Finding a Balance: Customary Legal Terms in a Modern Maori Legal Dictionary

Abstract

English holds an almost exclusive status as the language of legal enactment in Aotearoa New Zealand but a substantial corpus of law-related texts in the Māori language now reveals a terminology comprising a language for special purposes; namely a legal Māori terminology pertaining to Western legal concepts. In creating a legal dictionary however, due attention must be paid to the place of Māori customary legal terms. One reason is precautionary: to ensure that Māori legal concepts are not excluded from the content of the dictionary. Further, an identifiable core of such Māori customary legal terms incorporating newer Western legal senses, has a strong presence within the lexicon of legal terms so far identified from the corpus texts. Two simple ways have been identified to ensure appropriate attention is paid to those customary legal terms: to prioritise the analysis and completion of dictionary articles comprising customary legal terms ahead of all other terms; and to identify and clarify customary legal Māori ideas when formatting individual dictionary articles. Some illustrative comparison is made with the dictionary format of two other well-known Māori language dictionaries.