So you want to learn te reo?

Advocates for boosting te reo levels in Aotearoa say it provides a gateway to greater cultural, historical and racial understanding. Minister for Crown/Ma¯ori Relations Kelvin Davis said he would love to see all New Zealanders feeling comfortable in Ma¯ori spaces, with te reo Ma¯ori being the key.

“To go on marae and feel comfortable, engage in things like Waitangi Day, Koroneihana, and Ra¯tana. It is only daunting when there is ignorance and lack of understanding about what is going on.”

Davis said Te Tiriti o Waitangi was a “bridge” connecting te ao Ma¯ ori and Pa¯keha¯, with language, customs and culture on each side.

“Since 1840 who has crossed that bridge? Ma¯ ori have crossed over, how many have come back the other way? Some people have, and we are really grateful for that, but it has been one-way traffic mainly.”

Due to that one-way traffic, and consequent ignorance of Ma¯ori language and culture, there was often tension. Learning te reo would help reduce the ignorance about Ma¯ori issues, and what it was to be Ma¯ori, Davis said.

Growing up in a monolingual household, Davis, of Nga¯ti Manu descent, said he felt “something was missing”.

“I felt embarrassed going on to our marae, not knowing what was being said.”

He took it up at high school, maintaining it through his adult life. He said he was about a “7.5 out of 10” in terms of fluency.

Speaking Ma¯ori gives confidence in who you are as Ma¯ori New Zealander, and leads on to other understanding of whakapapa, and history, Davis said.

“It is hard to engage in te ao Ma¯ori without knowing the language. You can know tikanga, customs, attitudes, but the cream on top is te reo.”

Head of Auckland University of Technology’s School of Language and Culture, Associate Professor Sharon Harvey, said learning a second language helped people understand different points of view.

“If New Zealand had embraced Ma¯ori more early on we would be seeing the benefits of seeing things from different perspectives. Our determined rejection has not helped.”

Te reo Ma¯ori was closely linked to other Pacific languages.

“It gives access to Pacific languages like Tahitian, Cook Island Ma¯ori, and a little more distant to Tongan and Samoan.”

While New Zealand promoted itself as being bicultural, it had never extended that ambition to being bilingual, Harvey said.

“We . . . can’t be bicultural unless we are bilingual.”

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Marama Davidson says te reo can be something all New Zealanders can share pride in. Marama Davidson said te reo was a “core” part of the future of race relations in Aotearoa. Davidson’s grandmother had literally had the language beaten out of her, and it had taken three generations to get over the trauma. “Her children didn’t learn, and neither did we, and now it has taken our children to finally reclaim it. “Te reo is core to healing, core to the future of our race relations. It gives us something unique, to be proud of, together.” Davidson (Nga¯ti Porou, Te Rarawa and Nga¯puhi) started learning te reo properly as an adult, and even decided to only speak te reo to one of her daughters — now 10 — since birth. Te reo offered an insight to the Ma¯ori worldview, offering different perspectives, Davidson said. “Things like there being no gender pronouns in te reo, in itself says something profound about accepting or rejecting narrow sexual identities”. National’s Ma¯ori development spokesman Nuk Korako said te reo was like the country’s “flora and fauna”.

“It is unique, rooted in this country’s fabric. Why wouldn’t we want to learn te reo?” Korako, of Ngai Tahu descent, grew up in a monolingual household, with parents part of the generation “not allowed to speak Ma¯ori”.

He learned his reo at St Stephen’s College in Bombay, south of Auckland, where te reo was a compulsory subject.

“I remember on my first day there were guys from Tu¯ hoe having a conversation in te reo. I had heard it on the marae growing up, but it was fascinating to hear it in a daily context.” He said increasing cultural and history understanding would spur interest in te reo. “One of the most important things with rangatahi in New Zealand, is that they have a really good [grounding] of Ma¯ori culture and history, because it then gives them that appreciation to the language of the culture.” Te Taura Whiri (Ma¯ori Language Commission) chairwoman Professor Rawinia Higgins said learning te reo would give Kiwis a better understanding of who we were as a nation. “It is our first language, so helps define who we are. It is also a defining feature of who we are in a global context.

“A . . . feature of our national game is the haka, and that is in te reo. On the [global] stage people are interested in it for that unique element.”

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