wapiti". Now THERE'S a cool word I haven't heard recently.
Wapiti were introduced to NZ around the beginning of the 20th century, and were hunted out of existence by around 1950. There may be a few left, some guy down South is on a Grail-quest for them. What brought a smile to face on seeing the word "wapiti" written out was its similarity to "rapiti" - a Maori transliteration of rabbit used in an old kid's song here. There used to be many of such transliterations in Maori, but now there is an effort being made to either modify existing maori words, or coin new ones. So, while Queen Victoria is still Kuini Wikitoria, the Maori Queen is "Te Arikinui" - the big chief, the highest of the highborn. Aeroplane has been translated as "sky canoe", that's one of my favourites, and it's been a long time since I've heard anyone mention that kotanga is the Maori word for car aerial.
