Māori language

"First Lessons in the Maori Language", 1862,
by W. L. Williams, first Bishop of Waiapu

According to legend, Māori came to New Zealand from Hawaiki. Current anthropological thinking places their origin in eastern Polynesia, mostly likely from the Southern Cook or Society Islands region, and says that they arrived by deliberate voyages in seagoing canoes[24]—possibly double-hulled, and probably sail-rigged. These settlers probably arrived by about AD 1280 (see Māori origins). Their language and its dialects developed in isolation until the 19th century.

Since about 1800, the Māori language has had a tumultuous history. It started this period as the predominant language of New Zealand. In the 1860s, it became a minority language in the shadow of the English spoken by many settlers, missionaries, gold-seekers, and traders. In the late 19th century, the colonial governments of New Zealand and its provinces introduced an English-style school system for all New Zealanders. From the mid 1800s, due to the Native Schools Act and later the Native Schools Code, the use of Māori in schools was slowly filtered out of the curriculum in order to become more European.[25] Increasing numbers of Māori people learned English.

Until the Second World War (1939–1945), most Māori people spoke Māori as their first language. Worship took place in Māori; it functioned as the language of Māori homes; Māori politicians conducted political meetings in Māori, and some literature appeared in Māori, along with many newspapers.[26]

Before 1880, some Māori parliamentarians suffered disadvantages because Parliament's proceedings took place in English.[27] However, by 1900, all Māori members of parliament, such as Sir Āpirana Ngata, were university graduates who spoke fluent English. From this period greater emphasis was placed on Māori learning English, but it was not until the migration of Māori to urban areas after the Second World War that the number of speakers of Māori began to decline rapidly.[28] Some Māori children who spoke Te Reo at school were physically disciplined which contributed to the decline in the Te Reo language in the 1940s to 1980s. By the 1980s, fewer than 20 per cent of Māori spoke the language well enough to be classed as native speakers. Even many of those people no longer spoke Māori in their homes. As a result, many Māori children failed to learn their ancestral language, and generations of non-Māori-speaking Māori emerged.[29]

By the 1980s, Māori leaders had begun to recognise the dangers of the loss of their language, and initiated Māori-language recovery-programs such as the Kōhanga Reo movement, which from 1982 immersed infants in Māori from infancy to school age. There followed in 1985 the founding of the first Kura Kaupapa Māori (Years 1 to 8 Māori-medium education programme) and later the first Wharekura (Years 9 to 13 Māori-medium education programme). Although "there was a true revival of te reo in the 1980s and early to mid-1990s ... spurred on by the realisation of how few speakers were left, and by the relative abundance of older fluent speakers in both urban neighbourhoods and rural communities", the language has continued to decline.[5] The decline is believed "to have several underlying causes".[30] These include:

• the ongoing loss of older native speakers who have spearheaded the Māori-language-revival movement
• complacency brought about by the very existence of the institutions which drove the revival
• concerns about quality, with the supply of good teachers never matching demand (even while that demand has been shrinking)
• excessive regulation and centralised control, which has alienated some of those involved in the movement
• an ongoing lack of educational resources needed to teach the full curriculum in te reo Māori.[30]

Based on the principles of partnership, Māori-speaking government, general revitalisation and dialectal protective policy, and adequate resourcing, the Waitangi Tribunal has recommended "four fundamental changes":[31]

1. Te Taura Whiri (the Māori Language Commission) should become the lead Māori language sector agency. This will address the problems caused by the lack of ownership and leadership identified by the Office of the Auditor-General.[32]
2. Te Taura Whiri should function as a Crown–Māori partnership through the equal appointment of Crown and Māori appointees to its board. This reflects [the Tribunal's] concern that te reo revival will not work if responsibility for setting the direction is not shared with Māori.
3. Te Taura Whiri will also need increased powers. This will ensure that public bodies are compelled to contribute to te reo's revival and that key agencies are held properly accountable for the strategies they adopt. For instance, targets for the training of te reo teachers must be met, education curricula involving te reo must be approved, and public bodies in districts with a sufficient number and/or proportion of te reo speakers and schools with a certain proportion of Māori students must submit Māori language plans for approval.
4. These regional public bodies and schools must also consult iwi (Māori tribes or tribal confederations) in the preparation of their plans. In this way, iwi will come to have a central role in the revitalisation of te reo in their own areas. This should encourage efforts to promote the language at the grassroots.[33]

