Before Europeans arrived in Aotearoa New Zealand, the original inhabitants, today known as Māori, identified themselves by their iwi and hapū affiliations, rather than seeing themselves as a single ethnic group.

Before Europeans arrived in Aotearoa New Zealand, the original inhabitants, today known as Māori, identified themselves by their iwi and hapū affiliations, rather than seeing themselves as a single ethnic group. When Europeans arrived, they called all of these different iwi and hapū “New Zealanders.” Thomas Kendall, for example, in 1814 remarked that “the New Zealanders are certainly a fine race of men.”[1] The different iwi and hapū themselves now needed to differentiate themselves as a group from the newly arrived Europeans, and initially used the same term. For example, in an 1843 letter to Queen Victoria, written on their behalf in English by CMS missionary Robert Maunsell, the chiefs of Waikato under Te Wherowhero referred to themselves as “We the New Zealanders.”[2] It goes without saying, therefore, that the first language spoken by people who were called New Zealanders was te reo Māori. Thinking about it in this way, we might ask how New Zealanders now feel about their first spoken language. The answer is, well, complicated.  

When I visited Auckland Hospital last year, I greeted the volunteers manning the front desk (may God bless them) with “Mōrena.” One of the volunteers, an older Pākeha woman, responded defensively. “You could say that, or you could say ‘bonjour,’ or ‘guten morgen’!” I am fairly certain that if had I said either of those foreign greetings, I would have received a much warmer reception than I did by using the only language that comes from this whenua (land). My anecdote shows how te reo Māori can be triggering for some modern New Zealanders.

Opposition by some New Zealanders to the first language spoken by New Zealanders is not a marginal or isolated phenomenon, as revealed by the actions of the newly elected government in October last year. Upon assuming office, the government announced steps to remove, or at least reduce, te reo Māori from the public sphere by removing Māori names from public sector organisations and replacing them with English. This caused a swift backlash, including an almost immediate claim to the Waitangi Tribunal against the government by Ngāi Te Rangi,[3] a hui-ā-motu (national hui) called by Kīngi Tuheitia,[4] and international media attention, which was critical of the NZ government’s moves.[5] The issue of te reo Māori continues to percolate in the media, with stories such as a real estate agent banned from practicing for five years for refusing to do a short course on Māori culture and tikanga,[6] and Te Whatu Ora (Health NZ) staff being ordered not to use “kia ora” and “ngā mihi” in emails.[7] From all of this, it is clear that the place of te reo Māori in New Zealand is highly contested. What is the relationship between being a New Zealander and te reo Māori? This is the question that I want to think about.

As this raruraru (conflict) was gripping our nation around the use, or not, of te reo Māori, I happened to listen to Simon Bridge’s podcast “Generally Famous,” in which he interviewed Matthew Ridge.[8] Ridge, a NZ sporting personality, had moved to France with his French wife and their children, so that their children can grow up with their heritage language. That’s interesting in itself, but what struck me from the interview was Ridge’s astonishment that in Europe “everyone speaks five languages!” Ridge may have been amazed, but what he was witnessing is not peculiar. When my family lived in Myanmar, we had many multilingual friends, some of whom spoke as many as twelve or more languages. Our own children were native speakers of both Burmese and English. When my father immigrated from Holland in 1950 and lived in Murihiku (Southland), he was able to help some Polish immigrants, who knew no English, get some food because they could all speak German together. In fact, bilingualism and multilingualism are the norm, not the exception, around the world. A bilingual Canadian friend once told me, “People who only speak one language are different.”  

This global bi- and multilingual reality stands in stark contrast with what a panellist on Radio New Zealand’s daily episode, “The Panel,” late last year, described as the new government’s “determined monolingualism.” The panellist was pōraruraru (confused, bothered) by the determined steps the government was taking to remove te reo Māori from New Zealand’s public space. When we consider that te reo Māori is an official language of this country, the pōraruraru grows. Why would we want to remove the original language of this whenua from public sight? The answer to this question has nothing to do with a distaste for bi- or multilingualism. Neither does it have anything to do with te reo Māori being too difficult a language to learn. The answer, rather, is tied up with our history as a nation.

The moves by the new government highlight the fact that language is a political issue. This may not be apparent to those who speak the dominant language, which is exactly the point. But to linguistic minorities, whose languages are pushed out of the public sphere, often on their way to being pushed out of existence, the political dimensions of language are a stark reality. When we lived in Myanmar, the government instituted a new national flag, replacing the many stars on the previous flag with one large star in the centre. All of our ethnic minority friends interpreted the flag as symbolising the dominance of the Burmese, and their language, over all of them. Closer to home for us, New Zealand sociolinguist Allan Bell writes in his treatment of the Tower of Babel story,

The modern European nation-state was created with the ideology that a nation should have one single language. That concept still haunts and drives most 21st-century nations. Monolingualism is frequently imperial and coercive against other languages. Stories of children being punished at school for speaking the minority language of their heritage are universal.[9]

