Battle to preserve te reo far from won
Even after decades of effort, supporters of the Maori language remain locked in a battle against te reo’s extinction. PHILIP MATTHEWSREPORTS.
Between now and Christmas, nearly 20 languages will disappear from the face of the earth. Words may remain, and traces of writing, but there will be no more speakers. You can arrive at that figure from Canadian linguist K David Harrison’s grim prediction that half of the 6912 distinct human languages spoken in the year 2001 will not be heard at the end of this century. That averages as a language disappearing every 10 days.
At this rate, Harrison calculated, languages are more threatened with extinction than species of birds, mammals, fish or plants.
The natural question is whether it matters as much. What is lost if fewer people speak distinct languages and more people simply speak English, Spanish and other dominant languages?
In the case of theMaori language, the argument is that te reo Maori is the essence of Maori identity. This assertion appeared in the Te Reo Mauriora report, released last year. According to Unesco guidelines quoted in the report, Maori sits between ‘‘definitely endangered’’ and ‘‘severely endangered’’ on a spectrum that runs from ‘‘safe’’ to ‘‘extinct’’.
How many speakers would Maori need to be considered safe from extinction? At the national workshops that preceded the writing of Te Reo Mauriora, a figure of 50 per cent came up – the language would be off the endangered species list if 50 per cent of Maori spoke Maori. But that figure is a long way off. According to the 2006 census, just 23.7 per cent of Maori are able to hold a conversation about everyday things in te reo.
Younger Maori are the least likely to be fluent, with about one in six Maori under 15 able to hold a conversation in te reo. For the over-65s, the rate was higher at slightly less than half.
The further south you go, the worse things get. In the 2006 census, only 18 per cent of those who belonged to the Maori ethnic group in Christchurch could speak Maori. Within Christchurch, areas with the highest proportion of Maori speakers were central Christchurch, Aidanfield, Governors Bay and the eastern bays of Banks Peninsula.
Those figures agree with the general impression formed by South Island iwi Ngai Tahu. ‘‘There was a greater loss of language or a bigger decline, and a lot earlier, than any other iwi here in the south,’’ says Paulette Tamati-Elliffe, project manager of Ngai Tahu’s language-recovering Kotahi Mano Kaika, Kotahi Mano Wawata strategy.
‘‘Within Ngai Tahu living in the South Island, we have no native speakers left. You might have native speakers from other iwi living here but we lost our last native speaker last year.’’
That was John Tupae Reihana, also known as Uncle Jacko Reihana. He died on December 4, aged in his late 80s.
Tamati-Elliffe explains that a native speaker is someone who grew up in aMaori-speaking community and was exposed to te reo at home from birth – someone for whom te reo was their first language.
Throughout New Zealand, the eradication of te reo was central to 19th century colonisation. The Te Reo Mauriora report lays out the history. Non-Maori proficiency in te reo was only considered useful if it could advance Government policy or religious conversion.
There were laws. In 1847, the Colonial Government ruled that financial assistance for education would only be available if English was the language of instruction. In 1867 the Native Schools Act enforced English as the language of instruction for Maori children. Te reo speakers were punished.
Consequently, te reo use fell dramatically. In her research, Tamati-Elliffe has come across a letter published in Te Pipiwharauroa, a Maori newspaper, at the close of the 19th century. Tutere Wi Repa, a doctor who had come south from Te Kaha in the Bay of Plenty, saw that not a single child under 16 was using te reo as a language among their peers in aMaori community at Puketeraki, north of Dunedin.
‘‘My thoughts are that they were most likely raised in te reo in the home and would have had comprehension of te reo and ability to speak it, but were now choosing not to use te reo,’’ Tamati-Elliffe says. ‘‘You saw the turn of the tide in that generation. We had some native speakers in the early 1900s. But to my knowledge very few families maintained it in the home.’’
The Te Reo Mauriora report was commissioned by Maori Party co-leader and Maori Affairs Minister Pita Sharples. The findings of its independent review panel, Te Paepae Motuhake, came only six months after aWaitangi Tribunal report on fauna, flora and Maori cultural intellectual property that also painted a grave picture of the state of te reo.
The Waitangi Tribunal report registered a nationwide decline in native speakers and falling numbers using Kohanga Reo, Kura Kaupapa and Wharekura (Maori language preschools and immersion schools). After the report’s release, Maori Language Commission chairman Erima Henare asked, ‘‘Why are our people not accessing what in essence are good models of teaching te reo Maori?’’
Henare went on to say, during a debate on TV1’s Marae in late 2010, that ‘‘Maori language communities need to become more active than they already are’’. It was not an issue of money but a matter of ‘‘marshalling our resources and waking our people up’’.
When theMaori Language Commission was formed in 1987, there was a warning that te reo could go the way of the moa if serious action was not taken. The paradox since is that a decline in Maori speakers has run parallel with growing acceptance outside Maoridom of the value of preserving and teaching the language, and growing media visibility.
In the Marae debate, Henare cited a survey that found 39 per cent of New Zealanders wanted compulsory Maori language in schools. He quoted a Dominion Post voxpop that found eight out of 10 people wanted Maori language to be compulsory.
More recently, Trade Minister Tim Groser has floated a ‘‘personal view’’ that the Maori language should be taught to every 5-year-old in New Zealand. Speaking to TV3’s The Nation in April, Groser said that, besides introducing
Everyday language: biculturalism to young children, learning more than one language means ‘‘they will be able to learn other languages as their personal circumstances fit’’.