The changes set forth by the Tribunal are merely recommendations; they are not binding upon government.[34]

There is however evidence that the revitalisation efforts are taking hold, as can be seen in the teaching of te reo in the school curriculum, the use of Māori as an instructional language, and the supportive ideologies surrounding these efforts.[35] In 2014, a survey of students ranging in age from 18–24 was conducted; the students were of mixed ethnic backgrounds, ranging from Pākehā to Māori who lived in New Zealand. This survey showed a 62% response saying that te reo Māori was at risk.[35] Albury argues that these results come from the language either not being used enough in common discourse, or from the fact that the number of speakers was inadequate for future language development.[35]

The policies for language revitalisation have been changing in attempts to improve Māori language use and have been working with suggestions from the Waitangi Tribunal on the best ways to implement the revitalisation. The Waitangi Tribunal in 2011 identified a suggestion for language revitalisation that would shift indigenous policies from the central government to the preferences and ideologies of the Māori people.[34] This change recognises the issue of Māori revitalisation as one of indigenous self-determination, instead of the job of the government to identify what would be best for the language and Māori people of New Zealand.[36]

Beginning in about 2015, the Māori language underwent a revival as it became increasingly popular, as a common national heritage, even among New Zealanders without Māori roots. Surveys from 2018 indicated that "the Māori language currently enjoys a high status in Māori society and also positive acceptance by the majority of non-Māori New Zealanders".[6]

As the status and prestige of the language rose, so did the demand for language classes. Businesses were quick to adopt the trend as it became apparent that using te reo made customers think of a company as "committed to New Zealand".[6] The language became increasingly heard in the media and in politics. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern—who gave her daughter a Māori middle name—made headlines when she toasted Commonwealth leaders in 2018 with a Māori proverb, and the success of Māori musical groups such as Alien Weaponry and Maimoa further increased the language's presence in social media.[6]

In 2019, Kotahi Rau Pukapuka Trust began work on publishing a sizeable library of local and international literature in the language.[37] In 2019, a Te Reo card game (Tākaro) was created by Hamilton entrepreneurs.[38] By 2020, there was a brand that aimed to help mothers promote te reo Māori in their homes through hand-made taonga.[39]

The alphabet devised at Cambridge University does not mark vowel length. The following examples show that vowel length is phonemic in Māori:

Māori devised ways to mark vowel length, sporadically at first. Occasional and inconsistent vowel-length markings occur in 19th-century manuscripts and newspapers written by Māori, including macron-like diacritics and doubling of letters. Māori writer Hare Hongi (Henry Stowell) used macrons in his Maori-English Tutor and Vade Mecum of 1911,[55] as does Sir Āpirana Ngata (albeit inconsistently) in his Maori Grammar and Conversation (7th printing 1953). Once the Māori language was taught in universities in the 1960s, vowel-length marking was made systematic. At Auckland University, Professor Bruce Biggs (of Ngāti Maniapoto descent) promoted the use of double vowels (e.g. Maaori); this style was standard there until Biggs died in 2000.

Macrons (tohutō) are now the standard means of indicating long vowels,[56] after becoming the favoured option of the Māori Language Commission—set up by the Māori Language Act 1987 to act as the authority for Māori spelling and orthography.[57][58] Most media now use macrons; Stuff websites and newspapers since 2017,[59] TVNZ[60] and NZME websites and newspapers since 2018.[61]

Technical limitations in producing macronised vowels on typewriters and older computer systems are sometimes resolved by using a diaeresis instead of a macron (e.g., Mäori).[62]

Double vowels continue to be used in a few exceptional cases, including:

• The Waikato-Tainui iwi preference is for using doubled vowels;[63] hence in the Waikato region, double vowels are used by the Hamilton City Council,[64] Waikato District Council[65] and Waikato Museum.
• Inland Revenue continues to spell its Māori name Te Tari Taake instead of Te Tari Tāke, mainly to reduce the resemblance of tāke to the English word take.[66]
• A considerable number of governmental and non-governmental organisations continue to use the older spelling of ⟨roopu⟩ ('association') in their names rather than the more modern form ⟨rōpū⟩. Examples include Te Roopu Raranga Whatu o Aotearoa ('the national Māori weavers' collective') and Te Roopu Pounamu (a Māori-specific organisation within the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand).
• Double vowels are also used instead of macrons in long vowels resultant from compounding or reduplication.[67]

