Maori language advocates like Haami Piripi, who used to lead a government effort to promote the language, hope that being able to see films like Moana in Maori will have an impact. One common challenge with language preservation is making the language seem relevant and attractive to children. Moana in te reo Māoriįor example, a dubbed version was recently released in the Māori language, te reo Māori. But one good thing they’re doing is to translate the film into smaller, local Pacific languages.
That hasn’t managed to keep everyone happy. Their job was to provide feedback on the film and keep Disney from making any unintentional cultural missteps. The company formed an “Oceanic Trust” of linguists, anthropologists, cultural experts, historians, and others from various Pacific islands. This time, Disney has attempted to be more sensitive to those concerns. That has naturally raised some questions about cultural appropriation. Moana is a film about Polynesian mythology and culture that was written in English by an American company and intended for a global audience. How Moana is being translated into Polynesian languages You can find the lyrics in English on the band’s website. You can find translations of both the original lyrics and the lyrics from the film here.Īnd what about that song that plays in the background while Moana helps Maui get his shapeshifting groove back? That’s “Logo Te Pate,” by Opetaia Foa’i’s band Te Vaka. However, the lyrics were rewritten to make them relevant to the film. The song that plays when the ocean tries to give baby Moana the heart of Te Fiti for the first time is called “An Innocent Warrior.” It’s based on an older song written by Opetaia Foa’i to honour 19 girls who died in a dormitory fire in Tuvalu.
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“We Know the Way” isn’t the only song in the movie with lyrics in Polynesian languages including Samoan, Tokelauan, and Tuvaluan. Here’s one direct from the source: Opetaia Foa’i’s website. Have you been looking for a translation of the Samoan and Tokelauan lyrics in “We Know the Way?” It’s spoken by around 400,000 people around the world, including 246,000 people in the Samoa Islands and 86,000 people in New Zealand. UNESCO classifies it as “severely endangered.”įortunately, Samoan is in better shape. The Tokelauan language is spoken by less than 5,000 people in Tokelau, New Zealand, and Swains Island. I did that intentionally because I knew that whatever they do in translating this movie to all other languages, they will never translate that.” Because I mainly write in Tokelauan, it just came naturally that the chorus would lift in Tokelauan. “I know that the voyaging began in the Samoa, Tonga, Fiji area, so I knew that the first language to hit had to be Samoan. In an interview earlier this year in The Spinoff, composer Opetaia Foa’i explained why he chose those particular Polynesian languages: For example, “We Know the Way” includes lyrics in both Samoan and Tokelauan. The soundtrack showcases Polynesian languages more fully.
The English-language version of the film is primarily in English (obviously.) However, the character names are Polynesian: In fact, you can probably sing the soundtrack from memory, or at least the parts of it that are in English.īut what about the parts that aren’t? Have you ever wondered about the other languages used in the film? Have you ever been curious about the meaning of the song that you’ve had stuck in your head since the last time you saw the movie? Here’s some background on the languages of Moana, along with some helpful translations. If (like me) you’ve got kids of a certain age, you’ve probably seen Disney’s Moana more than once.