Worry over language survival

Press, 28 July 1986, Page 7

Worry over language survival

PA Hamilton Many Maori people do not care about the survival of the Maori language, says the Waikato University Maori department’s head, Mr Timoti Karetu. He said the growth of the Kohanga Reo movement and the teaching of Maori in schools and universities were not enough to secure the future of the Maori language.

“The number of native speakers is dying out far more rapidly than we are able to replace them by education,” he said. Mr Karetu said between 60,000 and 70,000 people were reported to use Maori in conversation but this represented only one fifth of the Maori population. The Maori people who cared about the language and its destiny, and who were working for its survival, remained a

small proportion of the Maori community. “For the language to survive the Maori people themselves have to care enough to do something about it,” he said.

But the Maori community at large was not committed to the survival of the language and preferred to speak English.

Mr Karetu called for speakers of Maori — both Maori and pakeha — to use the language more often in public, and for Maori organisations to conduct all their meetings in Maori.

"Unless every Maori organisation in this country uses Maori language as its medium for discussion we have iitle hope of the language surviving.” Groups ranging from the Maori Women’s Welfare League to the Maori Council and the New Zealand Polynesian Festival

Cbmmittee and all groups competing in the festival used English for their meetings, Mr Karetu said.

“At the moment we are even prepared to let people use English on the marae. I think the marae is the last bastion against the encroachment of the English language.” “Every Maori person who speaks Maori should be using the language on every occasion so that Maori Language Week is not one week but every day, every second of the year. “What we need is commitment and that means using the language on every possible occasion,” he said. “We have to stop apologising for using Maori in public. Every Maori person in a public position, from the Gover-nor-General and members of Parliament, should be using Maori as much as possible.”

Better standards were also required from publishers who were now producing more books in Maori, Mr Karetu said. “Their Maori language is not always terribly accurate nor very good.” He applauded publishers fbr seeing value in publishing books in Maori but they owed it to the public to set higher standards of editing. The low-key approach to Maori Language Week this year was a mark of apathy among many Maori people. However, there were now also more avenues for people to promote the language than when the annual event started as Maori language day in the early 19705. But Maori Language Week remained valuable, "Any occasion that draws attention to the fact that there is another language in this country has a value.”