Although it is commonly claimed that vowel realisations (pronunciations) in Māori show little variation, linguistic research has shown this not to be the case.[68]

Vowel length is phonemic; but four of the five long vowels occur in only a handful of word roots, the exception being /aː/.[69] As noted above, it has recently become standard in Māori spelling to indicate a long vowel with a macron. For older speakers, long vowels tend to be more peripheral and short vowels more centralised, especially with the low vowel, which is long [aː] but short [ɐ]. For younger speakers, they are both [a]. For older speakers, /u/ is only fronted after /t/; elsewhere it is [u]. For younger speakers, it is fronted [ʉ] everywhere, as with the corresponding phoneme in New Zealand English.

As in many other Polynesian languages, diphthongs in Māori vary only slightly from sequences of adjacent vowels, except that they belong to the same syllable, and all or nearly all sequences of nonidentical vowels are possible. All sequences of nonidentical short vowels occur and are phonemically distinct.[70] With younger speakers, /ai, au/ start with a higher vowel than the [a] of /ae, ao/.

The following table shows the five vowel phonemes and the allophones for some of them according to Bauer 1997 and Harlow 2006. Some of these phonemes occupy large spaces in the anatomical vowel triangle (actually a trapezoid) of tongue positions. For example, as above, /u/ is sometimes realised as [ʉ].

Beside monophthongs Māori has many diphthong vowel phonemes. Although any short vowel combinations are possible, researchers disagree on which combinations constitute diphthongs.[72] Formant frequency analysis distinguish /aĭ/, /aĕ/, /aŏ/, /aŭ/, /oŭ/ as diphthongs.[73]

The consonant phonemes of Māori are listed in the following table. Seven of the ten Māori consonant letters have the same pronunciation as they do in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For those that do not, the IPA phonetic transcription is included, enclosed in square brackets per IPA convention.

The pronunciation of ⟨wh⟩ is extremely variable,[74] but its most common pronunciation (its canonical allophone) is the labiodental fricative, IPA [f] (as found in English). Another allophone is the bilabial fricative, IPA [ɸ], which is usually supposed to be the sole pre-European pronunciation, although linguists are not sure of the truth of this supposition. At least until the 1930s, the bilabial fricative was considered to be the correct pronunciation.[75] The fact that English ⟨f⟩ gets substituted by ⟨p⟩ and not ⟨wh⟩ in borrowings (for example, English February becomes Pēpuere instead of *Whēpuere) would strongly hint that the Māori did not perceive English /f/ to be the same sound as their ⟨wh⟩.

Because English stops /p, t, k/ primarily have aspiration, speakers of English often hear the Māori nonaspirated stops as English /b, d, ɡ/. However, younger Māori speakers tend to aspirate /p, t, k/ as in English. English speakers also tend to hear Māori /r/ as English /l/ in certain positions (cf. Japanese r). These ways of hearing have given rise to place-name spellings which are incorrect in Māori, like Tolaga Bay in the North Island and Otago and Waihola in the South Island.

/ŋ/ can come at the beginning of a word (like sing-along without the "si"), which is difficult for English speakers outside of New Zealand to manage.

/h/ is pronounced as a glottal stop, [ʔ], and the sound of ⟨wh⟩ as [ʔw], in some western areas of North Island.

/ɾ/ is typically a flap, especially before /a/. However, elsewhere it is sometimes trilled.

In borrowings from English, many consonants are substituted by the nearest available Māori consonant. For example, the English fricatives /tʃ/, /dʒ/, and /s/ are replaced by /h/, /f/ becomes /p/, and /l/ becomes /ɾ/ (the /l/ is sometimes retained in the southern dialect, as noted below).

