Editorial: Our first language is in good heart

A quarter of a century ago, when we had to ask an operator to place a toll call, Naida Glavish was reprimanded by her employer, the Post Office, for greeting callers with a cheery "Kia ora, tolls here".

Glavish, proudly Ngati Whatua, refused her supervisor's directions to greet callers exclusively in English and was demoted. The public outcry culminated in a prime ministerial intervention and a bureaucratic backdown.

The story might have (or at least should have) belonged in the 1920s and the embarrassment occasioned by its recency is only partly mitigated by the thought of how far we have come since those days. Now newsreaders greet viewers with "kia ora", Maori is, since 1987, an official language, and all but the most hidebound and pigheaded have at their disposal at least a few phrases of the first language spoken in these islands.

Today, as the 34th Maori Language Week ends, is a good time to reflect on the achievements of those who have worked so hard on the cultural renaissance that has involved the reflowering of a beautiful language. There are encouraging signs that the efforts made during the single annual week-long celebration are spreading to take in the whole year. Radio New Zealand, for example, makes extensive use of Maori greetings in its English-language programming.

There will remain those who decry the resurgence of te reo as an irrelevance, arguing that the language is only a cultural curio, and we should be teaching our children Chinese or some "useful" tongue. But they miss the point. It takes years of intensive study of any language to reach a "useful" level of facility.

We should all make an effort to learn a little Maori because it helps us see the world a little differently. And we should ask ourselves: where will it be preserved and nurtured, if not here? Te reo is a taonga, a treasure that belongs to us all.