Māori language
The Māori language (Māori: Te Reo Māori, shortened to Te Reo) is the language of the Māori and an official language of New Zealand. It is an Austronesian language.
| Māori | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Māori | ||||
| Native to | New Zealand | |||
| Region | Polynesia | |||
| Ethnicity | Māori people | |||
| Native speakers | (60,000 cited 1991) 157,000 New Zealand residents claim they can converse in Māori about everyday things (2006 census)[1] | |||
| Language family | ||||
| Writing system | Latin (Māori alphabet) Māori Braille | |||
| Official status | ||||
| Official language in | New Zealand | |||
| Regulated by | Māori Language Commission | |||
| Language codes | ||||
| ISO 639-1 | mi | |||
| ISO 639-2 | mao (B) mri (T) | |||
| ISO 639-3 | mri | |||
| ||||
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This language has its own Wikipedia project. See the Māori language edition. |
Although it is an official language, not many people speak it fluently. In the 2013 census, about 149,000 people, (3.7% of the population) said that they could have a conversation in Māori about a lot of everyday things.
The language can be seen everywhere throughout New Zealand, as many of the placenames are Māori, such as Whangarei, Rotorua, and Timaru. Lots of government or city buildings use te reo on their signs as well as English, and most of the public schools have a Māori name as well as an English one.[2][3] Some Māori people living in Australia also speak the language.
Te Reo Māori did not have a writing system until the Europeans arrived. In 1817, a Ngāpuhi chief, Tītori, and his relative Tui worked with Professor Samuel Lee and prepared a writing system for te reo.
Māori Language Media
Bilingual sign at railway station in Auckland, New Zealand
"First Lessons in the Maori Language", 1862,by W. L. Williams, third Bishop of Waiapu
He Taonga Te Reo – a celebration of Maori Language poster, Wellington Public Library (1995)
Bastion Point land rights activists with Māori-language signs
Bilingual sign in Broadwood, Northland.
Speakers of Māori according to the 2013 census.* 50%
North Island dialects[4]
Part of the annotation to a Ralph Hotere exhibition at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery, written bilingually in English and southern Māori. Note several regional variations, such as Nohoka (Nohoanga, a place or seat), tikaka (tikanga, customs), pako (pango, black), and whaka (whanga, harbour).
Diagram of pronouns in Māori. Grammatical person: Template:Hlist*
References
- ↑ Statistics New Zealand:Language spoken (total responses) for the 1996–2006 censuses (Table 16) Archived 2013-03-09 at Archive-It.
- ↑ "Newtown School | Wellington". Retrieved 2020-01-27.
- ↑ "Wellington High School". Wellington High School. Retrieved 2020-01-27.
- ↑ Harlow 2007.