Syllables in Māori have one of the following forms: V, VV, CV, CVV. This set of four can be summarised by the notation, (C)V(V), in which the segments in parentheses may or may not be present. A syllable cannot begin with two consonant sounds (the digraphs ng and wh represent single consonant sounds), and cannot end in a consonant, although some speakers may occasionally devoice a final vowel. All possible CV combinations are grammatical, though wo, who, wu, and whu occur only in a few loanwords from English such as wuru, "wool" and whutuporo, "football".[76]

As in many other Polynesian languages, e.g., Hawaiian, the rendering of loanwords from English includes representing every English consonant of the loanword (using the native consonant inventory; English has 24 consonants to 10 for Māori) and breaking up consonant clusters. For example, "Presbyterian" has been borrowed as Perehipeteriana; no consonant position in the loanword has been deleted, but /s/ and /b/ have been replaced with /h/ and /p/, respectively.

Stress is typically within the last four vowels of a word, with long vowels and diphthongs counting double. That is, on the last four moras. However, stressed moras are longer than unstressed moras, so the word does not have the precision in Māori that it does in some other languages. It falls preferentially on the first long vowel, on the first diphthong if there is no long vowel (though for some speakers never a final diphthong), and on the first syllable otherwise. Compound words (such as names) may have a stressed syllable in each component word. In long sentences, the final syllable before a pause may have a stress in preference to the normal stressed syllable.

In the southwest of the island, in the Whanganui and Taranaki regions, the phoneme ⟨h⟩ is a glottal stop and the phoneme ⟨wh⟩ is [ʔw]. This difference was the subject of considerable debate during the 1990s and 2000s over the then-proposed change of the name of the city Wanganui to Whanganui.

In Tūhoe and the Eastern Bay of Plenty (northeastern North Island) ⟨ng⟩ has merged with ⟨n⟩. In parts of the Far North, ⟨wh⟩ has merged with ⟨w⟩.

In the extinct South Island dialects, ng merged with k in many regions. Thus Kāi Tahu and Ngāi Tahu are variations in the name of the same iwi (the latter form is the one used in acts of Parliament). Since 2000, the government has altered the official names of several southern place names to the southern dialect forms by replacing ng with k. New Zealand's highest mountain, known for centuries as Aoraki in southern Māori dialects that merge ng with k, and as Aorangi by other Māori, was later named "Mount Cook", in honour of Captain Cook. Now its sole official name is Aoraki / Mount Cook, which favours the local dialect form. Similarly, the Māori name for Stewart Island, Rakiura, is cognate with the name of the Canterbury town of Rangiora. Likewise, Dunedin's main research library, the Hocken Collections, has the name Uare Taoka o Hākena rather than the northern (standard) Te Whare Taonga o Hākena.[81] Maarire Goodall and George Griffiths say there is also a voicing of k to g – this is why the region of Otago (southern dialect) and the settlement it is named after – Otakou (standard Māori) – vary in spelling (the pronunciation of the latter having changed over time to accommodate the northern spelling).[82] Westland's Waitangitaona River became two distinct rivers after an avulsion, each named in a differing dialect. While the northern river was named the Waitangitāhuna River, the southern river became the Waitakitāhuna-ki-te-Toka, using the more usual southern spelling (ki-te-Toka, "of the south", would be rendered ki-te-Tonga in standard Māori).

The standard Māori r is also found occasionally changed to an l in these southern dialects and the wh to w. These changes are most commonly found in place names, such as Lake Waihola[83] and the nearby coastal settlement of Wangaloa (which would, in standard Māori, be rendered Whangaroa), and Little Akaloa, on Banks Peninsula. Goodall and Griffiths claim that final vowels are given a centralised pronunciation as schwa or that they are elided (pronounced indistinctly or not at all), resulting in such seemingly-bastardised place names as The Kilmog, which in standard Māori would have been rendered Kirimoko, but which in southern dialect would have been pronounced very much as the current name suggests.[84] This same elision is found in numerous other southern placenames, such as the two small settlements called The Kaik (from the term for a fishing village, kainga in standard Māori), near Palmerston and Akaroa, and the early spelling of Lake Wakatipu as Wagadib. In standard Māori, Wakatipu would have been rendered Whakatipua, showing further the elision of a final vowel.

Despite being officially regarded as extinct,[85] many government and educational agencies in Otago and Southland encourage the use of the dialect in signage[86] and official documentation.[87]

Biggs (1998) developed an analysis that the basic unit of Māori speech is the phrase rather than the word.[91] The lexical word forms the "base" of the phrase. Biggs identifies five types of bases.

