Te reo Ma¯ori, then English
Omaka Marae manager Kiley Nepia wants his 8-month-old daughter Ka¯mehameha’s first language to be te reo Ma¯ori.
He said it had been five or six generations since his family had a native, first language, Ma¯ori speaker.
‘‘We probably haven’t had a native speaker since my great, great grandfather,’’ he said.
‘‘It takes three generations to regenerate a language.’’
Despite his own proficiency in the language, he said it wasn’t easy to maintain the necessary discipline when English media and speakers were everywhere.
‘‘I know what the day-to-day struggles are.’’
Revitalising the language took a multi-pronged approach, said Nepia, who felt he was unlikely to see the language completely restored in his lifetime.
And while Te Wiki o te reo Ma¯ori, or Ma¯ori Language Week, was a great springboard for regeneration, the celebration needed to be longer than a week.
‘‘When it stays as just one week of celebrating te reo Ma¯ori then it can become tokenistic.’’
Language in the home was really important, he said.
‘‘We need to be developing households who are speaking te reo Ma¯ori.’’
Other ‘‘prongs’’ included books, online learning, the Ma¯ori community, television, and schools.
‘‘We know that families are time-poor,’’ Nepia said.
Taking that into account, he said there were continually more resources available to make te reo learning easier.
Initiatives in Marlborough included Te Wa¯nanga o Aotearoa – where Nepia said a ‘‘high proportion’’ of students were nonMa¯ori – and the Pa¯ Kids afterschool programme at Omaka Marae. He said most iwi had some kind of programme for revitalising Ma¯ori language and culture.
‘‘There are more opportunities for people now to engage with and learn te reo Ma¯ori,’’ Nepia said.
Te Wiki o te reo Ma¯ori runs until Sunday.