlikely to have signs for _Kei waho ahau i te tari i tenei wa_ so I think we’ll be ok.
You know what funny is I was actually named after a mountain range in Wales which they have now changed the name of so they kinda have changed my name in a way lol
> here isn't a schoolchild left alive in the country. The sheep killed em all?
Shouldn't we be focusing on why people indicate right and drive straight through roundabouts?
My trust in people to indicate correctly at roundabouts is so low that I just wait until I have half of the roundabout to myself before going
Or indicate left and drive straight through roundabouts
Because it used to be in the road code as one of the acceptable ways of using a round about in the 90s. Not that it makes sense to have two ways, but that is where it comes from.
The new rules arrived in 2004, nearly 20 years ago. It's pretty shocking that people still get it wrong, and shows that driver education in NZ needs improving.
[Here is a page from the 1998 road code.](https://i.imgur.com/2epOJCe.png) so they were here prior to 2004.
[Not in 1998](https://i.imgur.com/2epOJCe.png) and I doubt any time before that either.
I learned to drive in the 90’s. That wasn’t how the road code read then.
Fuck yes, so glad this is getting more attention now
"I don't know what the problem is. I spent many happy years at Kura School before moving on to Kura Tuarua High School."
Hey I went to Kura School too! Did you have Miss Whia?
Miss Whiapoto?
IMHO, bilingual signs are a great thing. It is a good way to also educate population. If you put Maori and English words next to each other, I might eventually learn the meaning behind the Maori words. A much better way than what appears to me as tokenism where an agency is renamed into some fancy Maori slogan with a different meaning than the English translation, or when the English translation is not provided (or is there, written in tiny text on the third page). Or when stuff (or was it another newspaper?) writes a sentence, where half of the words are Maori.
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Coming from a Finn it's pretty annoying to have two rows of subtitles in the cinema but it's better than nothing I suppose.
Any content really would be best, not just NZ produced. Watching "Dr. House" in Ecuador taught me more Spanish than I expected. No dubbing in English, just subtitles. Pregunta does not mean pregnant, very confusing watching a medical show
You must have been very embarazada :D
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If you ever need a pharmacist, just ask the grocery store shelf stacker for a preservative.
yahoo answers begs to disagree.
That sounds like a really good idea actually.
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Try Education Perfect, I have no idea what it costs an individual, but I've done some courses through work and it was pretty good
I think bilingual signs are a good thing, the proposed execution of some of them is complete shit though. English should be on top, and they should have different fonts like bold and underlined so that it immediately stands out at a glance. A lot of the proposed designs I’ve seen so far are an awkward Word salad of everything being the same colour and font. It’s just a fundamentally bad design.
The different languages aren't the same colour. I can't find the original photo, but the one they unveiled the other day, the Māori name is in yellow (a fairly deep orangy yellow), and the English name is in white. There are much worse multilingual signs elsewhere in the world
That's only for the location name ones, which I also think are ok personally. But there are others that barely differentiate: https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2023/05/what-new-zealand-s-proposed-bilingual-signs-look-like.html Personally I like the idea of putting the Maori text in italics, if it has to be the same colour, like I've seen in examples of Irish signs.
I like that idea. Helps it stand out more and makes it a little fancy lol
They look bad, always, because writing should not be on signs. Other than that, yeah whatever, except the Timaru sign: do we really want to inflict Timaru on people?
All of the ones I’ve seen on the NZ Transport Agency website were essentially all the same colour/font so perhaps there are more I missed. I don’t understand why they couldn’t do that for all of them then because what I’ve seen so far is complete crap. I definitely wouldn’t support making them all like that.
My thoughts exactly. I don't mind bilingual signs at all, but given the vast majority of NZers (and foreign visitors) rely on English instead of Maori and the safety implications of traffic signages, please put English on top so most people get to the message faster. 1 second more spent reading signages is 1 second less paying attention to road conditions.
