Dream of a bilingual nation - what will the linguistic future of Aotearoa New Zealand look like?
Sunday, 12 September 2021
On day one of Te Wiki O Te Reo Māori – Māori Language Week 2021, Stuff reporter Scott Yeoman looks into the future of language in Aotearoa New Zealand and finds that at the end of a long road, there’s a destination many have in mind.
“Kia ora, matua” is the greeting Dr Rāpata Wiri gets when he goes to Bunnings Warehouse in Rotorua.
It’s the same at McDonald's, he says, and all over town.
“It kind of blows me away.”
Wiri moved to Rotorua when he was 12 years old from Te Urewera.
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He has spoken te reo Māori from birth and for the past 30 years has been teaching Aotearoa’s native language to students at universities and wānanga in New Zealand and Hawaii.
Wiri (Tūhoe, Ngāti Ruapani, Te Arawa) says when he got to Rotorua all those years ago, even though there was a large Māori population, not many people spoke te reo.
“Now, 40 years later, man, it’s amazing. A lot of these kids around here, young people – they all speak Māori.
“I even get Pākehā people talking Māori to me. I’m like, wooooah. I’m like, gee, that’s awesome.”
Wiri’s dream is that in 20 years’ time, it will be like that in every town of Aotearoa.
“A completely bilingual nation where people can cross over from Māori to English just like that – whether it be kids in the classroom, whether they’re playing in the playground, to a Parliamentarian, to the lady at the fish and chip shop. That would be my ambition, that we have a bilingual nation.”
The Government has its own ambitious goals when it comes to the linguistic future of Aotearoa New Zealand.
By 2040, it hopes 1 million New Zealanders will be able to speak basic te reo Māori.
The Government also aims to have 150,000 Māori aged 15 and over using te reo as much as English by 2040.
At the last Census in 2018, English and te reo Māori were the two most common languages in which people could hold a conversation about everyday things.
But the gap between the two was stark.
English – 4,482,135 speakers (95.4 per cent of the population).
Te reo Māori – 185,955 speakers (4 per cent of the population).
Those numbers suggest there is a long road ahead.
Professor Rawinia Higgins is toihau (chair) of Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori, the Māori Language Commission, the organisation paving that road.
“Our dream that is yet to be realised is when te reo is no longer an endangered language,” she says.
“We know if we are to safeguard te reo we need 1 million of us able to hold a basic conversation in te reo by 2040.”
Higgins (Tūhoe) says 20 years ago when the Māori Language Commission polled attitudes around te reo Māori, fewer than 4 in 10 people saw te reo as part of their identity.
Last year the commission’s Colmar Brunton polling showed more than 8 in 10 people saw te reo as part of their identity as a New Zealander, she says.
“Given the way we were able to mobilise 1 million people (1,058,356 to be exact) last year for our Māori Language Moment we know we are on the right path.”
Higgins says the overwhelming majority of those were young people, “they are the key to safeguarding te reo”.
“Te reo is definitely something young Kiwis see as part of who they are, regardless of their ethnicity. The challenge now is for all of those in decision-making roles to understand how they can help make that dream come true.”
One of the challenges ahead is matching demand with classes and courses, many of which are currently oversubscribed with large waiting lists.
The commission says there are 26,000 students enrolled in tertiary courses funded by the Tertiary Education Commission. More te reo teachers are needed.
Higgins says any kind of social change begins with attitude change.
“That is why our mass participation events are important. Those who opposed te reo becoming an official language in 1987 predicted that te reo would divide us and make us hate each other. They have been proven very wrong,” she says.
“The Māori language is something that brings New Zealanders together and in 20 years’ time we will have more of us speaking and supporting te reo than ever before.”
Associate Professor Dr Te Kahautu Maxwell from the University of Waikato – an expert in te reo and tikanga Māori – says if you think back to 1972 when the te reo Māori petition was placed on the steps of Parliament, asking for the language to be taught in schools, and where the country is now, there has been clear progress in the acceptance of te reo Māori and its rightful place in Aotearoa.
