Editorial: Let's set our sights a little higher

Get behind Maori Language week by learning one new word a week.

The advent of Maori language week, for the 40th time since it was first rolled-out in 1975, will again fire debates over the worth one may get out of learning the language.

Coinciding with this is the Maori Language Commission's setting of a goal that every Kiwi who doesn't know Maori shall learn one word a week for the next year: Te kupu o te wiki.

This may be a subtle prod at those who have been slow on the uptake when it comes to understanding or even wanting to understand the language which, whether they like it or not, has one way or another been part of their lives since the day they were born.

The commission has concerns that the usage of te reo Maori is not "where we would like it to be", in the words of senior communications adviser Gareth Seymour, and the current 12-month goal can be taken in context with a Government Maori language strategy revised in 2003, stretching out a quarter-century to 2028.

Stopping well short of determining that most Kiwis should learn to speak, read and write in Maori, they should at least value the language, with a "common awareness of the need to protect the language".

As a nation, we are setting our sights well below the horizon if that's where we'd be happy to be by what is now 14 years' time, in a matter which, as sad as it may be, often defines where some stand in the wider issues of a race or ethnicity debate.

The reality, though, is that this is at least as much an issue of learning, and someone is letting the team down.

Let's set the commission's goal, that is a word a week for 12 months, as merely a bottom line.

This is not like having to swim, bike and run 100km a day to get ready for the next triathlon. What would you have to do to touch-up your knowledge and understanding of te reo Maori?