Pākehā learning te reo are able approach it with “emotional detachment” and must go further than just learning the language, writes Kay Benseman. (Photo supplied)

Recent research that maps the trajectory of te reo Māori has found the language could be on a path to recovery, a hopeful contrast to previous findings.

But achieving a truly healthy state will require Pākehā learners to untangle their sense of entitlement, writes Kay Benseman.

I first started learning te reo Māori in the late 1990s when it was still considered an odd choice that “won’t get you a job” according to my high school careers advisor.

At the time, I only knew one other Pākehā, my older sister, who spoke te reo Māori. Even years later, I was often the only Pākehā in an immersion classroom where my earnest enthusiasm was generously tolerated and my twanging pronunciation kindly encouraged.

While I am still seeking fluency and am far from it, I’m deeply grateful for the privilege of learning to speak and understand te reo Māori me ōna tikanga.

It is knowledge that I have no birthright to. My colonial inheritance instead links me to those who worked to systemically tear kupu from the mouths of tamariki Māori. Some of my learning opportunities were thanks to student loans, but many were in free classes, funded by the government. There were no waitlists for enrolments back then.

There’s been a staggering 93 percent increase in tauira enrolled in tertiary te reo Māori courses over the last decade. Such demand for reo classes could be seen as a happy problem if it didn’t potentially limit access for Māori learners reclaiming their mother tongue.

Learning a language, especially an ancestral, Indigenous or threatened one, can be very challenging. Not only because of the complexities of new grammar or making different sound combinations — but because it’s an emotional process, too.

Many Māori have shared the difficulty of their language learning journey — the challenges of enrolling, persevering through language trauma, and building confidence in speaking. The impact Pākehā have in language classes extends beyond who is in the seats to how they are behaving in that vulnerable learning space.

I’ve heard many Pākehā talk about how they’d love to kōrero Māori but they’re “no good with languages”. Sometimes they say they “hate all the singing in class” or “can’t manage to roll the ‘r’ sound”.

As tauiwi, we’re able to approach the Indigenous language of Aotearoa with an emotional detachment, weighing up the disadvantages and benefits for us, our careers, our social status, and in balance with our other hobbies. This doesn’t mean Pākehā are unmoved by their engagement with te reo Māori and therefore te ao Māori. Quite the opposite. Many find it life-changing, as I did. But our detachment does affect how we behave in the classroom and what we do with the knowledge once we leave. That knowledge is not just grammar structures, but hapū histories, whanaungatanga, laughs, healing and belonging as part of the Māori language movement.

Pākehā being supportive tāngata Tiriti is more than just learning a language. We have to start with untangling our sense of entitlement to all that we can access. We have to educate ourselves and upskill in ways that consume less emotional energy from our Māori friends, colleagues and family.

As Dr Awanui Te Huia reminds us: “Te reo revitalisation can’t be uncoupled from decolonisation. We must address the systemic injustices that have contributed to the decline in its use.”

Reconnecting with the languages of ancestors is healing. The severance from ancestral ways of describing the world around us, telling our stories and cooing to our babies, is brutal. At least three of my great-grandparents lost their mother tongue (Spanish, Irish, German) through assimilation, suppression and survival in the Anglo-centric Aotearoa of the 1910s.

I began learning Irish Gaelic last year and am joyous about the tiny gains I’ve made. It felt profound to discover that to proclaim “I speak Irish” in Gaelic — Tá Gaeilge agam — translates to I have Irish. That it belongs within me.

In November 2023, when we got a new coalition government, the Scottish Herald reported on new research showing that university graduates of Celtic studies experience the highest level of life satisfaction over all other areas of study, with politics graduates near the lowest. This doesn’t surprise me. I’ve seen the transformative power of rangatahi Māori excelling in their own reo, tikanga, toi, and mātauranga in a way that we don’t see echoed in the mainstream education system dictated by European values.

Just 35 percent of Māori students in mainstream schools gain NCEA Level 3, compared to 58 percent of those at whare kura. Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Ngā Tapuwae achieved 100 percent  NCEA pass rates for the last three years, the highest across Aotearoa for all students.

Listening to the prime minister mangle Māori vowels while also winning the unofficial Te Wiki o te Reo Māori award for the “social media post with the fewest possible kupu Māori”, I remembered his self-satisfied and slightly defensive chat about learning te reo while electioneering. He said: “I’ve wanted to do it for a long time . . . For me, it’s the way in which you start to understand te ao Māori . . . I just know how much Māori culture helps us in New Zealand, big time.”

