“Te reo is not diminished by being shared, but it is diminished when whakapapa connections go unacknowledged,” writes Taea Staples. (Image supplied)
Pākehā students of te reo Māori should not say the language belongs to them — there are better ways to reflect the relationship, writes Taea Staples.
I was in my reo Māori class the other night, and one of the Pākehā students, as well as the Pākehā teacher acknowledged everyone who had come along to strengthen, as they put it, “tō tātou reo”.
Phrasing it this way means “our language”, inclusive of both the person speaking and their audience.
In the class I attend, I’m one of about seven Māori. The rest are Pākehā. It already feels isolating to be one of the few Māori. So when I heard the Pākehā tauira claim that te reo Māori is “our reo”, I almost lost my shit. I left class early that night.
Before leaving, I had a private chat with the kaiako, the teacher, telling him that neither he nor the tauira should have said “tō tātou reo”, for it is not “their” reo.
He told me he used to avoid saying “our reo” for that reason, but now he seems to interpret “tō tātou reo” as effectively saying: “We are on this reclamation journey together, Pākehā and Māori.”
Yes, we are all on a reclamation journey. But Māori and Pākehā have different roles on that journey. One is mokopuna, a descendant of the language, and the other, Pākehā, is manuhiri, a guest of the language.
Categorising us all as “on the same journey” erases the rangatiratanga of Māori as descendants of te reo. It homogenises our distinct journeys, motivations and struggles with te reo. So, while some may agree with my kaiako’s counter-argument, I strongly do not.
“Tō tātou reo” felt like Pākehā claiming something that isn’t theirs, which seems to be a recurring pattern among some Pākehā who assume they have a special insider position in te ao Māori. They might have a Māori partner and kids, for example, or they’re a good ally, and they’re proficient in te reo me ōna tikanga. Or they might have grown up in te ao Māori.
But to make a claim on te reo Māori is simply entitlement.
It’s well understood by Pākehā students that they wouldn’t go to my marae or my urupā and say “tō tātou marae” or “tō tātou urupā”— “our” marae, “our” urupā. Nor would I, as Māori, go to another iwi or hapū marae and claim it is “our marae”, for that would be claiming a relationship I don’t have a whakapapa entitlement to.
There are many variations Pākehā can use instead of “tō tātou reo”:
Tō koutou reo — your reo (belonging to another).
Whakakaha i te reo Māori — strengthen te reo Māori.
Whakakaha i te reo o Aotearoa — strengthen the language of Aotearoa.
None of these examples claims ownership of or belonging to te reo Māori, but they still acknowledge a journey of reclamation.
I’m not arguing that Pākehā can’t learn te reo Māori. Anyone can learn te reo Māori, speak te reo Māori, and have a relationship with te reo Māori. But only Māori can claim te reo as “ours”.
Māori and Pākehā are, in fact, two different groups of people, with different rights, different access, and different needs. That’s not a matter of separatism — that is a matter of fact. If we don’t recognise our distinctive roles, we risk large-scale homogenisation.
Many Māori scholars and leaders have shed light on how notions of “equality”, meaning we must all be the same, create further marginalisation of minority groups through cultural erasure.
When Pākehā claim “our reo” as their own, they are effectively claiming whakapapa in te ao Māori, as if they are tangata whenua with rights to belong to the Māori community. The very notion of whakapapa becomes meaningless.
Māori are the Indigenous people of Aotearoa. The taonga guaranteed to us in Te Tiriti o Waitangi includes our reo.
As reinforced by the Waitangi Tribunal in 1986, the Crown has a duty to protect te reo Māori, and Māori have the right to retain tino rangatiratanga over te reo. This distinction is important. Having access to learn the reo and a responsibility to look after it are not the same as an entitlement to claim it.
Some will respond to this argument by saying “tō tātou reo” are just “words” and that it doesn’t really matter. But the reality is that words and language have been key tools of colonisation worldwide.
