December 13, 2022
Normalisation key to reo advance
The chief executive of Te Taura Whiri i Te Reo Māori says the pressure needs to be kept up to normalise the language in all areas of life if New Zealand is to have any hope of achieving the goal of one million speakers by 2040.
Ngahiwi Apanui says last Friday’s event to honour the pioneers of Māori language revitalisation was a chance to acknowledge those who they paved the way for where we are now.
The next step needs to be normalising te reo across society so tamariki don’t just speak it at kura or on the marae.
“And I remember asking one of them why are you doing this? And she said to me ‘because all the cool songs are in English papa; because everybody on the radio and the tv speaks English, they don’t speak Maori.’ And so that’s why it’s been so important for us to push, you know, mainstream broadcasters to start using te reo.
Mr Apanui says if te reo were to be given the same educational status as English, that would be a huge boost for achieveing their million te reo speakers by 2040 objective – and it would create a truly more bicultural nation.