Tēnei te mihi maioha atu kia koutou katoa i runga i ngā āhuatanga o te wā.
Māori Language Week is set to kick off today Monday 11 September, with “Kia ora te reo Māori” as this year’s theme which not only picks up our national greeting but means literally, ‘Let the Māori Language live’.
Māori Language Week is about raising awareness that while there is reason to still be concerned about the long-term future of the language it is still spoken and sung by many hundreds of thousands of people; 130,000 have conversational fluency, 300,000 are learning at school and 10,000 in tertiary education. And new research points to the language being picked up by children in the home once more in places where this had died out in the 1970s.
It has been 42 years since the initiation of this week. In previous years, the week was celebrated during August however this year the idea came about to move it to September, in the month that the Māori Language Petition arrived to Parliament.
There are a lot of ways to begin your journey to learn te reo Māori, as an individual, a whānau, a group, as a community or as a workplace. Te wiki o te reo Māori provides an opportunity to celebrate and learn te reo Māori, helping to secure its future as a living, dynamic, and rich language.
In honour of Māori Language Week, Māori Television have released new gifs to be used on social media platforms like Facebook, with some popular Māori catch phrases.
Check out the Māori Television channel on Giphy.com for more information.
Suggested Resource Links: Check these out
https://kupu.maori.nz/kupu-o-te-wiki-2017
www.tokureo.maori.nz/index.cfm/1,186,0,43,html
https://nz.pinterest.com/pin/489977634444122151/
https://nzhistory.govt.nz/culture/maori-language-week/365-maori-words