A Little Language Barrier

Ko te reo te tai kura or te whakaao marama.
Language is the key to understanding.

Alice might not be jumping off furniture, expressing her creativity by drawing on walls, running like a mad woman toward muddy puddles or eating everything in sight. But man alive, does Alice talk. Alice’s first words escape her lips often before she opens her eyes in the morning (usually it’s ‘boo, mama’) and the running commentary doesn’t stop until she’s chatted herself to sleep.
She tells me where the keys are. She yells at dolls for not sitting the way she wants. She talks to her little wooden fish and she demands bubbles – more bubbles! – at least ten times a day. There are animal noises and copy-cat games and weather reports and ‘NO!’, all before breakfast.

It’s pretty awesome!

And now what’s even more exciting, there’s te reo Maori, too. The other day Alice told me, ‘Sshh, manu. Walk, please.’ She took my finger and led me to the front door, where we watched the fantail dance around under the awning catching bugs. I was so excited to hear a reo Maori word spoken by her, un-prompted, that I forgot to listen to what she was telling me about the little manu itself, the whole point of her first sentence.

Alice has said lots of te reo Maori words in the past, but it’s always been parroting me. Counting and animal names and action words have all been repeated back to me which is exciting, but not as exciting as Alice choosing to say ‘manu’ in order to communicate an idea.

Sshh, manu. It MEANS something!

I wonder if it’s common, for parents to be really focused on teaching their child one specific thing, giving it more importance than other skills. Maybe it’s counting, or riding a bike, or milking a cow, or singing in tune. For me, teaching my children to speak reo Maori is pretty much top of the list.

It’s been a huge undertaking that has pushed me on my own learning journey so I can lead Alice through hers. And I was beginning to think it was an uphill battle; after all, Alice’s world is filled with chatty, loving adults that saturate her with language, ninety-nine per cent of it English. I am the only one that speaks to her in Te Reo Maori consistently and even then I’m still learning myself. I was beginning to think the opportunity for Alice to experience the gift of two languages was slipping away. What’s the point?

Sshh, manu.

I’ve had lots of people ask me that question, actually. What IS the point of teaching Alice to understand and speak reo Maori? I sometimes get strange looks in public when I use te reo Maori and more than once I’ve been told what I’m doing is pointless. Apparently, it’s a dying language and there are more useful languages I could be teaching her. They are right, in a way, it is dying. Ever wondered why that is? Is it dying because it has a lifespan and now the language is bedridden? Sshh, manu. It may be dying in some places but in my house, it grows in me every day and now I can see it start to blossom in Alice as well.

I’m teaching Alice reo Maori for lots of reasons. Firstly, the effect a second language has on the brain is huge – children’s brains are crazy busy when they learn to talk, firing off in all directions as they listen, decode, comprehend, and say the words themselves. Can you imagine what a kid’s brain is doing when they learn two?! Positively explosive activity is happening in there! And the more use you can make of a brain - a muscular organ - the bigger and stronger and more powerful it becomes. Language, whatever language that is, is the foundation for life-long learning, be it one language or seven. I’m teaching Alice reo Maori to help her use her brain to its full capacity.

I’m teaching Alice reo Maori because it’s a different set of sounds to English. If she can master the slightly different vowel sounds that come with reo Maori, Alice is better equipped to take on countless other languages, like Spanish, or Japanese, or pretty much any Pacific Island Language. If I knew German or Dutch I’d teach her that, too, and then she’d be equipped with the tools to learn almost any other language on the planet because her mouth knows how to make those sounds. I’m teaching Alice reo Maori because I want her to make the most of the world.

I’m teaching Alice reo Maori because she deserves to know. Thank goodness people are taking a little bit of responsibility now, a little bit of ownership of past trespasses, and trying to right some of the wrongs that has resulted in this language teetering on the brink of extinction. Alice deserves to know the history of her country, history that includes land wars – wars between two races and wars between mountains. She needs to understand two languages to make full sense of one history. She deserves to know how to correctly pronounce government department names, to take part in noho marae, and to engage in debate over the inclusion of the ‘h’. I’m teaching Alice reo Maori because I want her to be a responsible citizen, not a citizen of half a society and pretending the other half doesn’t matter, but of a full society. And she needs two languages to do that properly with a heartfelt sense of belonging and servitude.

Lastly, my heart is wanting me to teach Alice te reo Maori because I believe in it. I believe in Papatuanuku, earth mother, and I want Alice to have a relationship with her. I want Alice to understand the concept of whenua and manaaki and Atua. There is a spiritual essence in New Zealand that lives within Maori culture and in the environment, the two being intertwined like rope fibres. I learned a lot about Te Ao Maori, the Maori world, through being a teacher, and I realised two things. The first is that I know nothing. The second is that, in order to enjoy the intense spirituality of Aotearoa, learning the language is a must. I want nothing more than to share this feeling with my children, with Alice, so I will share this gift with her. Te reo Maori is my gift to her.

Ka tangi nga manu, ka tangi hoki ahau.
As the birds voice their presence, so too do I.