Printer and missionary William Colenso was one of the first colonists to use te reo Māori fluently. His facility with the language and his habit of including Māori words in a predominantly English vocabulary are evident in his letters. In this excerpt from an 1851 letter to Donald McLean, he uses wakamahau (verandah), pā (fortified settlement) and kai (food).
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Alexander Turnbull Library
Reference:
MS-Papers-0032-0221, 1 August 1851, p.2
Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.
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