Noun bases include those bases that can take a definite article, but cannot occur as the nucleus of a verbal phrase; for example: ika (fish) or rākau (tree).[92] Plurality is marked by various means, including the definite article (singular te, plural ngā),[93] deictic particles "tērā rākau" (that tree), "ērā rākau" (those trees),[94] possessives "taku whare" (my house), "aku whare" (my houses).[95] A few nouns lengthen a vowel in the plural, such as wahine (woman); wāhine (women).[96] In general, bases used as qualifiers follow the base they qualify, e.g. "matua wahine" (mother, female elder) from "matua" (parent, elder) "wahine" (woman).[97]

Universal bases are verbs which can be used passively. When used passively, these verbs take a passive form. Biggs gives three examples of universals in their passive form: inumia (drunk), tangihia (wept for), and kīa (said).[98]

Stative bases serve as bases usable as verbs but not available for passive use, such as ora, alive or tika, correct.[98] Grammars generally refer to them as "stative verbs". When used in sentences, statives require different syntax than other verb-like bases.[99]

Locative bases can follow the locative particle ki (to, towards) directly, such as runga, above, waho, outside, and placenames (ki Tamaki, to Auckland).[100]

Personal bases take the personal article a after ki, such as names of people (ki a Hohepa, to Joseph), personified houses, personal pronouns, wai? who? and Mea, so-and-so.[100]

Like all other Polynesian languages, Māori has a rich array of particles, which include verbal particles, pronouns, locative particles, articles and possessives.

Verbal particles indicate aspectual, tense related or modal properties of the verb to which they relate to. They include:

• i (past)
• e (non-past)
• i te (past continuous)
• kei te (present continuous)[101]
• kua (perfect)
• e ... ana (imperfect, continuous)
• ka (inceptive, future)
• kia (desiderative)
• me (prescriptive)
• kei (warning, "lest")
• ina or ana (punctative-conditional, "if and when")[102]
• kāti (cessative)[103]
• ai (habitual)[104]

Locative particles (prepositions) refer to position in time and/or space, and include:

• ki (to, towards)
• kei (at)
• i (past position)
• hei (future position)[105]

Possessives fall into one of two classes of prepositions marked by a and o, depending on the dominant versus subordinate relationship between possessor and possessed: ngā tamariki a te matua, the children of the parent but te matua o ngā tamariki, the parent of the children.[106]

Definitives include the articles te (singular) and ngā (plural)[107] and the possessive prepositions tā and tō.[90] These also combine with the pronouns.

The indefinite article he is usually positioned at the beginning of the phrase in which it is used. The indefinite article is used when the base is used indefinitely or nominally. These phrases can be identified as an indefinite nominal phrase. The article either can be translated to the English ‘a’ or ‘some’, but the number will not be indicated by he. The indefinite article he when used with mass nouns like water and sand will always mean 'some'.[108]

The proper article a is used for personal nouns. The personal nouns do not have the definite or indefinite articles on the proper article unless it is an important part of its name. The proper article a always being the phrase with the personal noun.[109]

Demonstratives occur after the noun and have a deictic function, and include tēnei, this (near me), tēnā, that (near you), tērā, that (far from us both), and taua, the aforementioned (anaphoric). Other definitives include tēhea? (which?), and tētahi, (a certain). The plural is formed just by dropping the t: tēnei (this), ēnei (these). The related adverbs are nei (here), nā (there, near you), rā (over there, near him).[110]

Pronouns have singular, dual and plural number. Different first-person forms in both the dual and the plural are used for groups inclusive or exclusive of the listener.

Diagram of pronouns in Māori. Grammatical person:

•   1
•   2
•   3

Like other Polynesian languages, Māori has three numbers for pronouns and possessives: singular, dual and plural. For example: ia (he/she), rāua (they two), rātou (they, three or more). Māori pronouns and possessives further distinguish exclusive "we" from inclusive "we", second and third. It has the plural pronouns: mātou (we, exc), tātou (we, inc), koutou (you), rātou (they). The language features the dual pronouns: māua (we two, exc), tāua (we two, inc), kōrua (you two), rāua (they two). The difference between exclusive and inclusive lies in the treatment of the person addressed. Mātou refers to the speaker and others but not the person or persons spoken to ("I and some others but not you"), and tātou refers to the speaker, the person or persons spoken to and everyone else ("you, I and others"):[111]