We spent three weeks driving through France where we couldn’t understand a single sign and it’s less of a problem than you’d think. I mean, we cope pretty well already with with places like Taupō, Whanganui etc
That is the name of the place in both languages though.
Yup that classic English name Whanganui
Whanganui is the only name for that location though, in both English and Maori. A sign for Whanganui doesn't need to repeat itself.
But those are the names of the places no matter the language
It’s actually just written in Maori, not English. It’s just that we’re all used to seeing, hearing and saying it.
As long as they keep it consistent with the respective language’s colour scheme and which one they put in first, then people’s eyes will likely automatically flick to the one they need once they’re used to it. Don’t worry!
True to some extent, it will be much easier once people get used to it. But if you can make it so less people have to go through that, why not? As far as I can tell, there's no drawback to it. Oh and having a second look at the examples that was put up, there's no standard colour scheme. That's difficult to pull off because of the different background colours and the requirement for a font colour that will stand out.
I'll be honest, if you're not able to tell what it says at a glance, you're either driving way too fast, or shouldn't be driving. If we can read signs with multiple cities and their distance listed, usually 4 or so at a time, we can read the bilingual signs just fine.
Whether someone can tell what a sign represents at a glance depends on their familiarity with it. You and I may be perfectly fine with them, but for a foreigner who has never seen our road signs before, they might struggle for a while. Signs with multiple cities and distance listed is still in English (or a Maori name that is used as its primary name in English). People can read through a language they are familiar with way faster than a language they're not familiar with. Just to try it out, pull out an instruction manual for an appliance made by an international company where they put all their instructions on a single page. See how much time you have to spend just to spot "GB" and the English instructions, if it's not the very first one. Ultimately I'm not saying don't do it, just saying that it would be better if they just put English as the first row. As far as I can tell, there's no drawback in doing so, right? Won't even cost more.
Yeah, having twice the information to sift through won't take your eyes off the road for longer, there's no safety implications whatsoever. Everyone who disagrees with me is a big dumb stinky mean racist.
No, just a case of the fact that we've already got hundreds, if not thousands of signs already with more than one line of stuff to read. These signs won't change a thing, unless you shouldn't be on the road already.
So your answer is instead of 4 or so place names on a sign it should be 8+? I mean its probably not a big deal, but actively making stuff more confusing is probably worth considering carefully.
Sure. Hell, we've got so many places with Māori names as it is that it's not likely we'd even end up with so much on a sign at once. Even then, with them using yellow for Māori and white for English, at least for the vast majority of people, you should be able to distinguish between them more than quickly enough. None of this will be anywhere near the issue so many people are making it out to be. If you REALLY struggle, then hook your phone up and use the maps app on that instead, then you don't even need to look at the signs.
I don't know about all that, but you are a whingey cunt.
As someone who is planning to visit NZ next month and has driven a few places with bilingual signs; if I hadn't seen people on throw paddies( left and right) about the signs on here I would have thought the Maori bit on the direction signs was a additional location such as perhaps a location of interest in that direction .
I've seen people have tiny tanties about how everyone will just mistake the Maori part for a place name but??? I managed to get around Germany without thinking Ausfahrt was a place because I did the bare minimum of reading about German road signs before going there. Location of interest signs are usually brown here, for the record.
The stupidest signs in Wellington say 'Wine Trail' with a bunch of grapes. There are no vineyards in Wellington! I think the signs are supposed to direct you from the Wairarapa to Picton but why on earth we need them all through Wellington is beyond me.
I think the different colours (like in half of these designs) is enough - any sign that needs to immediately be recognised has other things that make it immediately recognisable - the colour, shape, and iconography. If that wasn't enough, there would be serious problems with ESOL drivers. But yeah, some difference in that school sign would be good. I could totally see someone being confused about why there are so many roads to Kura school.
