Nikolasa (left) and Potaua Biasiny-Tule check out their Maori language version of Google. Photo / Sarah Ivey
A husband and wife are developing a Maori language version of the search engine Google in an effort to encourage more Maori to use the net.
Potaua Biasiny-Tule, 32, and Nikolasa Biasiny-Tule, 35, of Rotorua are directing a team of volunteers from around the country translating the search
pages into a Google Maori language option.
And their idea has been welcomed by Google's American owners.
Out of 117 language options, Tongan is the only Pacific tongue recognised. But the couple hope the Maori option will be a hit.
Mr Biasiny-Tule said if Star Trekkies could get a language option then Maori should have no trouble.
"They had Klingon and the Muppets, even Elmer Fudd. We asked ourselves, 'Where was Maori'?"
The project started about five weeks ago and the first of eight pages will be submitted to Google today to coincide with the launch of Maori Language Week.
Mr Biasiny-Tule said Google had provided a template but making sure translations lined up with technology-based Maori words, agreeing on common words across different dialects and relying on a team of volunteers meant the task was time-consuming.
Mrs Biasiny-Tule, a former Waikato University Maori and Pacific development lecturer, said the name of the search option was still up for debate but Google Maori was the most popular one so far.
The pair have made a bit of a habit of doing things on the cheap.
For the past six years they've run tangatawhenua.com an epanui - e stands for electronic and panui means message - news service, which includes podcasts.
Last month they received 21,000 hits and sent out 4000 epanui to inboxes around the country, but finding willing advertisers was extremely difficult.
Mrs Biasiny-Tule - who is Puerto Rican and says she fell in love with Maori when she met her husband's family - said taking Maori to the rest of the world was what drove the couple.
Huhana Rokx, chief executive of Te Taura Whiri i te Reo (Maori Language Commission), said the initiative was terrific news during Maori Language Week.
"Anything that extends our reo [language] into new dimensions is progress and keeping up with technology is excellent for the development of our reo."
