Prof Rawinia Higgins tells the Guardian that te reo Māori is under threat from the rightwing coalition despite long-running efforts to revive it

New Zealand’s Māori language commissioner has described government policies to limit the use of the Indigenous language in the public service as “a risk” to the half-century effort to revive it.

“Any affront to the efforts that we have been making has to be taken seriously,” the commissioner, Prof Rawinia Higgins, told the Guardian. “We’re seeing a reaction – only from a small corner of people, but enough that we don’t want that to snowball.”

This year Māori language week, held in September, comes at a time of fractious relations between Māori and the coalition government over its policies, which includes measures Māori leaders have said relegates the language, known as te reo, to a second-class status.

Since being sworn in last December, several government ministers have ordered their departments to stop using Māori names. Other ministries have asked staff to stop using te reo Māori in briefing papers and to communicate primarily in English, while others have stopped funding language courses for staff.

  • nemno@lemmy.worldEnglish
    714·
    3 months ago

    Or practicality because its a language understood by 4% of the userbase. If its any thing like here (we also have a minority language recognized as an official language), maybe they should use it where it makes sense. Not have a policy that all communication be in both.

    But sure, it can be as you stated, suppression and racism.

    • AllNewTypeFace@leminal.spaceEnglish
      191·
      3 months ago

      Ireland has been independent for about a century and outside the Gaeltacht, everybody speaks English, and yet Irish (i.e. Gaelic) is still taught to all pupils and used on official documents. In Wales (which, for most administrative purposes, is a part of an entity known as England-and-Wales), signage has to be in both English and Welsh, and official agencies have to provide services in Welsh; there are few monolingual Welsh speakers and anecdotally the popularity of Welsh of said to alternate generationally (i.e., if your parents don’t speak it, it’s cool).

      Representation is important in a pluralist democracy, and the people who want to eliminate minority language support to “better fund schools and hospitals” or whatever generally aren’t in favour of funding public services either (much in the same way that those who want to kick foreigners out to “help our own” overwhelmingly tend to be against actually helping our own), but “let’s get rid of te reo to fund tax cuts for the rich” doesn’t sound as compelling

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldMEnglish
        93·
        3 months ago

        And really, letting a language die when there are still indigenous people around to speak it is pretty shitty of a government composed primarily of the descendants of European colonists.

      • nemno@lemmy.worldEnglish
        21·
        3 months ago

        Yeah, i mean, what if the entirety of the UK had to have everything bilingual. Thats kinda what i was saying about practicality, it doesnt make sense to spend the resources to push the language on areas and people who have no knowledge or interest in learning it.

        But, im not afraid of speaking my mind, and im not afraid to be wrong either. I dont know a lot about the situation in NZ but i know that its difficult tho. If the situation is as i suspect then i think the resources is better spent in the areas that makes sense.

    • HappycamperNZ@lemmy.worldEnglish
      172·
      3 months ago

      Id argue that 4% is why it needs to be used.

      Im not telling you to speak it fluently, but if you asked the general population if they use Maori at least once on a daily basis it would be much higher that 4%.

      Or just simply remember its like sign language - if its all people want to or can “speak” and an official language they should be disadvantaged.