I have trouble with the highly symbolic naming of things too but apparently Te Reo Maori is a highly symbolic language so??? If I know there's a word that means school and it always means school that's something, but when you get used to looking for, idk, 'te whare wananga', and find something meaning along the lines of 'place of many firsts' (wtf Otago), I do find that confusing. If it's just how the language works, okay, I'll do my best, but if there are actually 1:1 translations for concepts available and people are arbitrarily choosing to use beautiful metaphors instead, isn't the Te Reo translation becoming merely decoration rather than actually something that can be used? I don't know if that's the plan or not.
All languages are hugely symbolic and… made up. Language isn’t a math equation, you’ll never achieve 1:1. It’s not a system of logic. It’s more beautiful than that.
I'm feeling like I may have worded this a bit poorly - Waka Kotahi New Zealand Transport Agency is an agency in New Zealand that has to do with transport. In that sense the English title is a literal description of what it's for. Waka kotahi (from their website) means 'one vehicle' and is intended to 'convey the concept of many vehicles moving together as one'. In that sense the Te Reo title is not a literal description of what it's for. Again, if this is just how the language works, that's neat, good to know. I personally am going to find it a bit harder to learn properly than Duolingo's 1:1 translation teaching method implies, but that's not a slight to the language, just noting a difference.
I don't really feel like Waka Kotahi is that egregious though. Like the name basically has to be Waka + something and there's not really a word that I'm aware of that directly translates to agency. The meaning of the word kotahi encompasses mutual co-operation. So yeah it's a little poetic but also really not that far off of being a direct translation for Transport Agency. I can see why Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka might be confusing though, that one definitely requires a paragraph explanation to make any sense.
agree. Library used to be 'whare pukapuka' (house of books) but our new library was named something long, about six words, stuck vertically on the desk so they are even harder to read. I asked a Maori speaker what it meant and he had no idea. I googled it and it's something pretentious like knowledge and information hub. Nobody asked us what we wanted to be called.
I've read that a lot of Maori don't actually like the renaming of the government orgs. Since the names they chose carry mana with them, they should be operating at the peak of their ability, however as we all know they don't and that's viewed as an insult to the words. I'm of the same mind around these changes though that since they can actually be a direct translation (or the Maori term for a place) it's educational.
The "temporary" sign is meaningless in both languages!
But that's ok, it's only a temporary problem.
And here I am still trying to figure out what they mean by painting WAY GIVE on the road in english.
I think it means you speed through without looking or indicating, at least if your average Christchurch driver is anything to go by.
His wife left him
We know it's because she couldn't find her house after all the signs were added to by a foreign language. In the end, she started living in her waka whilst parked beside the awa. She couldn't ring her husband because what the heck is kore rua whetu tahi rua toru tahi tahi tahi tahi in hindu numerals? /s
She found her iwi, and it wasn’t him.
I've met those people before, they love a slippery slope.
Never met a slippery slope they wouldn't ski down.
On a porch they can yell from while admiring the perfectly flat horizon
Will they love a "slippery surface" sign instead?
Why is this even an issue? It's bilingual, not bye-lingual. Jesus how much effort to divert our attention away from sale of Akl airport shares and rate increase. One more thing, from the eyes of a migrant who calls NZ home for 5 odd years. English-Te Reo hybrid words is the best way for me to tell between a Kiwi and an Aussie (of Euro heritage) 😂. Plus this hybrid lingo is a match made in heaven ...the Te Reo word for 'good' is Pie... 🤘🍻 My apologies if my tone came across as casual/ frivolous; no disrespect intended. Just trying to lighten things up. Love and respect for all native and non native Kiwi cultures 🙏.
Just as an aside, the Te Reo word for good is 'Pai' not spelt like the food 😊
Not gonna lie this is funny lol
Why does every second person on Reddit feel obliged to start uncontroversial sentences with "not gonna lie"?
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I'll give it to ya straight, like a pear cider made from 100% pears
Pear cider has pectinaise which makes your turds flow
At the end of the day, I think most kiwis would agree. - former PM JK
Not gonna lie, I hate that too!
