[timonoko]

Is this true that Maaori is crapped by Ænglish spelling? In all other languages long vowel is just two wovels, not some stupid umlaut on top.

[timonoko]

Yes, says ChatGPT:

The Māori word "Māori" can be transcribed into the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) as:

/ˈmaːɔɾi/

Here’s a breakdown:

  /ˈ/ – indicates primary stress on the first syllable
  /m/ – a voiced bilabial nasal, like the "m" in "man"
  /aː/ – a long open front unrounded vowel, similar to the "a" in "father," but held longer (the macron indicates length)
  /ɔ/ – a mid-open back rounded vowel, like the "o" in "thought"
  /ɾ/ – a tapped or flapped "r," similar to the quick "r" sound in Spanish "pero"
  /i/ – a close front unrounded vowel, like the "ee" in "see"
  This transcription represents the most common pronunciation of the word "Māori."

[TRiG_Ireland]

It's certainly not an umlaut. Nor yet is it a trema, which is what you probably mean. It's a macron, which is commonly used to mark long vowels.

[timonoko]

Sort-of. Because In Anglo world "aa" is "ä". Even ChatGPT thinks that it ok to use "AA" when making a Finnish morse generator.

In hindsight Maaori is not so bad. Some American Indian writing systems are just pronunciation quides for Anglos (or French). I tried to study Haida some 30 years ago, but it was too complex and miserable, because there was no actual audio clips available at that time.

[TRiG_Ireland]

ChatGPT doesn't think, and I fail to see how it is in any way relevant to the discussion.

Marking a long vowel with a macron has a long heritage, dating back to Ancient Greece at least. Yes, some other writing systems, such as Greenlandic, use a double vowel.

Finnish seems to use ä, ö and å as independent letters, rather like Swedish and Danish, unlike German, were ä, ö and ü are regarded as a, o and u with a diacritical mark. These do not seem to be symbols which mark vowel length.

I don't know Māori, but the Wikipedia page gives the alphabetical order for the language and does not list the long vowels separately, so I assume that, as with German or French, they're regarded as the standard letters with a diacritic mark added.

[peterashford]

They are indeed standard letters with diacritics added - but macrons are the only diacritical marks used for Māori. Some people do use double vowels but it's less common than using macrons.