Te Reo Maori Is a Taonga

Te reo Māori is a taonga, it is part of the very fabric of Māori culture and at the Waitangi Tribunal in 1986 (cited in Ritchie, 2003) it was said that “it is inconceivable that Māori people can retain any measure of their identity without the language’. This paper will seek to describe the historical development of te reo Māori, critically examining the events, the attitudes and the beliefs that impacted its fights for survival. This paper will then look to explore Te reo Māori's relevance to Te Tiriti o Waitangi/ the Treaty of Waitangi, Te Whāriki and whanaungatanga discussing the significance for bicultural practice in early childhood education.

From the time of Captain James Cook's landfall in New Zealand in 1769 to the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi/the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, New Zealand was a hostile and tense environment. This was due to an increasing number of traders and adventures arriving in New Zealand along with the growing concerns that the French wished to claim New Zealand as their own (Ka'ai, Moorfield, Reilly & Mosley, 2004). During this time the attitudes of both Māori and the settlers began to change as they acknowledged what they could offer each other. Te reo Māori was the predominant language of New Zealand during this time, however things began to change as the Pākehā population grew. As more Europeans arrived, English became the dominant language. With this came an attitude and a belief that the British way of doing things was the best and the only way.

This saw the introduction of the Native Schools Act in 1867 which asserted that English should be the only language used in the eduction of Māori children (Ka'ai et al, 2004). Although the Native Schools Code drawn up by James Pope in 1880, allowed the Māori language to be used by teachers as a transition measure for new students, the belief behind this was that this would allow the student to move into studying in English quicker. As a result of this attitute teachers were encouraged to ensure that any transition period remained as short as possible (Ritchie, 2003).

By the 1870s there was signs of growing support from Māori support for the Native schools and the English only policy. This change in attitude emerged because of a growing awareness that there were some positive benefits to be gained by being able to speak English. By 1905 Education authorities had taken a hard line and the Inspector of Native Schools issued an instruction that resulted in the punishment of children for speaking Māori (Ka'ai et al, 2004). The results were devastating, not just in terms of the loss of the language, but also in terms of Māori's positive sense of individual and cultural identity (Ritchie, 2003).

The need for a regenerative force and a new approach to was recognised during the first quarter of the nineteenth century.