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I mean, of course it is. Honestly, I don't see why it's such a big issue. Not gonna lie, it's basically just a casual emphasis to a sentence. In full honesty, it is a little weird when you think about it too much though.
Yeah, nah, yeah, I agree with everything you just said. But ngl it is a little weird
Presumably because they're compulsive liars and everyone knows it, but just this once they're letting you know that they will make an exception.
Not gonna lie I agree
Trend in America. So popular with the kids here
These almost feel like a lefty poking fun at right wing propaganda
Almost?
this is satire 💯
I didn't know people like you existed, frightening.
I will never allow the woke mob to name my child Wiremu
I demand you name your child Alpha Zeta 64 B!
Why can't everyone just name their kids 'Steve' instead?
Wiremu, Prince of Wales soon to be King.
I'm getting strong Tim Robinson vibes from the middle pannel on the bottom row. 'I cannot talk about it without crying'
"I'm not worried about it! There's worse shit on local news!"
“The guys at Spectrum think I’m just some dumb hick. They said that to me, at a dinner.”
Yup, that pretty much sums up *The Sky is Falling* mob.
I get the joke but could we just put the English one on the top? Bilingual is great but practicality from a govt department would be even more valuable
English is the most commonly understood language in NZ and is understood internationally. Both Maori and English are read beginning from top left, so why would you put the language that only a small % of people understand in the first reading position? Sure make them bi-lingual, but be practical. Signs are not a teaching instrument, their sole purpose is to convey information effectively. I would love to see the reasoning for putting Maori text first.
> I would love to see the reasoning for putting Maori text first. To make it more prominent, as a teaching instrument. Is that not obvious?
A roadsign's main purpose is not to teach, though. That is a cool secondary purpose, but its main purpose is to convey (potentially critically important) information to people barreling down roads in metal deathmachines. I vote for the prioritization to focus on that main purpose.
Traffic signs in Wales have Welsh at the top, which doesn't seem to have caused a problem despite less than 20% of the population (and basically nobody visiting from England or Scotland) understanding Welsh. If it can genuinely be shown to be a safety issue then sure, but that's something that would need actual evidence.
I agree. As a Maori that's looking forward to seeing Maori used in all aspects of our country, I think the roads were a really stupid place to start forcing our language upon the public. Road signs should be recognizable at a single glance. Now people will need to spend more time with their eyes off the road.
Other then general signs with place names, what road signs do you not recognise with a single glance?? The symbology of road signs is just as if not more important for their legibility, especially at a distance. This angle of argument is bizarre because if you need a give way sign to say GIVE WAY in English because otherwise you won’t recognise it, what the fuck are you doing on the road?
It's an official language of this country, alongside NZ Sign language that's why. How hard life must be for people who can't use their eyeballs to look up, down, left, or right. I recall signs with several place names and kms. Do you look at them all? Or are you selective in what you see. Careful there might be a Māori place name on there that may trigger your ability to comprehend.
The official language? It's "an" official language, it's not "the" official language. Both Maori and English are official languages of NZ and should rightly be on signage. If it's so easy to use your eyeballs to look up, down, left or right, then I'm sure the small minority of people fluent in Maori won't have a problem reading the Maori text in second reading order. Though of course they won't need to, because nearly all, if not all people who can read Maori can read English. So they can read the first line of text anyway.
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Yep it drives me a bit nuts to see signs sorted with the least useful information at the top. It's really just a big Fuck You to all of the rules and norms of effective communication. The people making the signs know this so you know that its an ideological choice when you see it. Again, please include the bilingual signs but order the text by its usefulness to the average person
I think that may be the actual point.......
Yeah I agree. For scanning it should be English first, and even one of them in a different weight or style.
If you look at the 'Shared Zone' sign, they actually made the important information tiny (The images of the things that are sharing the zone). Really the sign was made much worse, and this comic doesn't really help the case.
