December 19, 2022
Decade of Indigenous Languages declared
The co-chair of te reo Māori co-governance body Te Mātāwai says urgent national and international efforts are needed to revitalise indigenous languages.
Bernie O’Donnell has been attending a UNESCO conference in Paris to mark the start of the International Decade of Indigenous Languages.
He says some of those languages will be lost soon if there is not a full on intervention – with New Zealand’s 40-year experience with kōhanga reo seen by many as a model.
“The Kōhanga Reo movement that put in a total immersion language space for our babies was the end of the decline and we didn’t know what was going to happen with them. We just knew something had to happen – we would make it up as we went along. Those young fellows and wahine that are now the products of kōhanga reo, the products of whare kura, of kura kaupapa, wānanga Māori, they are our next leaders,’ Mr O’Donnell says.