The Tower of Babel story begins with an announcement of monolingualism (Gen 11:1) and a plan to build a city and a tower in order as to not be scattered over the face of the whole earth (11:4). The wider context in which the Tower story is set presents monolingualism negatively. The preceding chapter, Genesis 10, known as the “Table of Nations,” outlines the spread of humanity over the earth from Noah’s three sons, Japeth (10:2-4), Ham (10:6-20), and Shem (10:21-31). This expansion is a working out of God’s creation blessing, first given to humanity (Gen 1:28), and then twice repeated to Noah and his family (Gen 9:1 and 7)—“Be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth.” Each of the three family trees in Genesis 10 culminates with a statement that shows how Noah’s sons have fulfilled the blessing by noting their “clans and languages” and “their territories and nations.” In contrast to the fulfilling of God’s blessing in Genesis 10, the tower builders want to stay in one place and insist on just one language.

In addition to the wider literary context, monolingualism is specifically highlighted in the Tower Story as a bad thing: “The Lord said, ‘If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them” (Gen 11:6). God’s fear is not that humans might succeed in reaching the heavens with their tower, but rather for what they will do to each other. One of those things is to impose their language, along with their power, over all others, which goes a long way to explaining some current attitudes towards te reo Māori in New Zealand.

The reaction against te reo Māori by many New Zealanders is, I believe, a product of our history as a nation. Historian Rowan Light explains that “the past is experienced collectively and it produces powerful patterns of collective life.”[10] Early post-Treaty of Waitangi settlers saw Māori as an obstacle to possessing the productive lands they desired. Within thirty years, that obstacle had been largely removed, as many Māori were forcibly dispossessed of their lands, which were then taken over by the settlers.[11] I believe current opposition to te reo Māori by many New Zealanders, at least in part, comes from a deep-seated cultural attitude of “them or us.” So, we arrive at a place where many New Zealanders not only think te reo Māori has no more claim to privilege than any other language, but where te reo Māori is considered more undesirable than any other language.

I want to challenge this attitude by going back to where I started. The first language spoken by New Zealanders was te reo Māori. We could view this through Te Tiriti O Waitangi/the Treaty of Waitangi. Through the Treaty, newcomers to this land also became New Zealanders. By my logic, te reo Māori is intrinsic to being a New Zealander. It is the only language that only belongs to New Zealand; it belongs nowhere else in the world. All New Zealanders should recognise the special place, indeed, the priviliged position, te reo Māori has in New Zealand. It is the language of New Zealand.

In reality, this viewpoint is becoming more and more what New Zealanders think. The efforts by the government to push te reo Māori back out of the public space has been labelled as too late—the horse has bolted, the genie has been let out of the bottle, and other such metaphors have been bandied about. Even the hostile reaction that te reo Māori triggers can be seen positively because the language is now seen as a “threat.” If te reo Māori were not regaining a significant place in New Zealand society, no one would care if I greeted them with “Mōrena.”[12] Te reo Māori is back, and it’s not going away. Kia kaha te reo Māori!

 John de Jong (Ngāi Tahu,  Ngāti Pākehā) is senior lecturer in biblical studies and Postgraduate Lead at Laidlaw College

[1] Quoted in Anne Salmond, Tears of Rangi: Experiments Across Worlds (Auckland: AUP, 2017), 69.

[2] Quoted in Helen Garrett, Te Manihera: The Life and Times of the Pioneer Missionary Robert Maunsell (Auckland: Reed Books, 1991), 112.

[3] https://www.nzherald.co.nz/bay-of-plenty-times/news/taurangas-ngai-te-rangi-files-waitangi-tribunal-claim-against-government/KQMAGNKLNVEEZMVPTFEEPJR6FI/

[4] https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/01/19/kiingitanga-national-hui-all-you-need-to-know-about-the-hui-a-motu/

[5] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/19/new-zealand-maori-king-nationwide-meeting-rare-why-news-details-indigenous-rights; https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/new-zealands-central-bank-defends-maori-language-use-2023-11-29/; https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/maori-are-gathering-to-oppose-proposed-changes-that-could-stop-the-official-use-of-te-reo-maori/qd0cfqsdv; https://edition.cnn.com/2023/12/17/world/new-zealand-nationals-luxon-maori-intl-hnk/index.html

[6] https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/realtor-janet-dickson-facing-5-year-ban-for-refusing-maori-values-course/RUVMVQWKFVBGZE43VH4YF6BL4M/

[7] https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/511665/health-nz-staffer-claims-they-were-told-to-stop-using-kia-ora-and-nga-mihi-in-emails-to-patients

[8] Episode 50, December 2023.

[9] Allan Bell, “Re-constructing Babel: Discourse Analysis, Hermeneutics and the Interpretive Arc,” Discourse Studies 13.5 (2011): 557.

[10] Interviewed by Paul Little, “Past and Present,” New Zealand Listener, February 3-9, 2024, 31.

[11] See Vincent O’Malley, The New Zealand Wars Ngā Pakanga o Aotearoa (Wellington: BWB, 2019).

[12] I owe this insight to sociolinguist Allan Bell, in private conversation.