Big time. He goes on about the benefits of “mainstreaming te reo” in whatever business he was the boss of at the time. Discussing te reo Māori like it’s an asset or an astute professional move. Good on the CV. Sounds familiar.

As Dr Moana Jackson explained: “Economic and political interests were key motivations behind the first decisions to ‘annex’ New Zealand, but the colonisers’ presumption that they could assert their power in a land where they had never had jurisdiction before was race-based.”

This presumption remains. To believe that as tauiwi, we have any legal right to belong in Aotearoa without Te Tiriti o Waitangi? Or that our voice should determine the role of the Indigenous language of the country we are lucky enough to now call our home? Absurd.

We can see and hear the impact of Luxon-Peters-Seymour’s regressive schemes on tangata whenua. These modern day Weird Sisters have foretold a hellish version of our country focused on individualism, white supremacy and profits. One where te reo Māori is muted, despite all the gains we’ve seen through decades of advocacy, petitions and hīkoi. An Aotearoa where fear-mongering and panicky Pākehā will instantly troll anything Māori on social media, from Tiriti workshops to children’s movies.

It’s now 52 years since the delivery of Te Petihana reo Māori, the Māori language petition, to parliament. In 1972, the call for te reo Māori to be taught in schools was supported by 33,000 signatures, most of them from non-Māori.

Te Petihana was a landmark moment in the revitalisation of the language, which at the time was endangered and still remains under threat. In 1910, 90 percent of tamariki Māori were fluent in te reo, and by 1953, this had declined to just 26 percent. This dropped to a heartbreaking 5 percent by 1970. Fluency rates for Māori began rising in the decade after the Māori Language Act of 1987, and by 1996, it was back up to 25 percent, in large part due to the kōhanga reo movement.

Despite the harm that Pākehā colonialism brought to the Indigenous language of Aotearoa, the manaakitanga of Māori still shines in the wording of the petition, which refers to “these same courses offered as a gift to the Pākehā from the Māori”.

We know enough about the vulnerable status of te reo Māori to know that we need as many speakers as possible in as many situations as possible, across all contexts, generations and ethnicities.

However, modelling from the Welsh language revitalisation movement shows that to shift te reo Māori away from extinction, priority must be given to kaiako Māori teaching Māori learners. This is what will build enough communities of fluent speakers, creating momentum to ensure te reo Māori can exist in the long term.

This does not diminish the involvement of Pākehā like me, but it’s critical to ensure that, even with our good intentions, we don’t get in the way by centring ourselves and consuming resources and energy in passively harmful ways. The taonga that we’ve been offered needs to be treated as such, protected through tino rangatiratanga, as Te Tiriti o Waitangi outlined.

Dr Awanui Te Huia further describes the hope that I hold for a healed and Tiriti-honouring Aotearoa, when she says:

“The processes involved with the acquisition of te reo Māori may be used as a means of healing some intercultural relationships that have resulted through colonisation. Through understanding some of the motivations that both Pākehā and Māori have for learning te reo Māori and reaching high levels of language competence, there may be an opportunity to shift our current state of language endangerment to language safety.”

This is what drives me to continue to learn new vocab, offer my stumbling and earnest attempts at conversation, and tautoko te reo Māori i ngā wā katoa, i ngā wāhi katoa.

As Pākehā, we can tear up at an emotive haka, get goosebumps hearing the karanga, be awestruck by the whirling long poi at Te Matatini — but we need to show our solidarity beyond tokenism.

Learning te reo Māori must mean more than something good on our CV. Let’s not just consume the parts of the language and culture we find fun, but make sure we are tangata Tiriti — people who belong in Aotearoa because of the rights and responsibilities embedded in Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Every Pākehā who declares a love of the Māori language must stand up for Te Tiriti.

Ngā mihi mutunga kore ki ōku kaiako: ko Mary Jane Stirling, Hēnare Green, Puhiwāhine Tibble, Te Urikore Biddle, Meihana Durie, Dr Hinemoa Hilliard, Sonya Daly, Katrina Hawira, ko Mrs Gardiner hoki.

Kay Benseman is a Pākehā of German, Irish, Scottish, Spanish and English ancestry, and lives on Ngā Rauru Kītahi whenua in Whanganui with her whānau. Kay is an artist, activist, writer and researcher at Pito Press. She has an MA in applied linguistics and has been pursuing fluency in te reo Māori since her teens. Kay is committed to a Te Tiriti-based future for Aotearoa.

E-Tangata, 2024