Laws should safeguard indigenous languages, Māori Language Commissioner Rawinia Higgins says

Thursday, 9 March 2023

Māori Language Commissioner Rawinia Higgins says time will tell whether we are doing enough to revive te reo on International Mother Language Day.

Governments around the world need to use the law to protect indigenous languages, Māori Language Commissioner Rawinia Higgins says.

Read this story in te reo Māori and English here. / Pānuitia tēnei i te reo Māori me te reo Pākehā ki konei.

Higgins said Aotearoa has come a very long way since 1972 when people marched on Parliament calling for the Government to help safeguard te reo Māori.

'When I addressed the United Nations in December, I called on world governments to use the law to protect indigenous languages and to start by making them official languages,” she said.

'This is one very powerful thing a government can do, and so far ours is one of the only [governments] to do so, 36 years ago this August.'

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Stuff reporter Joel Maxwell, who spoke only te reo Māori for the month of September, heads out to kōrero with people in Pōneke. (Video first published October 2022.)

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On International Mother Language Day last month, UN Special Rapporteur on minority issues Fernand de Varennes said countries needed to be more inclusive in their treatment and use of minority and indigenous languages.

'Languages are essential tools to communicate and share knowledge, memory, and history, but they are also key to full and equal participation,” he said.

'One of the most effective ways of empowering minorities and indigenous peoples is to guarantee the use of their language in education, and to provide public services and employments opportunities in these languages.'

De Varennes said language rights were also important human rights matters for both minorities and indigenous peoples.

'Rather than reducing the use of minority and indigenous languages in education, states should invest in the development of teaching materials, the training of teachers and the promotion of mother tongue as a medium of instruction,” he said.

'This is the most effective way of guaranteeing equality and non-discrimination with respect to international law.'

It was essential to move away from new forms of nationalist majoritarianism that assume that societies should have only one language to the exclusion of all others, de Varennes said.

'This is inconsistent with inclusive societies that are respectful of the human rights of linguistic minorities and indigenous peoples,” he said.

Stats NZ figures reveal almost a quarter of all Māori people are growing up with te reo as their first language while 3 in 5 New Zealanders want te reo taught in primary schools.

'We need 1 million speakers of te reo by 2040 to safeguard the language and between the Crown and iwi, as well as all New Zealanders,” Higgins said.

“Whether we are doing enough? Time will tell. But meanwhile, the journey continues.”