When Pākehā claim “tō tātou reo”, it places Māori in the position of having to defend our belonging to our language. That burden is exhausting, and one Māori carry far too often.
There are many ways for Māori and Pākehā to build meaningful relationships. But that relationship is fractured the moment Pākehā claim te reo Māori as their own.
Te reo is not diminished by being shared, but it is diminished when whakapapa connections go unacknowledged.
Nō reira,
Ko au te reo Māori, ko te reo Māori ko au,
Āke, Ake, Ake.
Taea Staples (Ngāti Tūwharetoa | Ngāpuhi) is a Māori studies and history graduate, and a tutor at Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington. Her creative and critical work has been published in Salient and Awa Wahine.
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English may be an official language, but te reo Maori is the national language of Aotearoa. That is the reality with which we all have to come to terms, even if the repercussions may be awkward for some.
Ki te hiakai te tangata ki te i tō tātou reo Māori, āra, he reo mōna. Kāore au i te whakaae ki tēnei o ngā whakaaro. Kāore au i te hiahia kia whakaiti ai i tāna wheako ki te whakahoki te reo ki tōna waha. Engari, me whakakaha tātou i a tātou katoa ki te whai i tēnei taonga tuku iho, ahakoa, pākeha mai, Māori mai, tauiwi mai.
Ki te ngaro haere te manaakitanga, he reo anake, engari, ko te reo Māori me ngā tikanga e haere ngatahi ai. Ka kitea te ao katoa. Kia kaha e te tuahine, ka mōhio ahau i te mamae ki whakatipu kuare i te reo. Engari, me ruku hohonu koe ki te whakaaro o raro kia whai ai i te rongoa mō te mamae.
As a Tangata Tiriti/tauiwi learning te reo Māori, this article really resonated with me. I feel incredibly privileged to have the opportunity to learn the language and tikanga, but I would never think of calling it “my reo”. For me, learning te reo is about building relationships, deepening my understanding of Aotearoa and its history, and learning from Māori with humility and respect. I don’t need to claim ownership of the language to value it deeply or to be committed to its revitalisation. Supporting te reo Māori also means respecting that it holds a unique place as the language of tangata whenua, the Indigenous people of this land.
Thank you, Taea, for speaking up about this. Your whakaaro challenged me to reflect more deeply on my own language and the way I show respect as Tangata Tiriti. I really appreciate you sharing this perspective.
The phrase in question was “tō tātou reo” not “tōku reo”. There is a difference.
Thank you for your words and bravery. Words are important. As you express, the relationship Pākehā have with te reo is distinct, and this distinction has significant implications. What may appear to be a small difference in grammar can make, and unmake, what being in right-relationship means.
Colonialism is an evolving phenomenon. In New Zealand it typically manifests as European hostility to Maori and a desire to dictate to Maori. But, at its core colonialism is premised on the principle of domination and submission, and both aspects are ever present in the mindset of the colonialist population. When Maori refuse to submit, a section of the colonialist population themselves channel the need for submission that is inherent in the colonialist paradigm. They submit to the Crown. That is a given. However (and this is the weird part) they can also make a show of submission to Maori.
Those acts and that attitude of submission comes straight out of colonialism and are quite foreign to Maori culture. In te ao Maori submission evokes contempt rather than gratitude.
From a practical point of view, there will be no place for submissive Pakeha in the final showdown with colonialism. If they cannot even uphold their own mana, they will have nothing to contribute to the fight.
Don’t let’s pretend that colonialism is free of contradictions. In fact, it abounds with contradictions. We have Maori who fully embrace colonialism and so effectively deny the aspirations of their own people. We have Pakeha who subordinate themselves to Maori and so contravene the fundamentals of tikanga. These are the contradictions that we need to resolve in order to progress as a nation.
