MAORI LANGUAGE IN DANGER OF BEING DROPPED

Grey River Argus, 22 May 1947, Page 6

MAORI LANGUAGE IN DANGER OF BEING DROPPED

P.A. WELLINGTON, May 2.1. The young Maori people were being “pitchforked” into Fakeha society, and the tragedy was that many of them had neither a firm grip upon the Maori tongue nor upon English, said Mr William Parker, a Ngati-Porou tribe broadcaster, in the employ of the Education Department, when he spoke before the Ethnological Section of the Science Congress to-day on the present state of the Maori language.

“The forces of the new culture are so overwhelming in their impact on the individual and the race that the Maori people are jumping from one language to the other at a greater rate than many Maoris are prepared to admit”, he said. “To-day, the Maori language is being mutilated wholesale”.

The Education Department had made no provision for the teaching of Maori in the schools, and there was ample evidence of incorrect pronunciations of personal and place names. The chairman, Mr R. S. Duff, said that the speaker had raised important and tragic issues, and offered a challenge to the present generation. Professor I. L. G. Sutherland said that a resolution should go forth from th'fe Section emphasising the importance of teaching Maori in schools, and also that some definite research project inquiring into the existing situation should be recommended.