Belarusian to Māori: identifying the two people in a shared plan
Two people are not simply an unspecified plural
Belarusian distinguishes singular and plural, while Māori personal pronouns also distinguish a pair from a group of three or more. A Belarusian message using мы can therefore leave a choice open that matters in Māori. Establish the actual group rather than assuming every plural reference can use one target form.
The Kupu teaching resource distinguishes tāua from tātou for inclusive first-person reference: the former concerns a pair, while the latter concerns at least three people. Both include the listener. A plan for you and me is consequently different from a plan for the two of us and another colleague.
For a shared appointment, identify whether only the sender and recipient are attending. If somebody joins later, revise the group reference as well as the attendee list. The message can remain grammatically plural in Belarusian while requiring a different Māori pronoun.
Distinguish the number of participants from the number of appointments. Two meetings involving the same pair still concern two people; one meeting involving five people concerns a larger group. Count the people referred to by the pronoun, rather than the events or objects mentioned nearby.
A pair can include the listener or exclude them
Māori also distinguishes whether the listener belongs to the speaker’s group. Kupu contrasts tāua with māua: the first includes the listener in a pair, whereas the second concerns the speaker and another person. The larger-group contrast similarly distinguishes tātou and mātou.
A Belarusian sender telling a colleague about a meeting with a third person may use мы without inviting the colleague into that pair. Translating it as an inclusive plan can change who appears to be attending. Name the other participant in the source when the intended group is not obvious.
The distinction can change when the same information is forwarded. A message originally written to the other attendee and a report sent to somebody outside the meeting have different listeners. Do not assume that forwarding a saved translation preserves the original pronoun reference.
Keep quoted speech distinct from the report around it. The listener included in a quoted plan may be different from the person reading your current message. Identify the original speaker and recipient if that relationship is essential to understanding who agreed to attend.
A named person need not acquire a gendered Māori pronoun
Kupu lists ia for third-person singular reference to either a man or a woman. Belarusian makes gender distinctions in personal reference and in past agreement. The absence of a separate male or female Māori pronoun is therefore not evidence that the person’s identity has been mistranslated.
If two people are being discussed, use their names where necessary to keep the reference clear. Do not try to manufacture a gender contrast in the target merely because the Belarusian paragraph used one. Preserve which person performed the action and which person is now being discussed.
Before sending the plan, identify the speaker, the listener, and every other attendee. Check each first-person group reference for both size and inclusion. These two decisions make the difference between a correct-looking plural and a Māori sentence that actually names the intended group.
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