whero

Maori

Etymology

Derived from Proto-Polynesian *felo (“yellow, tawny” – compare with Hawaiian helo, Tongan felo and felofelo)[1][2][3] Sense of "yellow" displaced by kōwhai while evolving close to "red".[4]

Sense of “bright” is semantic evolution from “yellow”[4] > “bright”. This also evolved into sense of gold from its shine; recorded as ferro by Vincent Pyke interviewing one Mr. Palmer informed by one "Tuawaiki" (or "Tuwaewae") in Otago.[5] Similar parallels in the same Austronesian family can be seen in Tagalog between bulaw “reddish orange” and bulawan “gold”,[6] and Malagasy volamena (from vola mena, lit. “red silver”).

Noun

whero

  1. red (orangish or brownish)
    Synonym: kura
  2. (obsolete) yellow
    Synonyms: kōwhai, renga
  3. (obsolete) gold (element and metal)

Adjective

whero

  1. red
  2. (obsolete) bright, shining
    Synonym: mura

Verb

whero

  1. to redden
  • pūwhero
  • pūwherowhero

See also

Colors in Maori · ngā tae (layout · text)
     tea, mā      kiwikiwi      pango
             mea, kura, whero              karaka; parauri              kōwhai, renga
                          kāriki, kākāriki              kārikiuri
                          kikorangi              kahurangi
             tūāuri              waiporoporo              māwhero

References

  1. ^ Tregear, Edward (1891) Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary‎[1], Wellington, New Zealand: Lyon and Blair, page 622
  2. ^ Ross Clark and Simon J. Greenhill, editors (2011), “felo.1”, in “POLLEX-Online: The Polynesian Lexicon Project Online”, in Oceanic Linguistics, volume 50, number 2, pages 551-559
  3. ^ Branstetter, Katherine B. (January 1977) “A Reconstruction of Proto-Polynesian Color Terminology”, in Anthropological Linguistics‎[2], volume 19, number 1, page 21
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Dodgson, Neil, Chen, Victoria, Zahido, Meimuna (November 2024) “The colonisation of the colour pink: variation and change in Māori’s colour lexicon”, in Linguistics, →DOI, pages 9, 16-7, 23-4
  5. ^ Pyke, Vincent (1887) History of the Early Gold Discoveries in Otago‎[3], Otago Daily Times and Witness Newspapers Company, Limited, pages 2, 121 – page 121 with input by Thomas Pratt.
  6. ^ Blench, Roger, Spriggs, Matthew (1999) Archaeology and Language III, Routledge, →ISBN, pages 128-9

Further reading

  • Williams, Herbert William (1917) “whero”, in A Dictionary of the Maori Language, page 581
  • “whero” in John C. Moorfield, Te Aka: Maori–English, English–Maori Dictionary and Index, 3rd edition, Longman/Pearson Education New Zealand, 2011, →ISBN.
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