Main Page
From Te Papakupu Māori
About
The purpose of Te Papakupu Māori software project is to bring as much knowledge about te reo Māori to as many technology projects possible and ultimately back to Māori. It is hoped that the project will continue to evolve so that te reo Māori is always available to be embedded in the latest technology.
Currently there is support for spell-checking dictionaries based on information written by experts in te reo Māori, Linguistics, Computer Science, Information Technology and Tikanga Māori. And early support for thesauruses and hyphenation.
Te Papakupu Māori respects the orthographic conventions of te reo promoted by Te Taura Whiri, without comprising and still supporting writers of Rohe and Iwi variations throughout Aotearoa.
Te Reo is alive. New words are being added to cope with world we live in. And our understanding of te reo is also becoming clearer - differences in regional variations are being recorded, and pronunciation from our Tipuna are being analyzed for example. Te Papakupu Māori is designed to be a system that transparently keeps upto-date with the most current understanding of te reo as it evolves.
Te Papakupu Māori is an open source software project that uses SourceForge.net to manage the technical details of the project. Open source software means that is free to use, and free to modify. This openness allows other indigenous people to use the work that has gone into Te Papakupu Māori, to promote their own native language in technology just as easily with the same ethos of using technology to support indigenous writers, but without comprising and still respecting te reo Māori as a taonga.
Supported Software
The following software is directly supported by Te Papakupu Māori:
Software developers, build engineers and interested users can check packages.papakupu.maori.nz for the full list of available packages including those for the base language support engines.
For any other offers of help or assistance please contact me.
-- Kiharoa
Writing in te reo Māori
Modern computers support te reo Māori as part of a larger program to support as many non-English languages and regions as possible. But support for te reo Māori is rarely enabled (if at all) by resellers we purchase computers from. The following instructions have been prepared to help anyone configure their computer so that they can write in the full alphabet of te reo Māori, i.e. type Macrons, and, so that their computer can treat text written in te reo Māori correctly, i.e. enable Te Papakupu Māori for Māori text, and enable the default application language tools for English text, automatically.
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to the following people for their assistance:
- Dr. Mark Laws - For having the foresight to provide the public a free to use word-list from the Kedri English-Māori Translator.
- Karaitiana Taiuru - For licensing the word-list of Te Ngutu Kuru under the GPL so that it is freely available to the public allowing the original word-list of te reo Māori from Williams to be incorporated into technology.
- Dave Moskovitz - For building and making available the free to use dictionary management system Matapuna, that Te Taura Whiri i te reo Māori are currently taking advantage of to compile a corpus of the Māori language.
- Dr. Richard Benton - For compiling together te Papakupu o Tai Tokerau as a free resource for Māori, and to the many contributors who took the time to record the language.
- Te Taka Keegan - For allowing the incorporation of various technology terms used in te reo Māori.
