‘The language will not die’
Timoti Kāretu is far from pessimistic.
It’s perhaps unsurprising that Sir Timoti Kāretu doesn’t get unduly excited about the apparent upsurge of interest among Pākehā in learning te reo Māori. The 81-year-old (Tūhoe/ Ngāti Kahungunu), who was knighted last year for services to the Māori language, was the first Māori Language Commissioner and later the executive director of Te Kohanga Reo National Trust. Regarded in the Māori world with a respect bordering on reverence, Kāretu is seen as a ruānuku reo (language guru), a status amplified by his command of French and German as well. And he has long been outspoken about the “apathy and torpor” among Māori towards the language. He told Te Karere that language revival funding should not be provided to iwi “who let it die but to those who are fighting the good fight”. In Unesco assessments of language survival, Māori is rated “vulnerable” on a scale that runs through several levels of endangerment all the way to extinct. Yet despite his scathing assessments of Māori inaction, Kāretu is far from pessimistic. “Among the community that I work in, the language is not threatened at all,” he says. “The number of speakers in the Māori population is not as high as we would like it to be. But there will always be an element of the population with a strong will to ensure the language will not die. The generation between 20 and 50 are holding the language together and speaking it much more than their grandparents did.” However gratifying Pākehā interest in night-class Māori may be, such learning does nothing for the health of the language. “There has always been a backbone of Pākehā dedicated and committed to the survival of the language,” says Kāretu, “and they are some of the unsung heroes.” He cites John Moorfield, also known as Te Murumāra, who died in May and whose Te Whanake books have been standardissue in many courses, and Ray Harlow, a key contributor to Māori linguistics. “And I take my hat off to Pākehā such as Jennifer Ward-Lealand and Melanie Nelson who are committed and dedicated and don’t just have a fly-by-night interest. “The real resurgence is coming from among young, dedicated Māori kids. The number of Pākehā are not all that many. But anyone who wants to come on board we say, hop on the waka and let’s go. If you don’t want to, then stay on shore.”