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<a title="Article-Link (Permalink)" href="http://pacific.scoop.co.nz/2014/08/nz-failing-support-for-threatened-pasifika-languages-say-linguists/" rel="bookmark">NZ failing support for threatened Pasifika languages, say linguists</a>
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15:11 August 31, 2014<span class=""></span><a href="http://pacific.scoop.co.nz/?comments_popup=23420" title="Comment on NZ failing support for threatened Pasifika languages, say linguists"><span class=""> 0 comments </span></a>
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<div id="attachment_23421" style="width:435px" class=""><a href="http://pacific.scoop.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/apj-P2-corlett-tongan-language-week-425wide.jpg"><img class="" alt="Tongan school dancers in the annual Polyfest in Auckland ... keeping the language alive. Image: Spasifik magazine" src="http://pacific.scoop.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/apj-P2-corlett-tongan-language-week-425wide.jpg" height="283" width="425"></a><p class="">
Tongan school dancers in the annual Polyfest in Auckland … keeping the language alive. Image: Spasifik magazine</p></div>
<p><em>New Zealand doesn’t have enough parents from Pacific communities –
Cook Islands, Niue, and Tokelau in particular – speaking indigenous
languages to be able to speak to their children. <strong>Asia-Pacific Journalism</strong> reports on a threat to vulnerable languages.</em></p>
<p><em>Pacific Scoop:</em><br>
<em> Report – By Eva Corlett</em></p>
<p><strong>Pasifika and Māori cultural well-being is under threat through the decline of native language speakers</strong>
– with some Pacific languages tipped to disappear this generation if
the New Zealand government does not act now, say many linguists.</p>
<p>A recent Victoria University report indicates growing inequality in
areas such as smoking, obesity, employment, tertiary degrees,
beneficiary agreements and income of Pacific and Māori people within New
Zealand.</p>
<p>“Loss of language always occurs first among the most marginalised and
disadvantaged groups in society,” says University of Auckland Professor
Stephen May – an international and national authority on bilingualism
and language rights – as Tongan Language Week opens tomorrow.<span id="more-23420"></span></p>
<p><a href="http://pacific.scoop.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/APJlogo72_icon-e1281607477887.jpg"><img class="" alt="APJlogo72_icon" src="http://pacific.scoop.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/APJlogo72_icon-e1281607477887.jpg" height="75" width="250"></a>“It can have grave effects on health, education and economy.”</p>
<p>With declining populations in their native homelands, the Cook
Islands Māori, Niuean, and Tokelauan languages are close to vanishing.</p>
<p>As Pasifika population growth continues within New Zealand, the
reliance on migration of more native speakers to bring over and sustain
their languages is diminishing.</p>
<p>This migration process enables language to be kept alive and dynamic.</p>
<p><strong>Figures down</strong></p>
<div id="attachment_23422" style="width:221px" class=""><a href="http://www.hrc.co.nz/race-relations/tongan-language-week/"><img class="" title="Tongan Language Week" alt="Tongan Language Week" src="http://pacific.scoop.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/tonga-language-week-logo.jpg" height="76" width="211"></a><p class="">
Tongan Language Week – 1-8 September 2014.</p></div>
<p>Due to larger population levels, Samoan and Tongan languages are not
at immediate risk, but even those figures are down, says John McCaffery,
a senior lecturer in curriculum and pedagogy at the University of
Auckland.</p>
<p>He says 64 percent of Samoan people born in New Zealand cannot speak Samoan – “which is frightening really”.</p>
<p>Professor May stresses the importance of understanding one’s own
language in order to succeed in another more dominant language, such as
English.</p>
<p>“What all the research shows us is that bilingualism, in any
combination of languages, has significant cognitive and educational
advantages.</p>
<p>“The best way for a first language speaker of another language to
succeed in acquiring English, for example, is to become literate in
their strongest language; in their home language first.”</p>
<p>But nothing in New Zealand education, outside of Māori medium education, allows for that, he says.</p>
<p>“Aotearoa lacks top-down policy for languages, other than for Te Reo Māori and English.</p>
<p><strong>Little policy scope</strong><br>
“So there’s very little policy scope, very little national support for Pasifika languages in schools or any other sectors.”</p>
<p>McCaffery says communities are facing a government which promotes the
ideology that Pacific people are responsible for rejuvenation and
restoration of their own language.</p>
<p>But there are not enough parents from the Pacific communities – Cook
Islands, Niue, and Tokelau in particular – speaking the language to be
able to speak to their children, he says.</p>
<p>“They themselves have lost the language or had it taken away from them.”</p>
<p>Bilingual Samoan New Zealander, Petaia Unoi, says there needs to be a shared responsibility.</p>
<p>“It’s on the individual to encourage speaking and sending their kids
to language classes, it’s on the community to provide those environments
at schools, but it’s on the government to support those classes.</p>
