New book reflects lifelong love of te reo
For David Ka¯ rena-Holmes, an interest in the first language of Aotearoa led him to the love of his life.
For the last 40 years, he has been learning te reo Ma¯ ori and teaching the language to others.
His recently released book, Te Reo Ma¯ ori: The Basics Explained, was written to make learning the language efficient and enjoyable.
Ka¯ rena-Holmes’ interest in te reo was piqued in the late 1970s, when he returned home after a stint overseas. It was hard to find a job in his home town of Dunedin, and with some experience doing library work, he took up a position as the sole charge librarian in Wanaka in 1982.
‘‘I thought a writer in this country should know something about the first language of this country.’’
He knew he couldn’t learn alone, so he approached a Ma¯ ori woman he knew in Wanaka and asked if she would help him organise a group at the library for those interested in learning te reo.
She was unsure at first, curious as to why a ‘‘Pa¯ keha¯ fella’’ would be interested in te reo. But she agreed, and before long a group of 20 was established.
‘‘I got flak at the pub. People said, ‘What do you want to do that for? They should learn to speak English’.’’
The group went from strength to strength, and teaching material using the Te Ataarangi method was obtained from Otago Polytechnic. A tutor came up to Wanaka with those resources – and that woman, Shirley Ka¯ rena, went on to become his wife.
The couple moved to Dunedin in 1985, with what turned out to be fortuitous timing. The Department of Ma¯ ori Studies had just been established at the University of Otago, and Shirley wanted to study, but she was apprehensive at first. David enrolled in support, studying te reo post-graduate while Shirley undertook an undergraduate degree in Ma¯ ori studies.
The following year, Ka¯renaHolmes was asked to teach. While he had no intentions to do so, he ‘‘gave it a go’’ and went on to spend five years teaching at the polytech, from immersion courses to night classes.
His Ma¯ori teaching colleagues could speak te reo with ‘‘instinctive correctness’’, he said, but when asked the explain the grammar of the language in relation to English, it was something they found difficult.
It fell to Ka¯ rena-Holmes to come up with an explanation for the grammar. Those lessons became the the basis for his first book, Grammar Basics, first published in 1995. His most recent book builds on that, a guide to the building blocks of grammar in te reo.
He said he did receive some criticism for being a Pa¯keha¯ writing about Ma¯ori grammar, but most people, including the first Ma¯ori Language Commissioner Timoti Ka¯ retu, were supportive.
‘‘The bridge can be built from both sides.
‘‘We’ve come a long way since the kia ora lady,’’ he said of the 1984 incident in which Naida Glavish, a telephone operator at the Post Office, was threatened with dismissal for answering the phone using a Ma¯ ori greeting.
Te reo Ma¯ ori was made an official language three years later.
The couple moved to Nelson in 2012, Shirley taught te reo to students from Collingwood to Kaikoura as part of the Te Wa¯ nanga o Aotearoa programme of homebased learning.
She died unexpectedly in 2016. Ka¯ rena-Holmes said her legacy was that she had influenced the lives of many te reo students in Otago and the top of the South Island.