Bilingual NZ goal of advocate

The country's top Maori language advocate applauds gains made by the Maori tongue - but wants moves towards a truly bilingual nation to be accorded greater urgency.

Maori Language Commissioner Dr Pat Hohepa said yesterday that he was confident the seemingly terminal decline in the number of Maori speakers had been arrested.

He said the wide celebration of Maori Language Week, which runs until Sunday, marked the growing acceptance by the wider public of the language.

Maori Language Week, now in its 31st year, came as a result of years of lobbying in the 1960s and 1970s by Maori concerned at the diminishing use of the language. In 1972 the Maori Language Petition with 30,000 signatures was delivered to Parliament.

Dr Hohepa said that while there had been major gains in the wider use and number of Maori speakers, the situation was still precarious.

"It is still in a delicate state. We will not know for certain until we get the results of the last census."

In the 2001 census, about a quarter of Maori said they could communicate in Maori.

"The pleasing factor is that we are in the second generation of fluent Maori speakers who have come through kohanga reo and kura kaupapa, and there are communities concerned about the declining use of Maori ... that are now rebuilding. There are whanau clusters that are taking classes and starting to rebuild within the whanau."

Dr Hohepa applauded the greater use of Maori words and correct pronunciation by the wider population.

In 1984 Naida Glavish, now chairwoman of Kaipara-based Ngati Whatua, refused to buckle to her employer Telecom's demands that she not greet telephone customers with kia ora. Her stance prompted intense debate.

"There is the wider acceptance by the general population. We have the Prime Minister saying kia ora, the Governor-General, starting speeches in Maori. The effect of haka on all the areas of sport that use that. There are tremendous signs of a bilingual-thinking country," said Dr Hohepa.

The numbers staunchly opposed to the use and correct pronunciation of Maori were also declining.

"The insistence on mispro-nouncing words has declined. We now hear more of the general public attempting to pronounce Maori words and names correctly."