Spelling the Island Name - Moorea or Mo’orea?
The Moorea Coral Reef (MCR) LTER respects the sense of place tenet of Tahitian identity, which is rooted in their deep reverence for their land and surrounding waters. In recognition of the great cultural significance of place and place names, the MCR asked local authorities, island residents, Polynesian collaborators and other members of the Tahitian community how they would like the MCR to spell the island name where our site is situated. It turns out that at this moment in time, there is not just one culturally correct answer because the local population itself is strongly divided on the preferred spelling; Moorea is firmly advocated by many Tahitians, while Mo’orea (with the ’eta diacritic mark) is considered the proper transcription by many others. This and other dichotomous spellings in the lexicon of the traditional language of Tahitians reflect the current use of two transcription systems within the local community, both of which have ardent supporters.

The traditional language spoken in the Society Islands is Reo Mā’ohi (alternatively spelled Reo Māòhi), which is an oral language that was first transcribed by British missionaries in 1805. As French Polynesia began to gain greater autonomy from France in the late 1970s, two Tahitian-led initiatives were undertaken to standardize and promote Reo Mā’ohi, which had languished under French language policy. One effort involved the establishment by the Territorial Assembly of Te fare vāna’a (in French, Académie Tahitienne), which was modeled after the official language authority of France (Académie Française). A parallel, modern graphical system for transcribing Reo Mā’ohi was developed by Tahitian linguists and cultural activists (Duro and Samuel Raapoto), backed by the authority of the immensely influential Mā’ohi (Māòhi) Protestant Church. Among other dissimilarities, the Te fare vanā’a and Raapoto systems have different rules regarding when and how to transcribe the eta consonant as a diacritic mark ( ’ ) to denote this important, phonetic glottal stop¹. In the Te fare vāna’a system, the ’eta is always included between two consecutive vowels when the consonant is present phonetically (hence Mo’orea); in the Raapoto system, the glottal stop consonant is left implicit (i.e., ’eta is not transcribed) when the consecutive vowels are identical (hence Moorea).

At some point after contact with Europeans, the ancient Polynesian name for the island, ’Aimeo² (also spelled Aimeho and Eimeo), was supplanted in Tahitian toponymy by its current place name³, which, for a number of reasons, was traditionally spelled Moorea. The influence of the French administration – and the absence of the ’eta consonant in its information system – led to a long-standing custom of transcribing Tahitian place names without the ’eta when it is present phonetically. While both the Raapoto and Te fare vāna’a systems have resulted in the transcription of ’eta⁴ becoming a more widespread practice today, the conflicting rules for consecutive identical vowels poses a dilemma regarding which place name spelling the MCR community should adopt. The current situation, where different segments of the Tahitian community strongly advocate for different spellings of the island, means that whatever spelling guideline the MCR adopts, it is unlikely to be universally viewed as respectful of Tahitian culture. MCR leadership acknowledges this circumstance, and our guidelines were developed with these current complexities in mind. The MCR also remains open to changes in our spelling guidelines in response to future shifts within the Tahitian community regarding how Reo Mā’ohi should be transcribed.

MCR Internal Guidelines for Spelling Moorea / Mo’orea
At the Programmatic level, the MCR will spell Moorea without the ’eta, which follows the Raapoto transcription rule. This conforms with the transcription convention (i.e., Moorea) that is used in official documents and other materials produced by the Office of the Mayor of Moorea - Maiao (Mairie de Commune de Moorea – Maiao), the branch of the Tahitian government that serves the residents of the island. This transcription convention is also used in official documents and materials produced by other governmental agencies of French Polynesia (including official maps and GIS systems), and is the preferred spelling of the large community of island residents who belong to the Mā’ohi Protestant Church. MCR products covered by this spelling convention include but are not limited to all reports and programmatic documents, the name of our LTER site (i.e., Moorea Coral Reef LTER), and content that we post to the MCR public website.

With respect to Public Education and Outreach, the MCR will use Moorea for all domestic efforts and materials, but will tailor the spelling convention for our outreach efforts in French Polynesia to reflect the transcription system used by the particular local community group we are engaging. For example, the local associations of fishers on Moorea with whom we interact extensively with strongly adhere to the Raapoto system, but our outreach partner schools on Mo’orea typically teach school children the Te fare vāna’a transcription system. Our policy is to ask the audiences of our outreach efforts in French Polynesia which spelling convention they would prefer us to use in our interactions.

For Scientific Publications produced by MCR researchers, authors decide for themselves which spelling convention they wish to follow. Authors can include in each publication, a footnote or sentence in an appropriate section stating which transcription system they adopted, and acknowledging the alternative spelling of the island name that reflects the second transcription system used by the Tahitian community. We suggest something like the following:

“With respect to the spelling of Moorea, we followed the Raapoto transcription system that is adhered to by a large segment of the Tahitian community, but also recognize other community members follow the Te Fare Vāna’a transcription system where the island name is spelled with an ’eta (Mo’orea).”

or
 
“With respect to the spelling of Mo’orea, we followed the Te Fare Vāna’a transcription system that is adhered to by a large segment of the Tahitian community, but also recognize other community members follow the Raapoto transcription system where the island name is spelled without the ’eta (i.e., Moorea)”.

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¹ The ’eta consonant in Reo Mā’ohi is a phonetically softer glottal stop than the 'okina of the traditional Polynesian language of Hawai‘i (ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi). These two consonants are often depicted by different-shaped graphical symbols, with the ‘okina of ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi represented by the ‘6’-shaped form of an opening single quotation mark and the ’eta of Reo Mā’ohi often (but not always) by the ‘9’-shaped form of a closing single quotation mark.

² ’Aimeo means ‘to eat hidden’ or ‘to eat without being seen’, which reflects the island’s history of serving as a place of refuge for fugitive warriors of the Leeward Society Islands.

³ Moorea / Mo’orea means yellow lizard (mo’o = lizard; rea from re’are’a = yellow) after a Tahitian legend where fishermen shouted the name to villagers after finding the dead body of a huge, mythical yellow lizard washed up on the island’s shore.

⁴ Both transcriptions systems also provide somewhat different transcription rules for the use of the macron diacritic mark (i.e., tārava) that denotes a long vowel (e.g., ā).