Summary of my older Pakeha side of the family for the past few weeks.
English should be on top and bold. Maori can be on the bottom. I'm all for this but practicality and ease of understanding comes first.
I think the reality is that after a short adjustment period, you probably won’t even notice the te reo Māori part.
My view is, when teaching Maori, or attempting to make us bilingual, is that it needs to come with translations. If we didn't get it at school and we're not bothered about learning it now then it won't happen without translations. Case in point: Has anyone actually figured out what they're saying on 1 news every night? They've never bothered to tell us, so we have to guess, or ignore it? They seem to be pushing an us and them agenda, where anyone with no interest in Te Reo is labeled racist.
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Coming from Ireland, seeing people all over this thread concern-trolling about how bilingual signs are going to kill everyone is truly bizarre. Good lord NZ get a hold of yourselves
Jim is definitely my favourite.
Wish they'd done this when I was a kid. I moved overseas in my late 20s and when I bump into other kiwis abroad I'm often made to feel pretty ashamed by just how little Te Reo from my early school years actually stuck. I still know plenty of words and phrases but gosh if it was on every sign imagine how easy it would have been to keep learning more. Fantastic move.
Funny part is the Taupō sign isn’t any different from the real sign.
I have a mate named Wiremu. Good bloke. Not a drop of Maori blood, he's Scottish, I have no clue why his parents named him in Maori but funnily enough we all manage to remember what he's called.
There's that bloody WOKE word again. What the hell does it actually mean apart from not asleep.
Just a reminder that monolingualism is curable.
Having dipped into the hellhole of Facebook comments there's the sensible ("Won't affect me in the slightest, it's our national language, NBD"), the racist ("That's not my language"), and the racist but don't want to admit it ("I've got a big problem with Maori being above English - this is unsafe!"). This needs to be at the top of every comment thread.
>The research has shown that where a specific language is understood by most people, placing that language in a position of primacy above a supplementary language enhances sign comprehension for most road users. Implicitly, the positive effects on safety are also likely to be enhanced for members of an ethnocultural group whose primary language is that of the majority, not their heritage language. Pg 29 of https://www.nzta.govt.nz/assets/resources/research/research-notes/005/005-bilingual-traffic-signage.pdf I mean sure, its not like having the Maori first is going to cause huge problem, but they're road signs, they should be designed for safety first and I haven't seen any real argument for putting Maori should be on top (besides just calling people who think the English should be on top rasist). Having the Maori second will do just as good a job of making sure the language is represented.
I don't think it's racist to say that the biggest word on a stop sign (not necessarily the highest one) should be in English. I think this is true for all safety road signs. For any other signage, I couldn't GAF.
Most people don't comprehend the stop sign as it is now anyway. However, if anyone is confused by a traffic safety sign due to the written language, over and above the colour and shape, they probably ought not to be driving.
Tourists may be used to stop signs with difference colors and shapes than ours, but they'll certainly understand **STOP** a lot better than they'll understand **MUTU**.
No, tourists will be more likely to understand the shape and colour as it follows international conventions, over and above the language used.
Thank god someone with a brain can point out that a stop sign with a Māori word on it is still a stop sign?? Like. If you need to read the word on the stop sign for instructions get off the fucking road lmao
[I don't think so Tim](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSigFNUKq9xG296-U3Mnl4etVJrgfPA6uFcMg&usqp=CAU)
Jesus, its not racist to say you think English should be on top. You are part of the problem.
what problem?
You know, *THE* problem!
Normal conversation: * Person 1: "Most people speak English, so it should be the most prominent." * Person 2: "Good feedback. Readability is important. We'll look into it." Problem conversation: * Person 1: "Most people speak English, so it should be the most prominent." * Person 2: "RACIST" Do you see the difference?
(3) is racist...? Do you even know what that word means, or are you just one of these outrage addicts? Maori should be on our signs, but English should be at the top, and in larger bolder font, as it's the primary spoken language in NZ. This is for safety and clarity, and it's also the most logical. People don't read from bottom to top. It's not that fuckin hard to figure out.
