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Te reo a Tuhoe still in good heart within Tuhoe.
That's the view of broadcaster and long time observer Hemana Waaka after the biannual Tuhoe Ahurei festival in Rotorua over the weekend.
He says the standard of performance, including those from whanau who had come back from Australia, leaves him confident the Tuhoe language will still be alive in 20 or 30 years.
That doesn't mean the language isn't changing, and the influence of university-trained speakers can be heard alongside those from the main villages.
"In Ruatahuna there's a slower way of pronouncing the words. Waikaremoana had their own mita of the language of Tuhoe as did Waimana and Ruatoki so once you had those four main tribal areas within the rohe potae, each had a different way of speaking it," Mr Waaka says.
The next Ahurei will be back in Tuhoe territory in Waimana in two year's time.
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