Te reo is now commonplace on mainstream television and radio, in news reports. People regularly use “Aotearoa” interchangeably with “New Zealand”.
“Those are major milestones in terms of te reo Māori in modern day society here in New Zealand,” he says.
Maxwell (Te Whakatōhea, Ngāti Awa, Ngāi Tai, Te Whānau-ā-Apanui, Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Maniapoto, Tūhoe) says many non-Māori have become champions of the language – which he welcomes and encourages – but there are still challenges to overcome for many Māori to do the same.
He says you only have to look at how many Māori tamariki are still being educated in English in mainstream schools, rather than in their own language in full immersion kōhanga reo and kura kaupapa Māori.
“I think the biggest challenge for Aotearoa and Māoridom is for Māori to accept the place and the value of te reo Māori.”
Maxwell says he understands the hesitation, Māori were punished in the past for speaking their own language and it has been lost to whānau for generations.
“There’s lots of pain, lots of intergenerational trauma with regards to te reo in Māoridom, where families have lost the language for over a hundred years and their fight to regain and to reclaim and to speak the language again within their families has been a huge struggle. People do have the right to lay blame at the feet of the Crown.”
While he sees that as ultimately the most important barrier to break down if the revitalisation of te reo Māori is to be successful, he doesn’t believe it should prevent the language from being shared widely among all New Zealanders.
“If we are moving towards a bilingual or even a multilingual society, who are we to be gatekeepers? But our job is to ensure that the survival, the retention, and the maintenance of the language is upheld by us and by the people that are lovers of the language.”
Tania Ririnui was one of the first tauira at the first official kōhanga reo in Tauranga Moana.
She remembers few educational resources in te reo Māori existed at the time and that meant hard work for parents and whānau.
Ririnui (Ngāi Te Rangi, Ngāti Ranginui, Te Arawa, Ngāti Awa) says her dad used to stay up late after work translating mainstream pukapuka into te reo so that she and her siblings had books to read in their own language.
All of Ririnui’s tamariki have gone to kōhanga reo and her youngest is enrolled to start soon. She says when she thinks of her language now and what it will mean in the future, she is inspired.
“I feel excited for the wealth of opportunities and the innovations that lay before us … I hear an older Pākehā man singing along to “Kia mau ki tō ūkaipo” (Don’t forget your roots, by Six60) while waiting in line at the post office. I am greeted with “Kia ora” and “Kei te pēhea koe” by the Irish receptionist at my family doctors. “Ngā mihi, Kia pai tō rā” sign off the emails I receive from local council. What was once a language we whispered in the presence of only our own, now illuminates the world around us.”
Ririnui says the future can only get brighter.
“Kānapanapa te titiro whakamua. Hīkaka ana te ngākau.”
Dr Rāpata Wiri is equally optimistic about what he is seeing and hearing.
“The more non-Maori that take up learning te reo, the better. I think it’s a great thing for our country, for our nationhood, for Aotearoa, for us being one, one nation – Māori and Pākehā and other ethnicities. I think it’s a fantastic thing, I really admire those non-Māori who are learning te reo.”
Wiri was raised at Lake Waikaremoana and then Rotorua by his grandparents, who only spoke te reo Māori.
His knowledge of the language shaped the rest of his career, which has now moved from classrooms and lecture halls to mobile phones and computers.
Shortly after the first Covid-19 lockdown last year, Wiri and Rotorua-based app developer Salt + Tonic launched Reo Ora – a fully automated te reo Māori app.
Wiri is excited about what technology can bring to the revitalisation of te reo Māori.
“Artificial intelligence,” he says.
“Imagine if you had a Māori-speaking robot on the computer? A reo-bot,” he adds with a loud laugh.
“That’s what we’ve got to look at. We’ve got to look at technology. That’s what’s going to save it, I reckon.”