Te reo is a taonga we can all be enriched by
Iadmire the chutzpah of Stuff columnist Joel Maxwell. He writes boldly about the benefits to all of New Zealanders of learning te reo Ma¯ ori, his assertions grounded in personal experience. Sometimes I want to applaud loudly; at other times I cringe at his tactlessness. Then I think the virtues of tact are over-rated. The tactful campaigner probably doesn’t get far.
I also admire Maxwell’s courage. Online commentary is often brutal, and anonymity allows people to say things they would never say in person. The commentary about Ma¯ori language is so predictably negative that one could be forgiven for suspecting a conspiracy to troll so-called ‘‘liberal’’ opinion writers on the topic. A journalist, Maxwell is surely well aware of the toxic responses he provokes. I hope he has a thicker skin than most, because he needs it.
As a baby boomer and fourth-generation Pa¯ keha¯ New Zealander, I support Maxwell. In an ideal world, all New Zealanders would learn te reo and use it as a natural part of their everyday communication.
The Ma¯ ori language is the cultural heritage of all New Zealanders, regardless of their ethnicity. We must not confine its use to ritual and civic occasions where it will, inevitably, suffocate and die.
It seems to be the thing lately to relate one’s own journey with te reo. I spent a year learning Ma¯ ori language at Auckland University in 1987. I needed to pass a Stage 1 language course to gain entry into the university’s Master’s of English programme. Having not studied any other language recently, te reo was my best option. I won’t deny that initially I felt uncomfortable, but the course was pitched at beginners, and I was hopeful that with persistence, I could succeed.
We studied a lot of grammar, taught by the wonderful Dr Margaret Mutu, and practised our variously faltering oral skills in tutorials. Thirty years later, I’ve forgotten a lot of the content, but what remains with me is a keen sense of how learning even the absolute basics of te reo began to push open a door of understanding, a door I didn’t even know existed. The world I lived in broadened and gained a new depth, and indeed beauty, I’d not anticipated.
So I have little patience with those who believe te reo has no utility. The belief that somehow Mandarin or Spanish would be more ‘‘useful’’ shows a gross misunderstanding of the nature of language and its fundamental functions.
Te reo Ma¯ ori is part of what makes us New Zealanders. It helps us understand our heritage and our history – an understanding vital to moving purposefully forward. It extends and deepens understanding of our physical environment and our relationships with community and each other. In these ways, its utility is priceless.
Less abstractly, the learning of any language nurtures the intellect. We have our own distinctive language right here, so why would we not make it a priority? Other languages will not cease to be learnt because we spend time on our own.
Similarly witless is the notion that te reo Ma¯ ori is a ‘‘primitive’’ language that should be consigned to the past along with the pre-colonisation society to which it belonged. Te reo, these commentators believe, is just not fit for purpose. But a living language grows and changes as it adapts to the needs of its users, and te reo Ma¯ ori is undergoing the same process, a process that is accelerating as the language’s use becomes more commonplace.
There are, of course, barriers to overcome before this ideal can be reached, not the least of which is the small number of te reo Ma¯ ori language teachers. Then there is the overly stuffed New Zealand curriculum.
But if we can resist the incursions of timewasting fashionable subjects and pressures to spend too much time assessing, there will be plenty of space for te reo. With good will and adequate resources, these are not insurmountable problems.
During one memorable tutorial, my te reo Ma¯ ori tutor, who had been seconded to the university from a position teaching the language at the now closed Hato Petera College, explained to his majority Pa¯ keha¯ tutor group an important idea: that while non-Ma¯ ori New Zealanders were able to exist happily in a monocultural world, Ma¯ ori had, since colonisation began, been forced to live and function in two cultures, one of which often rejected and denigrated their own. And this, it seemed to me then, as it does now, is behind many of New Zealand’s race-based issues.
It’s time we non-Ma¯ ori New Zealanders moved towards biculturalism in a real and meaningful way by valuing, learning and using te reo in our daily lives. Those who resist reject a valuable and beautiful taonga, one that has the power to unite us all.
The Ma¯ ori language is the cultural heritage of all New Zealanders, regardless of their ethnicity.