Te reo Māori shows survival instincts strong
Te reo Māori has been through a lot over the years, facing extreme challenges and surviving only through the sheer hard work and determination of the people committed to its cause.
It bears the scars of colonisation, with many Māori today struggling with vowels and experiencing embarrassment when the words do not flow the way they should.
So how did te reo Māori get to the point where it became an endangered language?
The short answer is colonisation, but sometimes the short answer isn’t the best one.
Te reo Māori has a rich history that begins with the first waka reaching the shores of Aotearoa.
At that time, many Māori spoke Tahitian, Professor Tom Roa (Waikato, Maniapoto) of the University of Waikato explains.
‘‘Māori as a language developed in this space so that when Captain Cook came with [the Tahitian Polynesian navigator] Tupaia, the languages were mutually intelligible.’’
As increasing numbers of English travelled to Aotearoa, the use of Māori grew because Pākehā knew that if they wanted to communicate they had to use te reo, Roa said. Over time, a natural flow of cross-cultural communication developed, but this changed as colonisers wished for more land and resources.
‘‘Their wish to communicate with the people of the land lessened because they had an agenda to take over the land,’’ Roa said.
Thus began the period of the New Zealand Wars, when troops in many areas devastated tangata whenua. The language survived, but there were difficult times ahead as the settler population expanded further. Māori were driven from their lands and this dispossession flowed through to the language, Roa said.
The Native Schools Act was introduced in 1867, with the aim of assimilating Māori into Pākehā society.
‘‘As part of the Government’s policy to assimilate Māori into Pākehā society, instruction was to be conducted entirely in English,’’ said one article from the University of Auckland.
Statistics from Te Ara show that in 1900, an estimated 95% of Māori were fluent in te reo. By 1960 that figure had reduced to 25%.
By 1975, 5% of schoolchildren were fluent in te reo Māori, down from a quarter in 1953.
The language was being increasingly confined to rural areas, where the Māori population was greater, Roa said. ‘‘However, as the economics of such spaces affected the population of these rural areas, more moved into town ... English became the language of communication.’’
The lasting impacts of this can still be seen and felt in te reo Māori classrooms throughout Aotearoa.
Throughout his career, Roa has found it far easier to teach Pākehā, who come into class ready to play with anything he gives them.
Māori, on the other hand, tend to suffer from what he calls an ‘‘embarrassment barrier’’.
‘‘They want to learn Māori, but they are so embarrassed that it is really difficult for them to pick it up,’’ he said. ‘‘They become tonguetied, and I think it’s because of an embarrassment barrier.’’
It may take some time for the language to thrive again, but if there is one thing history can teach us it’s that te reo Māori is nothing if not a survivor.
This is Public Interest Journalism funded by New Zealand On Air.