Re: BBC does it again

On Jun 12, 2:45 pm, Andrew Woode <andrew_wo...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 12 Jun, 18:34, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Jun 12, 10:58 am, "John Atkinson" <johna...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In Maori, leaving out the macrons isn't "wrong" because it's
sub-phonemic. It's "wrong" because it represents a deviation from the
accepted orthographic tradition -- that is, it's a spelling mistake.

And how did that "tradition" become "accepted"?-

It was imposed by the missionaries.

What the missionaries 'imposed' did not include macrons as a
consistent marking for long vowels; that's a more recent convention.

Among the world's writing systems, marking (phonemic) vowel length is
fairly unusual.
.