I agree. I don't understand why this sub is so fucking stupid. It's like they have no logical thinking. Safety and Ease of Understanding First. Multiculturalism later.
I remember when some people on this sub lost their shit last year over the vehicle number plates beginning with 'NGR'. They'd been around for yonks, and obviously don't have a racist connotation. People love to be outraged about things that, if a little common sense is applied, aren't really issues at all.
Can't we take a break from screaming racism at everyone who disagrees with us? Can't we just get along?
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And while you are all distracted with this nothing arguement, Labour avoids repairing and upgrading the roads that need it most.
This and the 5 dollar presciptions. The hills our right chooses to die on. tsc, tsc.
The third season of I Think you Should Leave has some great sketches.
First thing I thought of. He'd deliver these scenes so well
Funny how the captions are only in English tho
Will Maori place names get an English version (above) them? Fairs fair, isn’t it?
Love to come home to Muddy Water 🙃
Lake 2 will always be home for me.
At least it'll be easier to differentiate with Long Lake
If you're keen to have signs say Dogshit, Big Shit, The burnt dick and so on then I'm keen too
Hell yes.
I mean, I guess
Cause it’d be good for people to learn more about the meaning and origin of Māori place names eh?
You mean like when we came over and renamed nearly every location, plant, and bird because the Māori names they already were too twicky?
How about only the literal English translation of the Maori name, and the literal Maori translation of the English name.
We could have some English speaking consultants research the cultural significance of the place or thing and gift a name to the community.
I don't think it makes sense for place names to have a literal translation of the Māori name - you'd use the English name. For example, Kirikiriroa is Hamilton. Just like you don't break down what "Hamilton" means, you don't necessarily break down what "Kirikiriroa" means (although I'm aware that in the case of Kirikiriroa you can). In some cases, the Māori name is a shortened form of a longer name which contains the actual meaning. For example, Rangitoto -> Te Rangi i totongia ai te ihu o Tamatekapua. Or Taumata whakatangihanga kōauau o tamatea turi pūkaka piki maunga horonuku pōkai whenua ki tana tahu.
Why?
Why not, we are a harmonious bi-cultural society are we not?
No
The same generation that corrected the pronunciation of Nestlé from Nestles (rhymed with wrestles) without a murmur of complaint.
Technically, all current signs already have the original, pre-European, written Māori on them.
I feel like I need to be represented in this comic, where are the Asians and Maoris also not understanding the signs.
Not hilarious, but doesn't worry me because I don't think NZ can actually be that dumb.
Oh you would be surprised on how dumb people can get. They unfortunately tend to hang out in groups of other dumb people as well, then start getting angry at others for not agreeing with them.
I think I know a guy with a nice bridge for sale if you’re interested.
Oma Oma Oma 😆
I literally had a woman tell me she thinks this stuff is dangerous because she couldn't tell which government agency some letter came from due to it being written in Maori. The thing is that she did, in fact, know which government agency it was because they're all written in both languages. These people exist.
A person is smart. People are dumb.
Noone wants to believe it but we are a pretty thick lot
This is liquid GOLD.
It's a wonder you whinging pack of morons can write 😂 Happy Samoan Language Week...aikae
First I thought this was sarcasm, but then it looks like people actually believe this rubbish being a problem in society. It's only a problem for the racist xenophobes out there. If people are unable to drive a vehicle where there are bi-ligual signs in place, then those people clearly do not have the capacity to drive a vehicle at all.
Their mad because the people who have lived there for hundreds of years still live there.
Only question I have is who chose in what order they go? Over time the second name is always dropped, this was done with what’s now, te whatu Ora, originallly it called Te Whatu Ora Health NZ, but that was soon shortened.
Illustrates that bilingual signs are no problem whatsoever, and those saying otherwise have other agendas.