Para Graphia Mark III

It’s all about context eh? It was only today seeing Para written in a sentence with other Maori words, I remembered Para is also a Maori word, or often prefix. I know that it’s not only about context, it’s also about who is writing, or seeing, or speaking, or understanding a word. That Para, separated from Graphia, as in Paragraphia, is a word not only in English/Latin, but also Maori, and possibly other languages such as Spanish. I set out to find what Para could mean. Relying on the always reliable, extensive Ngata Dictionary, Maori to English, and English to Maori. (http://www.learningmedia.co.nz/ngata/)

Which revealed 260 results for Para. So out of respect for the fact letters, sounds syllables live within many languages; in this space devoted to words, meanings and writers, included below are some of the beautiful possibilities in Maori. Which resonate with this writing, and whose trail led me back to another language I had been thinking about after returning to spend time at the Out from Under exhibition, Braille:

For those who may not know, Aotearoa is officially a trilingual country. The official languages, are indigenous Maori (since 1987 - of which in reality there are many distinct languages and dialects), NZ Sign Language (since 2006). English which is a de facto Official Language by use since colonization in 1800’s, but not actually by law.  Unfortunately the reality of access to, use, and teaching in all three languages is a whole other struggle. English being far more favoured by officialdom, and both Maori and NZ Sign Language having been repressed historically. That is, in practice, and legislated against, and people punished for using them. I believe the only other country in which Sign Language is an official language so far is Uganda.

Hori Mahue Ngata (1919 – 1989) eldest grandson of Sir Apirana Ngata MP (1874 –1950), was a kaumatua of Ngati Porou, with tribal connections to Ngai Tamanuhiri, Rongomaiwahine, and Te Aitanga a Mahaki. Interpreter, University lecturer, scholar, he, and his whanau (family), friends, and colleagues spent decades creating the dictionary of over 14,500 entries. From the 1960’s on, until it’s publication in 1993, four years after his sudden death in 1989. Leaving us all with a great taonga (treasure) of which I am in awe. (My apologies I can’t work out how to put the macrons over the long vowels on this computer – but I am on the trail of finding and configuring software which will correct this).

"kopara: female bellbird (listen to her sing http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/small-forest-birds/4/1).

haparangi: to bellow; taipara(tia): bombard; parapara: bent. He mahi parapara te korero purakau ki a Witi Ihimaera. Witi Ihimaera has a natural bent for story-telling. (this is even more apt considering he is gay writer = bent!). para: body. He nui nga para kai roto i te wai. There are foreign bodies in the water.

ukupara - smudge; pake parapara: black cape. Ko nga muka harakeke i totohua ki ro paru mo nga ra torutoru, i whatua mo te pake parapara. Flax fibres steeped in mud for several days were used to weave the black cape.

parapara: acumen, faculty, ingenuity, instinct/ive, resource, remains. paraketu(tia): probe

para kore: pure. tio para: mud oyster.

parari: gully; parara: roar. Te parara a te hau i roto i te koaka. The roar of the wind in the ravine. paparahi: trail; para: spirit."

H.M. Ngata Dictionary 1993

Which brought me back to Mae Brown, first Deaf-Blind person to receive a degree, at Toronto University in Canada in 1972. Working away on her Braille typewriter, with her lectures spelt into the palm of her hand, as part of her work she created a Braille encyclopedia. She is featured in the Out from Under exhibit under ‘Trailblazing’. The text of the online Plain Language Audio Tour of this section concludes:  http://www.ofu.ryerson.ca/exhibits/trailblazing.html

“Long before she earned her university degree she wrote an article comparing her life to a deep dark canyon. She imagined that her only way out of the canyon was by making a difficult climb. She wanted to leave way marks behind her so that other people could find the path she had taken”

when I lie down
tired worn out
others will stand
young, fresh
on the stairs
which I have built
they will climb
and on the work
which I have done
they will mount
at my clumsy work
they will laugh
and when the stones roll
they will curse me
but they will climb
and on my stairs
and they will mount
and on my work”

Mae Brown (1935 – 1973)

I like to think of Mae Brown working at her studies in the late 1960’s; whilst on the other side of the world H.M. Ngata is beginning his dictionary, starting with the legal terms used in his level III Maori Language Class at Auckland University. Trail blazing, doing something worth doing which no one has done before.

The roar of the wind in the ravine
roar
gully
trail
spirit

Te parara a te hau i roto i te koaka
parara
parari
paparahi
para

Or, it wasn’t until I stood alone in the dark canyon of the wings about to go on a stage, with the book my friend had given me, in which I had pasted my stories. I noticed for the first time, some months before she had written ‘Shine on you crazy diamond’. (Yes Ups to Pink Floyd!) She had put those words there, perhaps knowing, I would later need them. I took courage from those words. Blaze on my friends, blaze on.