Kōrero mai

D Upton (Letters, September 20) writes we should avoid using te reo because international communication requires “plain English”.

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I've worked for New Zealand's foremost plain-language writing consultancy for over 20 years. Around the world people have progressed from calling it “plain English” to “plain language”, recognising the need for all nations to communicate clearly whether domestically or internationally. The global plain language movement is vast, with an international standard published in 2023.

The primary focus of communicating in plain language is to “write for your reader”. It's not a one-size-fits-all approach — it recognises that for every writing task we need to understand why we are writing, what we want to happen and who we are writing for.

So, if you are writing primarily for a Kiwi audience, then please do go ahead and use te reo. It is part of our identity and our vernacular. Kia pai te rā - have a good day. Corinna Lines (Wellington)

I find it rather amusing but mostly sad that D Upton argues we should have only plain English in our vocabulary here in Aotearoa. I disagree that this would make us hard to understand for non-Kiwi English speakers. In Germany (and many other countries), local dialects thrive, but all can speak hoch Deutsche when needing to communicate with foreign German speakers or those from other regions. Kiwis are, if nothing else, adaptable and will have no problem adjusting their Aotearoa-English back to international-English when necessary. Let us embrace and celebrate the one country in the world that can converse in a te reo Māori-te reo Pākehā hybrid. We are the richer for it. Kathryn Hagen (Auckland)

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