When Groser’s comments were reported, it was noted that Maori Party policy in the 2011 election campaign was for te reo to be compulsorily available in New Zealand schools by 2015, that Hone Harawira’s Mana Party had gone further and said all New Zealanders should be fluent by 2040, and that ACT’s former leader Don Brash had responded that compulsory te reo was ‘‘pointless’’. So is teaching te reo Maori to every child the solution? Yes and no. Language experts tend to agree that the best way to ensure the survival and growth of a language is to focus on use in the home.
US linguist Joshua Fishman has said the most commonly used factor in determining the vitality of a language is whether it is being transmitted between generations. Languages become endangered ‘‘because of the lack of informal intergenerational transmission and informal daily life support, not because they are not being taught in schools’’. Rather than top-down and institutional, efforts should be bottom-up and informal.
‘‘Our focus in the iwi is in the home, recognising that intergenerational transfer of te reo has the greatest outcomes,’’ Tamati-Elliffe says. Yet the support from schools with bilingual units and immersion is also seen as important, as it gives speakers other opportunities.
Nationally, it seems a strategy change is required. The Te Reo Mauriora report found ‘‘the principal foci’’ of the 2003 Maori Language Strategy were education and broadcasting, which is reflected in the distribution of Government funds: 84 per cent of funds are spent on education programmes, 10 per cent on broadcasting and just 2 per cent in homes and communities.
According to the report, the national spend ranges from $225 million to $600m per year. One recommendation is to link education and broadcasting more closely with Maori language homes. Another is to appoint a government minister responsible for theMaori language.
When the report was released last April, it was said that a new Maori Language Strategy would follow consideration of the report and its recommendations. More than a year later, is there any update? A spokesman for Pita Sharples says ‘‘the Maori Language Strategy is being developed through a Cabinet process, and the timeframe is subject to Cabinet decisions which have not yet been made’’.
Back at the language coalface, Tamati-Elliffe explains that Ngai Tahu launched its Kotahi Mano Kaika, Kotahi Mano Wawata strategy in 2000. The phrase translates as ‘‘one thousand homes, one thousand aspirations’’, and the ambition was to have 1000 Ngai Tahu homes speaking te reo by 2025.
At the time, ‘‘we would have been looking at less than five Ngai Tahu families speaking te reo in the South Island’’. Twelve years on, they have ‘‘well over 25 whanau who actively participate in Ngai Tahu te reo events who are actively raising their children with te reo Maori in the home’’.
The greater ambition of 1000 homes may not be realistic, but Tamati-Elliffe is confident that ‘‘our focus on intergenerational transfer of te reo within the home domain as a living language is consistent with what international language revitalisation experts such as Joshua Fishman espouse as being a critical factor in language revitalisation, also acknowledging that while it takes only one generation to lose a language, it takes at least three generations to restore that language’’.
Tamati-Elliffe’s home is one of those te reo homes. Ten years ago, at the birth of her second child, she and her partner ‘‘made a proactive decision to only use te reo Maori with our children’’. While Tamati-Elliffe is a second language speaker, the children are being raised with te reo as their first language.
In Dunedin, where TamatiElliffe lives, and elsewhere in the South Island, such opportunities have to be created.
‘‘A lot of Ngai Tahu te reo speaking families have to create our own domains to use te reo as a language of communication. In Christchurch there are a number of whanau cluster groups who are proactively initiating spaces and places to use te reo. Over summer we had a softball team that was largely made up of te reo speakers and they made that the focus of their team.
‘‘We have a number of play groups, which are called puna reo. The focus is to socialise with other families, with children under 5, in te reo Maori. To build not only the parent-to-child relationship but so the children can socialise with other children in te reo Maori. We also facilitate a Kura Reo Kai Tahu once a year, in January, which is aimed at families who spend a week together and we provide learning sessions for the adults, and alongside that, a children’s programme. That’s all in te reo.’’
Within these strategies, Ngai Tahu is also charged with preserving the particular South Island dialect. The most wellknown difference is the ‘‘ng’’ sound is pronounced as ‘‘k’’, which is why Ngai Tahu is sometimes rendered as ‘‘Kai Tahu’’. There are also distinctive words, idioms and proverbs (see sidebar). The need to preserve regional dialects was other point made in Te Reo Mauriora.
These strategies are about preserving and growing the language within Maoridom. What about the Pakeha world? Yes, there is value in Pakeha New Zealanders learning te reo: ‘‘Without that support and value towards te reo, it makes a lot harder for Maori to use it as a language,’’ Tamati-Elliffe says.
Equally, iwi members are likely to have Pakeha family members, partners, friends and co-workers.
One Pakeha who benefitted is Christchurch poet Jeffrey Paparoa Holman, who started to learn te reo 15 years ago, at the age of 50. He recently wrote, in The Press, that ‘‘when we ignore the Maori language and watch it die, when we openly demean its value and relevance in today’s world, isn’t this all part and parcel of an attitude to Maori themselves? It begins to look like a subtle but nevertheless insidious form of racism: ‘ka whakaiti, ka whakahawea’, meaning to put down, to despise, be contemptuous.’’
In the past decade, there has been that growing sense of media visibility. Maori Language Week is recognised. Pakeha newsreaders regularly say ‘‘kia ora’’ and ‘‘morena’’ (morning). An entire te reo channel, Maori Television, has been the greatest development: Tamati-Elliffe sees the channel as validating and normalising a language that was, when she was growing up, negatively stereotyped. Again, what do we lose if a language disappears? The culture, the people do not vanish – or do they?
‘‘As a second language learner, the insight that you can gain through te reo is a different worldview in many cases,’’ Tamati-Elliffe says. ‘‘Could you do the haka in English? It wouldn’t have the same effect. Could we perform our rituals of encounter on the marae without te reo? I don’t think so. The language underpins the culture. We have been able to maintain some cultural practices without it but it’s my view that language is the key tomaintaining the culture.’’