Correcting an error of history is worthy

If it is more accurate to say "Remutaka", translated as a place to sit down and rest, it's not a bad name.

A PROPOSAL to change a placename is always a goldmine for media, and the "Remutaka Pass" debate is a goodie.

I can recall the nearby bridge over Abbotts Creek being mooted for a sign saying "Abbotts Creek Bridge", to reflect an early landowner, rather than Twin Bridges.

When it comes to Rimutaka, it touches a few nerves with those who don't like change and enjoy familiarity, amateur historians who see an opportunity for history to be made, and with pedants who enjoy debates over what defines a hill, mountain, summit and pass.

We hit, once again, the concept of the anglicizing of a Stone Age language; a language that in its natural state was never written down - it was entirely oral. Therefore, it is left up to academics and the benefit of knowledge passed down through generations to try and pin it down.

If it is more accurate to say "Remutaka", translated as a place to sit down and rest, it's not a bad name.

One can only imagine the hike from the bottom to the summit (or should that be "pass") would have involved rather a lot of "Remutaka" stops.

Over generations, bastardisations of words and language occur.

English is a constantly evolving language, and as much as every generation fights the change, the upcoming generation usually adds and adapts it.

But the Maori language, which is "young" if compared with European languages, is far more vulnerable to bad and lazy pronunciation, which many of us are guilty of.

It could well be that Rimutaka is a result of that.

In its written form, we're guided by macrons to indicate long vowels, and I admit I wouldn't have known that it's Ruamaahanga in spoken form, without that guide. But we live in a community that still says "Cow-haut-tra" for Kahutara, and that makes me cringe.

Newspapers are frequently told to correct errors of fact. If the closest, most precise written word and pronunciation for that winding road to Wellington is Remutaka, then correcting an error of history is worthy too. It is an arrogance to think ourselves aloof to correcting mistakes.