We see many protestations of Pakeha inferiority in the comments to this post (I counted seven, and the actual number may be higher). Regardless of whether they are genuine, or merely evidence of colonialist condescension, they have no place among tangata motu.
Mā whero, mā pango ka oti ai te mahi.
E rere kau ana ngā tai aumihi ki a koe Taea! Nā i tō kaha me tō māia kia motuhake ai te kōrero nei. He tino whakahirahira tō kōrero, me te noho ngākau māhaki mātou ko ngā Pākehā katoa, puta noa i Aoteaora (me te ao nui) e ako ana i te reo taketake o te whenua nei, te reo nō ō tūpuna. I loved reading your tuhinga; tika tāu, he pono ngā kupu. Right-relationship is everything and must be the tuāpapa, the role-modelling and the responsibility for any Pākehā teacher of te reo Māori or language learners. Huge mihi ki a koe, tēnā rawa atu koe.
My bet is that most Pākehā in the class will have barely clocked the surface meaning of “tō tātou reo” let alone the colonising implications. There are endless ways that Pākehā have colonised Te Reo Māori having, thank goodness, failed to eradicate it. The risks with the influx of Pākehā learners (as well as potential benefits) are enormous and very, very real. I have witnessed Pākehā quizzing Te Reo teachers about WHY Te Reo Māori does something linguistically inconsistent (like English is logical!!), arguing with them about Te Reo Māori grammar in English grammatical terms. It is those people who should not come back to a class. But the grace and generosity of Māori in these classes is incredible. As a Pākehā in those classes, I try to have a bit of that conversation with those offenders. Sometimes they get it. Sometimes their know-everything, do-gooder entitlement makes them (us) impervious. It is a macrocosm of the treaty relationship played out – Pākehā feeling (and acting) entitled to a space, Māori accommodating at their cost. Pākehā value the words, Māori value the relationship.
The most important benefit in Pākehā learning Te Reo Māori is the ability to LISTEN to Māori in their own terms. But we are not great listeners (oh! are you arguing with me in your head? there it is…). Learning to listen, learning to live with holding multiple truths and experiences, learning to co-operate and be a (sometimes subordinate) part of… Those are the things that Pākehā most need to learn. I would suggest that learning about Te Tiriti, Tikanga, Te Ao Māori should be the first priority for Pākehā. But languages fold the universe differently. Ultimately the effect of language immersion is truly transformative. Then the curse of learning Te Reo is that it is terrifying to try to talk when you know you should be listening, especially when what you might say – deliberately or accidentally – is fraught with generations of personal pain and political complexity that are impossible for us to fully comprehend, let alone successfully navigate.
I’m five years in and I’m finally beginning to get this. The relationship – to everything – is everything. The relationship of Māori to Te Reo Māori should be theirs to determine. Pākehā need to tread very carefully and only with permission.
This is a very valid point:
“The risks with the influx of Pākehā learners (as well as potential benefits) are enormous and very, very real. I have witnessed Pākehā quizzing Te Reo teachers about WHY Te Reo Māori does something linguistically inconsistent (like English is logical!!), arguing with them about Te Reo Māori grammar in English grammatical terms. It is those people who should not come back to a class.”
It is disrespectful to quiz and argue with a teacher like this. However, I wanted to add that there is a certain type of language learner who, in classes, cannot resist being confrontational like this, as they believe it demonstrates a higher level of intelligence or linguistic sensitivity. I have seen it also in French and German language classes too: ‘But, it doesn’t make sense to do X when in English it is Y’ and so forth (even though, as you say, English is scarcely logical or consistent). Or they continue to construct their sentences in English, even when that is wrong in the new language.
When we come to learn language, one of the most important elements is to leave the ‘rules’ and conventions of our first language/mother tongue behind, and immerse in a new way of thinking. A new conceptual world. Unfortunately, whether we are talking about Te Reo Māori, Mandarin, or German, there are people who can’t or won’t accept that. I feel for the kaiako!
