Talk:Tūī

Media

It would be great to have an audio recording of the tui song as it's so distinctive. Audio of the bird in flight would also be good, and more images (especially of high encyclopedic value such as mating displays, territorial behavior, nestlings etc) are always welcome. Richard001 00:52, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I should be able to do this once I start my research in the spring. There should be a recorder around the university somewhere , but I'll need help changing the file into a Wikipedia compliant one. Sabine's Sunbird talk 01:16, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I've used Audacity to convert standard sound files (e.g. mp3, wav) to ogg, though I'm not sure what raw format they would be recorded in. Richard001 02:16, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

We have a video, pending permission confirmation, from YouTube. It includes audio too. Richard001 (talk) 08:33, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Māori Naming

Rsfinlayson mentions that having the followup Māori language version of `tui` appear straight after subject title is redundant due to the "name" section below. I disagree - the naming section below is more etymology than anything. Macron usage in `tui` is the proper Māori spelling of `tūī`, and in fact the correct way of spelling it according to NZ Department of Conservation. We should always include languages that have a different word for the subject, especially based on how commonly it's used - and in fact, this word is almost the same. Europeans had it wrong. This does not change the logic, and the consistency I'm proposing.

So, my proposal:

• Respect the fact that other languages have different words for things, and therefore `tūī` should be an alternative spelling (alongside title)
• This is a consistent with other pages that have Māori as an alternative to English, where English is a macronless version (see [[1]] )
• Proposal to keep both naming section and title, because redundant or verbose information is a bad thing, but also not acknowledging alternative language variants is worse (again, especially when it's commonly used). Perhaps in the future `tūī` will only be spelled like so. (signed to ip address, but actually Sc tui )

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I don't have a problem in principle with noting the Maori-language spelling in the first sentence, even though it's already mentioned in the "Name" section just below. (As you noted, it's consistent with what we do elsewhere.) My problem was that I was suspicious of your motives - and you have now gone ahead and confirmed my suspicions. In New Zealand society, there is currently an activist agenda (within media, education, and elsewhere) that is not content with how New Zealand English is actually commonly written (using the English alphabet, heaven forbid), but instead is pushing to have macrons written on all Maori-origin words, even in purely English text. Whether this agenda is right or wrong can be debated—but not here. The only issue here is what should be done in Wikipedia (specifically "en.wikipedia.org" - the English-language Wikipedia). And Wikipedia's policies are quite clear: Wikipedia should reflect actual common usage, and should not be used to try to advance an agenda. So, while the "Tui" page now appears OK, I urge you - if you haven't done so already - to read WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS and WP:FAUNA, to appreciate Wikipedia's role as an encyclopedia, rather than a soapbox. Ross Finlayson (talk) 04:08, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

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I was worried that there'd be some sort of activist suspicion, but honestly it's not my agenda. Perhaps my name indicates this too. I agree, that this is a current political issue - so perhaps this discussion should extend outside the bounds of this page, and include any page where we use macrons in Māori words to signify the Māori language version within the title. I think my argument here is that tūī is common usage, but perhaps that's harder to find evidence of than anything - anecdotal to say the least.

As you know, I'm quite new to wikipedia, but I also don't have a specific agenda (apolitical to a certain extent) aside from providing more information to NZ wiki pages. Thanks for the link, I'll give it a read and make sure I know for future reference.

Sc tui (talk) 01:23, 05 August 2018 (UTC)

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Anyone who thinks that tūī is "common usage" in English must have a very different understanding of the word "common" than just about everyone else on the planet :-) Ross Finlayson (talk) 02:44, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

Requested move 10 July 2021

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) Jack Frost (talk) 05:45, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

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Tui (bird) → Tūī – Tūī is the original te reo Māori word for this bird that had its common spelling changed to tui. Tui is a different te reo word meaning 'to sew or bind'. Tūī is now most-commonly used, by, for example: the Department of Conservation (New Zealand) here, Forest & Bird here, Zealandia (wildlife sanctuary) here, Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand here, NZ Herald here, Stuff (company) here and TVNZ here. Te reo Māori place names have macrons on Wikipedia, and fauna and flora are now being changed, for example: kererū, kōkako, kākāriki, takahē, wētā and kōwhai. E James Bowman (talk) 03:58, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