<p>“Otherwise our language will die.”</p>
<p><strong>Bilingual heritage</strong><br>
Unoi was bought up by his grandparents in Samoa, before returning to New Zealand at the age of 13.</p>
<p>He says he felt privileged to know both Samoan and English, unlike
his siblings who remained behind in NZ and had to learn their native
language through him.</p>
<p>Unoi says it is incredibly important that his children learn Samoan too.</p>
<p>“I don’t want my kid to be visiting their cousins in Samoa and not
know how to communicate, or feel uncomfortable talking to them and
connecting with them.</p>
<p>“I want them to feel a part of their community.</p>
<p>“And it’s a part of who I am,” says Unoi.</p>
<p>Native language is tightly interwoven with cultural identity and community.</p>
<p><strong>Cultural identity</strong><br>
You can’t have a culture without a language, says McCaffery.</p>
<p>“The cultures, history and heritage of that part of the Pacific are seriously at risk of disappearing in this generation.”</p>
<p>Pacific Education Centre spokesperson Caroline Harris says their
student surveys indicate that students wish to learn language because it
connects them to their identity.</p>
<p>“For many of our 30-40s learners engaging in our language classes
they are strategic in their choice as consumers, they are thinking
futuristic – they are now in leadership roles in their families.</p>
<p>“Learning cultural knowledge is an investment for the future.”</p>
<p>Pasifika language or any other language is the vehicle for cultural
identity, family connection and provides a positive sense of belonging,
she says.</p>
<p>McCaffery has been active in trying to engage the government in discussion about preservation of Pasifika languages.</p>
<p><strong>State engagement</strong><br>
On behalf of their children, McCaffery, and other families, brought a
human rights case to the Human Rights Commission against the Ministry of
Education for failure to provide adequate Pacific language services to
early childhood centres and schools.</p>
<p>Progress halted in 2012 when the ministry refused to attend hearings or take part in discussion.</p>
<p>Alongside a group of law academics, he made a submission to the
United Nations highlighting the constitutional rights Cook Islands, Niue
and Tokelau have as their indigenous languages are under the legal
realm of New Zealand.</p>
<p>The government has shown no sign of responding to research or data, says McCaffery.</p>
<p>“It’s a shame because it’s the same struggle Māori had to go through –
they had to drag the New Zealand government through the court for 40
years before the government conceded it had a responsibility and
obligation to Māori.”</p>
<p>But the fight to preserve and strengthen Te Reo Māori in its own
country – after a history that’s seen it banned by official government
policies – is an ongoing one that is eternal, says the Human Rights
Commission’s Christine Ammunson.</p>
<p>“Only last week a young woman in Whangarei was told off by her boss
for saying Kia Ora. Last month a newspaper in Tauranga began running a
series of anti-Māori language editorials: so there is still a lot of
work to do.”</p>
<p><strong>Key problems</strong><br>
Professor May says one of the key problems with language policy is that
it “isn’t politically sexy or compelling, particularly in English
language dominant contexts like Aotearoa”.</p>
<p>He says this is partly because English language speakers are monolingual and typically aren’t as interested in other languages.</p>
<p>“It’s a similar pattern right across the world in English-language dominant contexts.</p>
<p>“No language is linguistically superior to another, it’s just that
English, through a combination of historical accidents has ended up the
major international language today.</p>
<p>“But that means English speakers are spectacularly unconcerned generally about learning other languages”, he says.</p>
<p>Harris says a contemporary world is inclusion of Pasifika curriculum
in history, language, numeracy and literacy in the NZ curriculum, from
ECE to adult tertiary sector.</p>
<p>Based on detailed analysis of the 2006 census, McCaffery estimated
that if you put one bilingual school in Mangere and one in East Tamaki,
60-70 percent of all the Cook Island people who wanted their children to
be schooled in their own language and English, would be catered for.</p>
<p><strong>No response</strong><br>
The government did not respond to his suggestion.</p>
<p>“We spend millions of dollars on a spotted lizard or a little black
robin that may disappear, but we seem unconcerned that the languages and
cultures of three… territories are also about to disappear.”</p>
<p>“The Human Rights Commission and United Nations will hopefully force
the government to act, but the real question is, will it be too late?,”
he says.</p>
<p><em><a href="http://www.pmc.aut.ac.nz/profile/eva-corlett" target="_blank">Eva Corlett</a>
is a Postgraduate Diploma in Communication Studies student journalist
from AUT University. She is reporting on the Asia-Pacific Journalism
course.</em></p>
<a href="http://www.hrc.co.nz/race-relations/tongan-language-week/">Tongan Language Week</a> runs this week from September 1 – 7<br><a href="http://pacific.scoop.co.nz/2014/08/nz-failing-support-for-threatened-pasifika-languages-say-linguists/">http://pacific.scoop.co.nz/2014/08/nz-failing-support-for-threatened-pasifika-languages-say-linguists/</a><br>
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