Concept
Māori language
Overview
Māori (Māori: [ˈmaːɔɾi] ; endonym: te reo Māori [tɛ ɾɛɔ ˈmaːɔɾi], 'the Māori language', also shortened to te reo) is an Eastern Polynesian language and the language of the Māori people, the indigenous population of mainland New Zealand. The southernmost member of the Austronesian language family, it is related to Cook Islands Māori, Tuamotuan, and Tahitian. The Māori Language Act 1987 gave the language recognition as one of New Zealand's official languages. There are regional dialects of the Māori language.
Prior to contact with Europeans, Māori lacked a written language or script. Written Māori now uses the Latin script, which was adopted and the spelling standardised by Northern Māori in collaboration with English Protestant clergy in the 19th century.
In the second half of the 19th century, European children in rural areas spoke Māori with Māori children. It was common for prominent parents of these children, such as government officials, to use Māori in the community. Māori declined due to the increase of the European population and government-imposed educational policies; by the early 20th century its use was banned in school playgrounds and classrooms across the country. The number of speakers fell sharply after 1945, but a Māori language revival movement began in the late 20th century and slowed the decline. The Māori protest movement and the Māori renaissance of the 1970s caused greater social awareness of and support for the language.
The 2018 New Zealand census reported that about 190,000 people, or 4% of the population, could hold an everyday conversation in Māori. As of 2015, 55% of Māori adults reported some knowledge of the language; of these, 64% use Māori at home and around 50,000 people can speak the language "well". As of 2023, around 7% of New Zealand primary and secondary school students are taught fully or partially in Māori, and another 24% learn Māori as an additional language.
In Māori culture, the language is considered to be among the greatest of all taonga, or cultural treasures. Māori is known for its metaphorical poetry and prose, often in the form of karakia, whaikōrero, whakapapa and karanga, and in performing arts such as mōteatea, waiata, and haka.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
Nurses can teach us this language; they understand all their nurslings say to them, they answer them, and keep up long conversations with them; and though they use words, these words are quite useless. It is not the hearing of the word, but its accompanying intonation that is understood. To the language of intonation is added the no less forcible language of gesture. The child uses, not its weak hands, but its face…
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile
States what Māori language is.
This is indicated primarily by the fact that these languages lack what we would call grammatical categories. As regards this point, Westermann's grammar of the Ewe language is in entire agreement with the much earlier results which Steinthal reached in his investigation of the Manda language, which is also of the Soudan region. These languages consist of monosyllabic words which follow one another in direct…
Wilhelm Max Wundt, Elements of Folk Psychology Outline of a Psychological History of the Development of Mankind
States what Māori language is.
Under the old _régime_ it was unquestionably a most serious problem to give the children a full and free use of language. The reason was obvious. The natural motive for language was seldom offered. In the pedagogical text-books language is defined as the medium of expressing thought. It becomes that, more or less, to adults with trained minds, but it hardly needs to be said that language is primarily a social thing…
John Dewey, The School and Society Being three lectures
States what Māori language is.
Philosophers who discussed Māori language
Related ideas
- Anglicanism
- G
- H
- Hawaiian language
- Circumflex
- Literacy
- The Guardian
- Metaphor
- UNESCO
- Orthography
- O
- Performing arts
- Māori people
- I
- University of Cambridge
- University of Auckland
- A
- Aspirated consonant
- U
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights
- World War II
- W
- Wellington
- Bible
Place in the tradition
Part of Language.