Thank you for writing this. As Pākehā, I got a lot from it. Risk being te reo and other expresions or taonga become consumed, appropriated, taken or colonised… again. I won’t assume ownership or entitlement to Te Reo.
Kia ora Taea. He Pākehā au, nō Ingarangi ōku tūpuna. In my experience as a Pākehā navigating the relationship with te ao Māori, I have learnt there are many different positions Māori can take. A very experienced kaiako Māori once told me it was fine for me to use “ko (maunga) te maunga” in my pepeha, when I expressed dissatisfaction with Pākehā use of tōku. When I proudly brought this up in my reo class I was rebuffed quickly by a tauira Māori who said she did not agree and that it still implied ownership. I’m grateful for her braveness to confront me in this way. I have sought more learning around pepeha… and still haven’t quite made my peace with the phenomenon that is a Pākehā pepeha, even though many Māori say that it is fine.
Anyway, my point is that not all Māori feel the same about the use of words or concepts, like tātou in this case. But this wāhine, Taea, has offered her own understanding and I do get very frustrated when people attempt to over-explain or suggest that she somehow isn’t right about her own experiences and feelings. Pākehā cannot know how it feels for Māori on the ‘reclamation journey’; and even Māori have different whakapapa and mamae from colonisation too. As we know listening to Peters and Seymour, Māori opinions are far from homogenous. In my opinion it is a characteristic of Pākehā to try to ‘find the answer’ to a problem, instead of accepting the beautiful and complicated nuances around concepts from te ao Māori, which is so different from te ao Pākehā.
I understand the point that the kaiako was trying to make and I think that he is on ‘the journey’, too, as we all are. This all needs more open discussion and acknowledgement of colonial hurt and, importantly, taking the lead from tangata whenua. So thank you, Taea, for your contribution.
Thank you for clearly articulating how relationship to indigenous languages can be respectfully spoken of by indigenous and non-indigenous folk (especially those with colonial inheritance). I learned something and it’s really helpful to have this article out there to share when these conversations come up in future. Power to you and the kaupapa of educating about the ongoing effects and nuances of colonisation in language reclamation.
Tautoko! Us Pākehā have a lot to learn about the nuances of whakapapa, and the things that aren’t ours to claim. We can still be part of the revitalisation of te reo Māori without it needing to be something that belongs to us, and many of us have our own ancestral languages we can learn and connect to as well. Thanks for this <3
There is real mamae in Taea Staples’ piece, and it deserves to be named before anything else is said. To be one of seven Māori in a classroom otherwise full of Pākehā, learning the reo of your own tūpuna, a reo that was very nearly beaten out of the generations before you, is a particular kind of loneliness. That ache is true. I am not going to argue with the ache.
But I want to be honest with her about the thing she has reached for to soothe it, because I think it will fail her. She has reached for a rule. Do not say *tō tātou reo*. Say *tō koutou reo*. Say *whakakaha i te reo*. The mamae she describes is not going to be solved by correcting a possessive pronoun, and I worry that by making the pronoun the battleground she has aimed her tiredness at the people least responsible for it and walked straight past the people most responsible.
You can win the grammar argument completely and still be standing in exactly the same room: still seven of you, still lonely, still carrying a history that no Pākehā tauira in that class invented. The wall she feels is real. The word *tātou* is not what built it. Scolding fellow learners into using a different pronoun will not lower that wall by an inch. It is more likely to raise it, by turning the people beside her into trespassers in the one space where they had come to do the right thing.
And here is where, gently, on her own terms, she has confused herself.
She reaches for *manuhiri* as the word that keeps Pākehā in their place: mokopuna on one side, manuhiri on the other, guests of the language, welcome but never owners. It is a beautiful image. But she should sit with what manuhiri actually means once the pōwhiri is over.
