FAQ about Māori Dictionaries

There are 4 major dictionaries of Māori, specialist subject, dialect dictionaries, several Māori monolingual dictionaries and learner dictionaries.

Major Māori language dictionaries
(1) The most important Māori-English dictionary is H.W. Williams’s A dictionary of the Māori language.  The final edition was the 7th (1971). It has been reprinted many times. Commonly referred to as (The) Williams or Te Wiremu. It focuses on traditional Māori vocabulary. Headwords are often in given in a sentence (usually taken from an older manuscript) following each entry.

There are many words in Williams (perhaps 1000s) that are unfamiliar to many native speakers of Māori today. Likewise there are probably 1000s of words currently used by native speakers and second language learners of Māori that are not listed in the dictionary. There are also gaps in Williams’s coverage of traditional Māori terms, perhaps more so in dialectal variation in the use of words. Williams is an essential item for students of the Māori language.

Most other Māori dictionaries are based is some extent on Williams. The last edition is now over 40 years old, it’s current copyright status is unclear. It is still print only and readily available in NZ bookstores and 2nd hand book shops.

(2) Another well-known dictionary Ryan’s (2012) The Raupo dictionary of modern Māori (4th edition). It is an update of earlier versions of The Reed dictionary of Modern Māori, which first appeared in 1995. The Reed dictionary was based on previous versions of Ryan’s dictionary of modern Māori.

Ryan (2012) is not a dictionary in a strict sense, it is a synonymicon, i.e., a bilingual word list. It contains over 50,000 entries in the form of Māori-English and English-Māori word lists. Some of the terms given in Ryan (2012) are new terms proposed by Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori (Māori Language Commission). These are unlikely to be widely known by native speakers of Māori. Some may be disappointed that Ryan’s dictionary does not give the source of its Māori terms. Users must refer to a dictionary like Williams (1971) to determine whether or not terms are traditional Māori words. Ryan (2012) is available in print and Kindle format.

(3) H.M. Ngata’s English-Māori dictionary appeared in 1993. It contains over 14,500 headwords. An English sentence (containing the headword) is given after each headword followed by the equivalent translation in Māori.

Based primarily on the Ngati Porou dialect (spoken on the East Coast of the North Island). It includes many contemporary terms. The dictionary also contains new terms proposed by Te Taura Whiri. As with Ryan (2012), the sources of the Māori words are not given. There are many typographical errors and inconsistencies. Some of the definitions given are somewhat unusual, however, it is still valuable. It is said that a revision is being undertaken.
The Ngata dictionary (1993) is online here.

(4) John Moorfield’s Te Aka Māori-English, English-Māori Dictionary (2011) (3rd edition) is very useful. It derives from Te Kākano series of textbooks for adult Māori language students, which have been available in various multimedia formats for a long time. Te Aka is available online, as an app, and in Pearson VitalSource eText format, but not in Kindle or any other common ebook format. The online version of Te Aka is kept up to date and therefore will include more entries and details than the last print version.

Specialist Māori language dictionaries
(1) He Papakupu Reo Ture: A Dictionary of Māori Legal Terms launched in June 2013. Available in both dead tree and online here.

(2) Te Matatiki (1996) is a source of contemporary Māori words. Based on the 1992 version of Te Matatiki, it contains over 5500 new words developed or collected by the Te Taura Whiri since 1987. Subject areas include recreation, health, administration, education, science, and mathematics. Unfortunately only available in print and is now somewhat outdated.

(3) Te reo pāngarau: a Māori language dictionary of mathematics was published by the Ministry of Education in 2004 and updated in 2011. It was produced by Ian Christensen and a team of maths specialists and includes many excellent examples of terms being used in sentences along with good detailed illustrations. It is aimed at Māori-medium education students and their teachers learning mathematics through the medium of Māori. Te reo pūtaiao: a Māori language dictionary of science (2009) is a small dictionary also for Māori-medium education students and their teachers. All Māori-medium education vocabulary can now be searched using Paekupu.

(4) More advanced users and educators will appreciate the Education Review Office’s He kupu arotake: a list of terms for education evaluators  (1995).

(5) A specialist Māori business dictionary is Taking care of business: Business terms in Aotearoa, He papakupu pakihi: English-Māori business directory (2005).

(6) Another source of new and technical Māori vocabulary was the New Zealand Council for Educational Research’s Kimikupu hou lexical database. The database contains over 21,000 entries. It was once online but has been absorbed by other sources. It is now well out of date.

(7) Māori computer/IT terminology. Thanks to both Google and Microsoft support there is now a large lexicon of Māori computer/IT words and phrases. Much of this terminology appears in Karaitiana Taiuru’s Dictionary of Māori Computer and Social Media Terms.

(8) John Moorfield and Tania Ka’ai published He kupu arotau: Loanwords in Māori in 2011. This is probably out of print now.

Māori tribal/dialect dictionaries
Ngata(1993) can be regarded as a dialect dictionary. The others include:

He Puna Kupu, He Manawa aa-Whenua. is a dictionary based on the Tainui dialect. This is only available as a print edition.
He pūranga tākupu a Taranaki focuses on the Taranaki dialect. I am not sure where this can be obtained, other than from a library. Te Taitokerau Māori dictionary is here.

Māori monolingual dictionaries
He Pātaka Kupu (2008) is the only comprehensive Māori available. Produced by Te Taura Whiri and aimed at advanced learners. The system of entries is not easy to decipher, including a rather unusual practice of assigning ownership of each lexical item to a Māori god. I suspect the dictionary is little used. Remember, it is Māori only. The online version was offline from early 2016 until mid 2018. It is now also available as an app.

Tirohia kimihia: a Māori learner dictionary produced by Huia Publishers in 2006 is aimed at Māori-medium students.

Māori language learner dictionaries
Younger or beginning students of Māori language may find Katerina Mataira’s A modern Māori picture dictionary (1997) very useful.

There are other learner dictionaries. I suspect adult learners would be better served by Moorfield’s Te Aka Māori-English, English-Māori Dictionary, in its various formats.

Two worthwhile Māori essential word lists are Te kete kupu: 300 essential words in Māori (2006) and First thousand words in Māori (2006).