July 18, 2016
It takes a village to teach te reo
The New Zealand Maori Council wants to see housing policy used to revitalise te reo Maori.
Chair Sir Taihakurei Durie says the decline in native Maori speakers paralleled a decline in Maori group housing as people were forced out of rural papakainga by zoning changes and policies that required Maori to move to urban areas if they were to access housing loans.
He says te reo is unlikely to survive as a language for ordinary conversation unless it is spoken to children in homes and within communities where Maori is spoken most of the time.
While the acknowledgement in the new Maori Language Act that past Crown actions and policies contributed to the loss of the Maori language is usually taken to mean monolingual education policies, the council believes the collapse of papakainga was more important.
It says creating Maori housing clusters, with preference to those committed to speaking te reo, should constitute an important facet of a Maori Language strategy.
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