Manuhiri is not a permanent caste. It is a stage. The whole architecture of the pōwhiri, the karanga, the whaikōrero, the waiata, the hongi, the sharing of kai, exists for a single purpose: to take people who arrived as strangers, in tapu and at a distance, and to make them one with the tangata whenua. The hongi is the shared breath. The hākari is where the tapu of the encounter is lifted and both sides become noa together. By the time the food has been eaten there is no longer “us” and “you.” There is *tātou*. The pōwhiri is the machine that manufactures *tātou*. That is the entire point of it.
So to insist that Pākehā remain manuhiri forever, held at the gate, never brought across, is not tikanga. It is a pōwhiri deliberately left half finished, the manuhiri abandoned in the courtyard while the kai goes cold inside. If she truly means the manuhiri metaphor, she has to follow it to where the tikanga takes it, and the tikanga takes it to *tātou*. Manaakitanga does not hold the guest at arm’s length. It brings them to the table.
She writes, rightly, that te reo is not diminished by being shared. Sharing is the act of a host. But a host who shares and then forbids the guest from ever feeling at home has not shared at all. They have only loaned.
The part of her account that stays with me most, though, is the kaiako.
Here is a teacher who once held exactly her position. He used to avoid *tō tātou reo* for the very reason she gives. And then, over time, through the work she is only at the beginning of, he moved. He arrived somewhere else: that the reclamation is something Māori and Pākehā carry together, with different roles, but together. That is not carelessness. That is a considered journey, made by the one person in that room whose job is to point the way.
And she turned from it. “I strongly do not,” she writes, and she left the class early.
I say this tenderly, because I understand why she left. But a kaiako pointed a direction, and she did not walk far enough along it to see where it led. There may have been a teaching in that room that night that she got up and left before receiving. The reo is generous enough to hold her mamae and her teacher’s wisdom at the same time.
I hope she goes back. I hope she stays to the end of the lesson.
Thank you for this clear and graceful insight. It’s so important for Pākehā to understand that te reo is a taonga, and it is a privilege to be offered the gift of learning, hearing, and speaking it, and it is not ours to own. It is a very white, Western, colonisers’ view to think that we get to own everything just because we want it.
Perhaps “te tatou reo” can have different meanings depending on who is doing the speaking. For a Maori speaker it means “the language of my tipuna”. For a Pakeha, as your kaiako implied, it means “the language through which we assimilate into te ao Maori” The former is a taonga. The latter is a process which I believe should not be frustrated because it is the only way to decolonization and the full restoration of rangatiratanga. Pushing Pakeha back into the camp of the colonialists only makes sense to me if we are seeking conflict without an end. Some of us may want that. A bit of raruraru can be fun. It can make us feel fully alive. But we should be reasonable about where we allow that raruraru to take us. Where is the place for “them” and “us”? Perhaps out on the rugby field rather than inside the school room.
Tautoko your kōrero here. It’s one thing for a Pākehā to proudly identify as ‘on the journey together’, but completely another to claim te Reo as their own. Pākehā did not start the journey, and we don’t direct where it’s going. We are manuhiri. Welcomed so long as our presence and partnership is helpful. And that links to the wero on the number of Pākehā learning te Reo. I think it’s wise for Pākehā to be aware that it’s not helpful for so many of us to crowd into language learning classes and spaces. Our first priority, IMHO, should be to support, awhi, and make space for Māori who are learning their own Reo.
Dale, you observed:
//… I think it’s wise for Pākehā to be aware that it’s not helpful for so many of us to crowd into language learning classes and spaces. Our first priority, IMHO, should be to support, awhi, and make space for Māori who are learning their own Reo.//
I wonder if this is the issue at the heart of Taea’s kōrero; do many Māori who would like to strengthen their reo feel “crowded out” of the process of learning, because of both the number of Pākehā learning te reo? OTOH, the number of Pākehā who are learning will have the positive side-effect of encouraging other Pākehā who aren’t learning, to buy into a greater acceptance of the language more widely.