• Tēnā koe: hello (to one person)
• Tēnā kōrua: hello (to two people)
• Tēnā koutou: hello (to more than two people)[112]

The possessive pronouns vary according to person, number, clusivity, and possessive class (a class or o class). Example: tāku pene (my pen), āku pene (my pens). For dual and plural subject pronouns, the possessive form is analytical, by just putting the possessive particle (tā/tō for singular objects or ā/ō for plural objects) before the personal pronouns, e.g. tā tātou karaihe (our class), tō rāua whare (their [dual] house); ā tātou karaihe (our classes). The neuter one must be followed by a noun and only occur for singular first, second and third persons. Taku is my, aku is my (plural, for many possessed items). The plural is made by deleting the initial [t].[90]

• wai ('who')
• aha ('what')
• hea ('where')
• nō hea ('whence')
• āhea ('when')
• e hia ('how many [things]')
• tokohia ('how many [people]')
• pēhea ('how')
• tēhea ('which'), ēhea ('which [pl.]')
• he aha ... ai ('why [reason]')
• nā te aha ... ai ('why [cause]')[113]

A phrase spoken in Māori can be broken up into two parts: the “nucleus” or "head" and “periphery” (modifiers, determiners). The nucleus can be thought of as the meaning and is the centre of the phrase, whereas the periphery is where the grammatical meaning is conveyed and occurs before and/or after the nucleus.[114]

The nucleus whare can be translated as "house", the periphery te is similar to an article "the" and the periphery nei indicates proximity to the speaker. The whole phrase, te whare nei, can then be translated as "this house".[115]

A definite and declarative sentence (may be a copulative sentence) begins with the declarative particle ko.[116] If the sentence is topicalized (agent topic, only in non-present sentences) the particle nā begins the sentence (past tense) or the mā (future, imperfective) followed by the agent/subject. In these cases the word order changes to SVO. These agent topicalizing particles can contract with singular personal pronouns and vary according to the possessive classes: nāku can be thought of as meaning "as for me" and behave like an emphatic or dative pronoun.[117]

• Nominative: ko[118]
• Accusative: i[119]
• Dative/directional locative: ki[120]
• Genitive: a/o[121]

Forming negative phrases in Māori is quite grammatically complex. There are several different negators which are used under various specific circumstances.[122] The four main negators are as follows:[122]

Kīhai and tē are two negators which may be seen in specific dialects or older texts, but are not widely used.[122] The most common negator is kāhore, which may occur in one of four forms, with the kāo form only being used in response to a question.[122] Negative phrases, besides using kāore, also affect the form of verbal particles, as illustrated below.

The general usage of kāhore can be seen in the following examples. The subject is usually raised in negative phrases, although this is not obligatory.[123] Each example of a negative phrase is presented with its analogue positive phrase for comparison.

The passive voice of verbs is made by a suffix to the verb. For example, -ia (or just -a if the verb ends in [i]). The other passive suffixes, some of which are very rare, are: -hanga/-hia/-hina/-ina/-kia/-kina/-mia/-na/-nga/-ngia/-ria/-rina/-tia/-whia/-whina/.[125] The use of the passive suffix -ia is given in this sentence: Kua hangaia te marae e ngā tohunga (The marae has been built by the experts). The active form of this sentence is rendered as: Kua hanga ngā tohunga i te marae (The experts have built the marae). It can be seen that the active sentence contains the object marker 'i', that is not present in the passive sentence, while the passive sentence has the agent marker 'e', which is not present in the active sentence.[126]

Polar questions (yes/no questions) can be made by just changing the intonation of the sentence. The answers may be āe (yes) or kāo (no).[127]

Although Māori is mostly analytical there are several derivational affixes:

• -anga, -hanga, -ranga, -tanga (-ness, -ity) (the suffix depends on whether the verb takes, respectively, the -ia, -hia, -ria or -tia passive suffixes) (e.g. pōti 'vote', pōtitanga 'election')
• -nga (nominalizer)[128]
• kai- (agentive noun)[129] (e.g. mahi 'work', kaimahi 'worker/employee')
• ma- (adjectives)[130]
• tua- (ordinal numerals)[131] (e.g. tahi 'one', tuatahi 'first/primary')
• whaka- (causative prefix)[132]