Māori Language Revitalization

Introduction to Māori Language Revitalization

• Language and culture must cross generations, within the context of Taranaki Māori.
• Raising children in the Māori language is vital for its survival.
• Achieving this goal presents challenges despite seeming straightforward.
• The talk addresses issues and necessary steps for intergenerational transfer of language and culture.

Personal Connection to Māori Language

• The speaker didn't grow up speaking Māori. This due to family circumstances and living outside Taranaki.
• The speaker's father was from Lancashire, England; her mother, a Taranaki Māori woman, did not speak Māori.
• Visits to see family, cultural events, and time on farms cultivated the speaker's Taranaki identity.
• The speaker's grandparents primarily spoke Māori amongst themselves, not including their children and grandchildren in conversations.
• This disconnect marked a break in the family's lineage of native speakers.

Historical Context and Language Decline

• Research from the 1970s by Richard Benton and his team showed a significant decline in Māori language speakers.
• The NZCER interviewed over 33,000 people. This recorded data on their Māori language ability.
• Those who spoke Māori learned the language at home and in their communities rather than in schools.
• Research showed a decline in Māori speakers around the Great Depression and World War II, except in certain communities.
• Contributing factors include: Government policies, post-war urbanization dispersing native speakers, discouragement in schools.
• By 1927, over half the communities in Taranaki could no longer sustain their language.

The Māori Language Revival Movement

• The release of research findings coincided with a political awakening for Māori in the 1970s.
• This included the Māori language petition in 1972, and the Māori Language march in 1975.
• The findings showed the rate of language loss. Some feared Māori would no longer exist as a living language.
• This realization led to the Māori language revitalization efforts.
• The speaker's mother enrolled her children in Māori boarding schools after her grandmother passed away.

Immersion and Education Initiatives

• Learning Māori in schools was challenging. The curriculum focused on reading, writing, translation, and grammar.
• The speaker gained fluency through a two-week immersion program in Raglan.
• This immersion program used the Te Ataarangi community-based teaching method.
• Upon returning to Taranaki, the speaker engaged in intensive Māori language immersion. This included night classes, weekend immersions, and community initiatives.
• A formal tertiary education Māori language immersion class commenced via collaboration with the Taranaki Polytechnic.

The Trifecta and Misreading the Situation

• The trifecta involved access to resources (facilities, learning, teaching resources), qualifications for students. This lead to employment, and collaboration with renowned native speakers.
• The tertiary focus led to a misreading of the situation, in that students lost confidence and were embarrassed about their proficiency.
• Emphasis was placed on employability and academic achievement, instead of language revitalization and vitality.
• Language vitality refers to a native speaker community's ability to maintain its language despite the dominance of another.

Reversing Language Shift

• Academics such as Joshua Fishman and Bernard Spolsky emphasized that communities can reverse language shift by making a concerted effort.
• Bilingualism requires parents to raise their children in Māori, known as "Te Reo ki roto, Te Reo ki waho".
• Conscious effort, planning, goal-setting, rules, and expectations are needed to change language habits.

Benefits of Māori Language Revitalization

• Māori language revitalization empowers parents and families to make informed decisions about language, culture, and identity for their children.
• It fosters an environment where Māori is naturally sustained as a mother tongue.
• It reduces the need for extensive language learning and allows children to cope with multiple languages from an early age.
• Revitalization can retain regional dialects and localized identity through languages spoken and cultures maintained.
• Language, culture, and identity revitalization requires intergenerational transfer.