So, “our” reo is a matter of genetics? And would this reasoning apply to other languages?
Ross, I would argue that heritage is much more than genetics. and yes, it does apply to many other languages. I wouldn’t claim Spanish as “my” language despite having learned it from a young age, as my heritage is not Spanish or South American.
Thank you; to tie language to “heritage” in the way you state, is a far more robust response than to tie it to genetics, in any instance.
Hard tautoko Taea. Just want to start with a huge mihi to you for naming what should be obvious: that the Māori relationship to te reo is different from the Pākehā one. Of course it is when we have different whakapapa connections to it!
There are so many beautiful reo in whakapapa Pākehā which we can consider ‘ours’ beyond English anyway, and it’s sad that instead we have to keep take, take, taking from Māori instead. Mar eisimpleir, tha Gàidhlig na h-Alba agamsa, a bhruidhinn mo shinnsearan Gàidhealach o chionn còig ginealaichean air ais. For example, I have ancestors who spoke and wrote in Scottish Gaelic as recently as five generations ago, even after their immigration to Aotearoa. When I discovered this and started learning that language over lockdown, I was startled by how personal and emotional a journey reconnecting with *that* reo became, and by how thoroughly erased that part of my family history had been. Through this experience, I think I learnt something about what it meant for a language to be ‘ours’–as Pākehā, our relationship to te reo is just not the same as it is to those languages our ancestors passed down from generation to generation, languages that were shaped as much as we were by the lands we originally come from.
So again, if there are so many beautiful reo in whakapapa Pākehā which we can consider ‘ours’–let’s add Irish and Welsh to the list next to Gàidhlig and English for good measure (and there are more!)–why do we feel so compelled to keep taking, taking, taking from Māori instead? Because that’s what happens when Pākehā misunderstand our relationship to te reo; it makes the classroom unsafe for Māori and creates barriers to your own reclamation journeys. It’s awful that yours is not the first story I’ve heard about leaving class early or even dropping a course entirely because of how uncomfortable Pākehā specifically made the experience for you. At a minimum, we (Pākehā) really need a better collective understanding of whakapapa in order to get this relationship right.
Aroha mai whānau kei te ako tonu to tēinā.
Tika ana, te reo belongs to, is owned by, the tuākana Indigenous people of Aotearoa.
I write here in English, also not my heritage language as I am 99% DNA Irish.
Along with Te Reo Māori Society VUW and Hana Hemara Ngā Tamatoa, however, it was offered as a koha gift in our TRM /Tamatoa Petition to your tēina Pākehā and tauiwi of Aotearoa to learn and use as tēina and pass on to our tamariki Pākehā and to tauiwi.
Accepted as such by governments and generations of iwi leaders, including Te Taura Whiri, it is now a national language of Aotearoa New Zealand. As Pākehā activists, we have always accepted the tuākana teina tautoko position and place in the matter of the reo me ona tikanga, which is why we actively discourage non-Māori doing karakia to open or close or mihi or any other function in te reo if Māori are present, and unless Māori offer the honour to a named acknowledged Pākehā person present. Pākehā and tauiwi must always act respectfully.
Where NO Māori person is present, it may often be appropriate for Pākehā or tauiwi tēinā to ask the hui if they wish the hui meeting gathering to be opened in our national language appropriately acknowledging tuākana as below and often with some English as well, where appropriate.
I believe therefore when these offending phrases are used, it is in ignorance of the difference between ownership as tuākana and tēina in the reo field and when this does happen really, the “our refers to its national language status for all in Aotearoa NZ, so aroha mai.
John McCaffery TRM VUW 1970 TRM Otara TRM Aotearoa inaianei. Te Puna Wānanga UOA Faculty of Education. Whānau O’Donnells of Glassagh Lifford Raphoe Donegal Larkfield Line. Offical world O’D Clan Genealogist with my sister historian Brigid.
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