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In an MSN News article about increasing firearms in the UK, which mentioned the recent death of Sergeant Matiu Ratana (originally from New Zealand) in a Croydon custody suite, the word 'whanau' was used which I had never come across before.

Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s prime minister, paid tribute to the officer on Facebook. She wrote: “To all Matiu’s whanau [extended family] across the world, we share your sorrow and have all our condolences.”

I could not find it listed in online dictionaries - Merriam Webster or Cambridge, but Wikipedia notes it as follows :

Whānau (Māori pronunciation: [ˈfaːnaʉ]) is a Māori-language word for extended family. It is sometimes also used in New Zealand English

Wikipedia

How is this word pronounced and is there an equivalent in BrE and/or AmE, please ?

Is it sometimes transliterated in BrE or AmE writing, if there is no exact equivalent ?

EDIT (upon comment) The word appears to mean more than just 'extended family'

In Māori society, the whānau is also a political unit[citation needed], below the levels of hapū and iwi, and the word itself has other meanings: as a verb meaning to be born or give birth. Wikipedia

Nigel J
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    What's wrong with "extended family"? – Robusto Sep 26 '20 at 19:54
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    Most Māori words are entirely unknown to UK people, and still less to Americans (!) You generally see them as shown in that article, with an inserted explanation. – Michael Harvey Sep 26 '20 at 19:59
  • @Robusto I was hoping to find an equivalent word or otherwise to see if the word had been brought from NZE into BrE and/or AmE by transliteration. – Nigel J Sep 26 '20 at 20:07
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    It's present in Lexico, Collins Dictionary, Macmillan Dictionary and also OLD. And it's English equivalent is 'Extended family'. :) – Decapitated Soul Sep 26 '20 at 20:09
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    Whanau stands approximately for what non-Maori would call extended family, but it also carries many implications regarding the role of that form of social organisation in Maori society, which have no precise analogues outside the Maori culture. One cannot expect to find the precise equivalent of that word outside New Zealand English, because what it stands for does not exist outside New Zealand. All New Zealanders (both Maori and non-Maori) are familiar with the meaning of that word, but non-Maori New Zealanders would not normally use it for their own extended families. – jsw29 Sep 26 '20 at 21:37
  • @jsw29 Thank you. Can you put into words what the concept conveys to those who use the word ? – Nigel J Sep 26 '20 at 21:38
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    The entry on whanau in the Encyclopedia of New Zealand may be a good starting point for acquainting oneself with the concept. There is no short phrase that would capture all its nuances—that's precisely why the word was imported into English. – jsw29 Sep 26 '20 at 22:35
  • We don't really have "extended family" in UK, it's more of a thing among southern Europeans around the Mediterranean. – Weather Vane Sep 26 '20 at 22:50
  • @jsw29 It seems to be a broad concept, covering more than one generation, more than one self-contained family, more than just the social aspect of family and more than a single family dwelling. It almost seems, to me, to convey a hamlet in the past, present and future generations of its existence. I find this very intriguing. – Nigel J Sep 26 '20 at 23:23
  • @WeatherVane Yes. All we have in the UK is 'the in-laws', a rather derogatory term, usually. I think it comes from the English traditionally regarding their homes (in the very limited aspect of a single, close family) as their 'castles' and viewing everyone else, even 'extended family' as potential intruders. – Nigel J Sep 26 '20 at 23:24

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Extended family is about as close a translation as you'll get, though it also has a wider sense of community. In traditional Maori society the iwi (tribe) is divided into groups called hapu (about the equivalent to the septs of Scottish clans), and below that is the whanau, which is the extended family plus any close friends who are treated like family. A rough approximation of the pronunciation would be FAA-now. The term has gained acceptance as a term by Pakeha (non-Maori New Zealanders), largely because there's no easy direct translation.

A lot can be told about Maori attitudes to genealogy and interconnectedness from the fact that "iwi" also means ancestral bones, "hapu" also means pregnant, and "whanau" also means to give birth.

James
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