• Support It's important to get this right. Maybe editors outside of New Zealand aren't quite so sensitive to this but macrons aren't just visual things, they do change the pronunciation and with that comes often a different meaning. The best-known fauna case where omitting macrons causes problems is Weta Workshop. They even have the critter in their logo but the word they are using means "shit"; what they meant to use was Wētā. They are the laughing stock of the country. [amended 13 July] Since it's come up in a subsequent post, disambiguation is not required as per WP:SMALLDETAILS. Schwede66 04:10, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
• Support Over the last few years the spelling with macrons has become the dominant one in reliable sources, both governmental and privately-owned media companies – see the examples listed above. Also see the 2020 naming conventions discussion, which lays out recent changes in macron use in New Zealand, and makes it clear that macrons are acceptable in the titles of articles written in New Zealand English. As per WP:COMMONNAME, the spelling should be "tūī". —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 04:41, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
• Support The list of recent citations using the macrons shows that the spelling tūī is now becoming widespread in publications. Further, the name of the bird is clearly a word from te reo Māori. Without the long sounds indicated by the macrons, the word tui means something quite different. Therefore, without the macrons the existing title spelling fails to fulfil a critical purpose of the encyclopedia - namely to be accurate. (See WP:Purpose). By way of comparison, it is accepted practice in English prose to use the acute accent over the final "é" when discussing the French concept of freedom: "liberté", because to omit the accent substantially changes the pronunciation and would make the word inaccurate. It is important to get the name of the tūī bird right. Marshelec (talk) 21:12, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
• Support With so many external organisations now using macrons for tūī, it seems to me that since this page was written, the common spelling has changed. It is important that Wikipedia reflects changing usage, or we just look hopelessly out-of-date (as well as simply incorrect, as others have described above). DrThneed (talk) 00:11, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
• Support but keep (bird) In ictu oculi (talk) 15:15, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
• Support, I am seeing regular use of the macrons in "tūī" on New Zealand news sources, e.g. nzherald.co.nz and stuff.co.nz, in academic papers and private websites. Disclaimer: I have a tūī in a tree just outside my window making a very noisy argument to me as I type.-gadfium 19:51, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
• Support - good practice and in line with other similar articles. And if macron, drop the "bird", naturally - superfluous in that case. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 20:02, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
• Support as per other comments. Turnagra (talk) 09:32, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
• Support as per other comments. Einebillion (talk) 06:02, 13 July 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose Well I guess I'm going to be the odd person out here. I don't think the nomination presents a compelling WP:COMMONNAME argument. Identifying 7 sources that use the proposed spelling is not proof that that is the common name, unless the total number of recent RS writing about this topic is less than 14. A search on Google Scholar for "Tūī" Prosthemadera returns 79 results since 2017, and a search for "Tui" Prosthemadera gives 159 results. Results are directionally similar if the time range is limited to 2020-present (25 vs. 48 results). Colin M (talk) 19:58, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Google Scholar only samples peer-reviewed journal articles, which are a small subset of reliable sources. Note also the discussion is about the usage "tūī" in NZ English, and many of the sources Google Scholar cites are not New Zealand publications. Also Google Scholar has a strange habit of stripping macrons off sources in its search results: running that same search for the word "Maori" returns articles where the link shows "Maori" without a macron, but the actual article title uses "Māori" (e.g. 1, 2). So there are problems with using Google Scholar to assess prevailing usage. —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 22:16, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

The first example you linked does include "Maori" on page 248 (page 14 of the pdf) in the title of the Smith 1993 reference. There are some similar examples of papers that include both "tui" and "tūī", which means they contribute to both counts. Colin M (talk) 23:10, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose The spelling "tui" remains the overwhelmingly most common spelling in everyday English (not publications funded by the NZ government). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.144.34.74 (talk • contribs) 00:36, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
• Support. Becoming more common all the time and the arguments above for the change seem pretty compelling to me. Moriori (talk) 00:54, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.