Jennifer Lindsay*

Near where I live in Australia is a seaside town called Kiama (derived from the word 'kiarama' in the local Aboriginal language, Dharawal, meaning 'place where the sea makes a noise'). Any Australian seeing KIAMA reads it as 'Ky-am-a'. Any New Zealander reading the same sign reads it as 'Kee-ah-ma'. The reason for this is the different ways the colonists chose to write previously unwritten indigenous languages. The British colonists in A