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I thought the word and the definition sounded beautiful, but then I also learned that it was coined in 2017 and has been accused of imposing outside culture. Namely, here is a criticism I found on Twitter and Reddit but without further attribution or detail:
Just wanted to share and see what the community thought about it.
Maori here, two things to to put into the arguement.
1, Maori language does not directly translate word to word. One of my kids name translated directly to English is "destroyer of houses", however the meaning behind it is a guardian and protector. Kura urupare may translate directly as gift inside head, but there is likely deeper meaning - im unfortunately not fully vursed in the meaning of this one.
2, the Maori language is dying - if people want to use a word that works for them, provides understanding and expression or brings it into common use then go hard. Use it as much as you can, fuck the purists.
I know which I prefer!
Thanks for the background.
Oh, the direct direct translation is "food house" (not house of food - wharekai) which any kiwi kid should be able to translate directly; spoken as "eater of houses" so I loved hearing that.
Hes nearly a teen so accurate AF.
As I say, deeper meanings.
This is the most interesting thing I've read all day
lol 🤣🤣🤣... well, I'm sure some nice construction worker lady will make a great wife 🤣🤣🤣
Thank you for weighing in! What you said makes a lot of sense.
In my experience, this describes children perfectly lol
Thanks for the insights. Languages that contain a lot of metaphor in everyday speech are really interesting.
If you enjoy that aspect of language, and like old school CRPGs (the original Baldur's Gate era, late 90s early 2000s) then you NEED to play Planescape: Torment.
There is a companion character Dak'kon. If you deep dive into his stuff, you get to learn the history and metaphor that his people's speech drips with.
There is an enhanced edition out (Steam, etc), but I had the original CDs so I haven't used it, but it looks like it runs natively on Windows and Linux even if I can't comment on the changes.
If gaming isn't your thing... I still recommend it. More lines of dialog than all of Shakespeare's works, and you gotta read it all, and the combat is honestly its lowest selling point, its not bad for the time, it was just lacking any complexity for its time.
I still liked the game enough to warrant over a dozen play throughs over the years (and I don't think I've seen everything just yet) and have the Rune of Torment inked permanently in my flesh (which also has connotations from the game).