There’s no such thing as ‘a simple translation’ from English to Te Reo Māori. If there was, Disney could’ve pushed The Lion King through Google Translate, slapped ‘The Lion King Reo Māori‘ on it, and called it a day. In the same manner, you could put a loaf of bread and the contents of my fridge into a blender, but what you’d pour out wouldn’t be a sandwich.
"We don’t really like just translating the words. Otherwise, we may as well just make an audiobook. You have to really adapt it so that it appeals to our people. If you don’t really adapt it, you can throw people off the scent because [it won’t show] our way of thinking [or] our way of speaking.”
“For example, in the English [version], Scar says: ‘Well, I was first in line until that hairball was born’. Then Mufasa says: ‘That hairball is my son.’ In the Māori version, he says: ‘Ko tā tāua tama.’ ‘That’s our son,’ because you’re always raised by a village. We don’t own our children. It’s our job to make them and it’s the iwi’s job to raise them.” - Tweedie Waititi
Nationwide | Nationwide | 2020-29 | Lion King in te reo (2020-29) | Story is by tangata whenua
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