Untitled

Te Ao Hou, December 1965, Page 4

it behind. It took radio and television to help it find the words and the ways of talking, so that Welshmen are now able to use it for everything. While I was in Wales I saw and heard on TV alone (but could not understand alas) features on industrial relations and a strike, slum clearance, church architecture, welfare work, politics, teenage problems, and Christmas shopping. I sat through studio games, interviews, listened and looked at Eisteddfod winners, and innumerable advertisements. And of course I could have (if I had understood) kept up with local and world events and learnt about the weather. Never an English word spoken, and only 114 miles from London. In New Zealand we have a great number of small broadcasting stations and so we have a golden opportunity to make one, say IZC Rotorua, a Maori language station, with everything except the recorded artists using Maori as the spoken word. Expense? Heavy at first compared to other local stations. The station would need a staff of translators, typists of Maori, Maori announcers, programme producers able to produce in Maori, able to improvise, experiment, develop new ideas and unearth new talent; it would need technicians able to understand Maori or able to put up with everything being done in Maori, and roving reporters out at important occasions, both Maori and national, giving special coverage for Maori listeners. And there is the problem of convincing advertisers that advertisements in Maori are not useless and are worth paying the extra they will at first cost to produce. The quality? Who knows? Surely the talent is there. We know we have the musicians and singers already. The effect? Pride in our other New Zealand language. Assistance to all who are learning Maori. A healthy development of the language, no longer just a language of the marae