Dogri to Māori: establish whether we includes the person reading
The speaker’s group may include or exclude the addressee
Sawhney’s Dogri morphology paper lists əss as a first-person plural pronoun. To translate a particular group reference accurately, determine whom the writer includes. A message can describe the writer’s household without the reader, or a joint activity involving both writer and reader.
The New Zealand Ministry of Education’s Māori word list distinguishes inclusive tātou from exclusive mātou for groups of three or more. The latter excludes the addressee. These are not different levels of politeness: they identify different groups taking part in the event.
For a Dogri invitation, a reference to we can propose something for the writer and recipient together. In a report sent to someone who stayed elsewhere, the writer’s we can describe a group that does not include that person. Choosing an inclusive Māori pronoun in the second situation would make the recipient appear to have participated in something the source only reports.
Two participants require another distinction
The same official resource gives tāua for the speaker together with one addressee and māua for two people excluding the addressee. Their dual reference distinguishes a pair from the larger groups associated with tātou and mātou. The source group’s actual size therefore matters alongside inclusion.
A Dogri account written by one person about an outing with a sibling can involve two people while excluding the recipient of the message. A later proposal that the writer and recipient go somewhere together also involves two people, but it changes which pair is meant. Using one permanent Māori translation of we across both clauses would conceal that change.
The distinction is especially useful in short plans where a writer first describes an earlier activity and then suggests a shared next step. Identify each pair separately. The number two stays constant, while the reader moves from outside one event to inside the proposed event.
If the Dogri source never makes the group’s membership clear, a translation should not invent a companion or invite the reader merely to fill a target pronoun category. More of the surrounding source exchange may be needed to establish the intended group.
Respectful Dogri address does not tell you to use a Māori group pronoun
Sawhney lists t̪uss as both respectful singular address and a plural form. In the Māori educational resource, koe addresses one person, kōrua two, and koutou three or more. Counting the actual listeners is a different task from recognizing respect in the source.
Thus, a Dogri request to one older relative should not acquire two recipients just because the source pronoun resembles a plural address form. A message to two siblings should not be treated as a larger audience simply because a general translation list glosses its pronoun as you.
Across these choices, retain a clear distinction between the writer, the people accompanying the writer, and the people addressed. Their relationships explain why several different Māori pronouns can be needed in a passage with only a few recurring Dogri forms.
These examples concern the pronoun meanings documented in the cited resources. They do not provide complete sentence templates. Their value is in establishing the intended participants before forming a Māori clause, so the translation preserves who takes part rather than merely maintaining the source’s number of pronoun words.
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