Hi,
I remember hearing debate years ago about making the Maori language(if that is the correct term) mandatory in schools across New Zealand. Has that happened? I look forward to your feedback.
davidmich
Depends on what you mean by “mandatory.”
IIRC, Kiwi schools have to offer Maori. Students don’t have to take it. All part of a revitalization project to protect the language. It’s one of New Zealand’s 3 official languages, and signage is like it is in Montreal. My guess is even with the protections there are less than 200,000 Maori speakers left on the planet.
What’s the third language? In Montreal, most signage is French only. If there is a second language, not necessarily English, it must be half the size of the French and third languages are not permitted at all.
Thank you all for your helpful replies.
Believe it or not, New Zealand Sign Language!
Does it have to appear on signage?
My wife has been to New Zealand, she says all the signage she saw was in English only. We are both going there in a couple months and we have been working on our itinerary. I am having quite a time wrapping my tongue around the names of some of the places with native names.
When I was a kid in the 70s the Maori language was not only ignored it was poorly mispronounced across the board. Then in the 80s there was a surge in respect for it, and a concerted effort to make people aware of the language and culture as it applied to modern day usage*, and pronunciation and cultural awareness was markedly improved. By the 90s a primer in learning the language, basic words and phrases, was part of the Primary School curriculum. I’m not sure where it’s at now, but I imagine it hasn’t gone backwards to the way it used to be.
My brother is fluent in Maori (and is respected in the Maori Community). He learned it when he was in his 20s.
*We even had inserts made for episodes of Sesame Street, replacing the Spanish segments
Street signs, information signs etc is generally in English only. All documents produced by the government have bilingual headings. In cartography there are an increasing number of place names that have two official names. Generally the Maori is listed first. Aoraki Mt Cook for example.
I think the really notable thing is the number of Maori words and expressions that have become part of the kiwi idiom. Many, such as mana and kia kaha suffer from being translated into English. These words and phrases probably would not have become as well known and used if it weren’t for the fact that te reo maori is not just offered in schools but also has a high participation rate.
Hmm. In fact it seems my brother is the best person to answer the OP’s question.
Guani Lad, will you kindly ask your brother about my understanding that Maori (e.g. the original lyrics for “Now Is The Hour”), Hawaiian ("Alpha Oe?) abd Socuety Island Polynesian are in fatu largely mutually comprehensible, differing only dialectically?
The Kiwis (New Zealanders) I know here in Bangkok have a hard enough time with English. I’d be very surprised if they spoke much or even any Maori at all.
I can’t even find any reference online to “Society Island Polynesian”. I know what the Society Islands are:
Hawaiian, Maori, and Tahitian are all languages in the Central sub-sub-sub-group of the East sub-sub-group of the Nuclear sub-group of the Polynesian group, which is itself a section (way down deep on the branching) of the Austronesian family:
http://www.ethnologue.com/subgroups/central-9
Since I can’t find any reference to Society Island Polynesian, I’m going to presume that you mean Tahitian, since that’s one of the Society Islands. So at the very least Hawaiian, Maori, and Tahitian are closely related.
As evidenced by Guano Lad’s links: I need a translation in every other sentence!
I’ll ask him, but probably this Wikipedia article is enough to suggest you’re right.
I know he visited Canada a couple of times to talk with the First Nations people and was fascinated by how similar they were, culturally, to the Maori.
I recall “Waikiki” means “spouting water,” wai being both Hawaiian and Maori for “water” or “fresh water.” There were other examples I heard, but that’s the one that always sticks in my mind.
I recall reading somewhere that during a voyage to reclaim the traditional polynesian navigational arts, the ocean-going waka (canoe, in this case a double-hulled one) was crewed by a mixture of polynesians from across the pacific - all with skills in traditional navigation, and a mixture of young apprentices and older skilled sailors. With no single common language, they had to use the common elements of their own native languages to form a polynesian pidgin, but it didn’t take long. I wish I could find the cite.
There are charts comparing some words across the various Polynesian languages in these two Wikipedia entries:
The Hawaiian, Tahitian, and Maori terms look to me similar in these small sets of words but not at all identical. This looks like what I would expect for languages that have been separated by about two thousand years. I suspect that these languages are at about the level of separation of, say, English, Dutch, German, and Swedish, so that it’s possible to find many similar words but not possible to actually understand one of the other languages.
Third languages are permitted. Section 58 of the Charter of the French Language doesn’t impose any restrictions on what other languages may be used, provided the French predominates.
Just remember that the “wh” is pronounced “f” and your life will be made a good deal easier. Also, feel free to PM me if you have any tourist-y questions, I spent a little over 3 weeks there about 3 years ago and had a blast.