Spanish to Māori: nosotros dos still leaves the listener’s membership unspecified
Two people can include the listener or leave them out
Spanish Nosotros dos iremos identifies a group of two that includes the speaker. It does not, by itself, state whether the listener is the second person. The intended group might be you and me, or it might be the speaker and a companion while the listener stays behind. Māori distinguishes those possibilities in its first-person dual pronouns.
The Kupu Māori pronoun chart gives tāua for two people including the listener and māua for two people excluding the listener. The macron belongs to the written form. These are not interchangeable stylistic versions of nosotros dos: choosing one commits the message to a particular relationship between the speaker’s group and the person being addressed.
A Spanish invitation and a report can contain the same verb
Consider a Spanish conversation about collecting a visitor. Nosotros dos iremos can reassure the listener that the two of you will go together. Said to a third person, the same words can report that the speaker and a driver will go. The verb iremos marks first-person plural in both situations and cannot settle the Māori pronoun choice.
Spanish Tú y yo iremos makes the inclusive reading explicit. Mi hermana y yo iremos, when addressed to someone other than the sister, makes an exclusive pair explicit. These fuller source phrases demonstrate the distinction that the shorter nosotros dos leaves to the conversation. A translation should use that available evidence rather than assume that “we” always invites the listener.
The cost of the wrong choice is concrete. A listener included by the Māori wording may prepare to leave with the speaker; a listener excluded by it may assume no participation is expected. Both translations can preserve the future journey while giving different instructions about who must be ready. The head count alone does not protect against this error.
Nosotras marks a different distinction
Spanish Nosotras dos can specify an all-female pair, but it still does not inherently settle whether the person addressed belongs to it. Māori first-person dual choice instead makes the listener’s inclusion or exclusion explicit. It would be mistaken to choose tāua simply because two women are involved, or māua because the group has mixed membership.
For groups of three or more, Kupu lists tātou as inclusive and mātou as exclusive. The distinction between dual and larger groups must therefore also survive. Nosotros tres cannot be reduced to the same dual form as nosotros dos merely because both Spanish expressions use a first-person plural verb.
A Spanish message may supply the crucial membership information in an earlier line: “you can stay here,” followed by “we will collect the visitor,” excludes the listener. “Come with me,” followed by the same future plan, includes them. Read those instructions with the pronoun. Māori requires a choice about group membership that the isolated Spanish verb and nosotros may leave unstated.
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