• Local content programming on New Zealand television
• Māori language speakers
• Language retention

Māori language speakers

Relevance

As a central component of Māori culture, Māori language is an important aspect of participation and identity. Māori language forms part of the broader cultural identity and heritage of New Zealand and in 1987 was recognised as an official New Zealand language.⁷⁵

Current level and trends

One-quarter of all Māori (25 percent or 130,482) and 28 percent of Māori aged 15 years and over (91,809) reported in the 2001 Census that they could hold a conversation in Māori about everyday things. Māori accounted for 81 percent of the total number of Māori language speakers (160,500). The 1996 Census also showed that the proportion of Māori who spoke te reo was around 25 percent.

The proportion of Māori who were fluent Māori speakers declined markedly over the last century, particularly following the rapid urbanisation of the Māori population in the 1950s and 1960s. The first national Māori language survey in 1973 estimated the proportion of fluent speakers had fallen to 18 percent.

Information on the fluency of Māori speakers is available from the survey of the health of the Māori language, conducted in 2001. This showed that more people could understand Māori than speak it. Fifty-nine percent of Māori aged 15 years and over or 190,209 could understand it, but only 42 percent or 136,600 could speak it. While 42 percent of Māori could speak some Māori, only 9 percent could speak Māori "well" or "very well", 11 percent could speak Māori "fairly well", and 22 percent could speak Māori but "not very well". Similarly, while 59 percent of Māori could understand Māori, only 15 percent could understand Māori "well" or "very well", 18 percent could understand Māori "fairly well", and 25 percent could understand Māori but "not very well."⁷⁶

Figure Cl2.1 Proportion of Māori speakers, in the Māori population, by age and sex, 2001

Source: Statistics New Zealand, 2001 Census

Age differences

Older Māori are considerably more likely than younger Māori to be able to converse about everyday things in Māori. In the 2001 Census, more than half of Māori aged 65 years and over (54 percent) reported having conversational fluency in the Māori language, compared with less than one-quarter (22 percent) of Māori aged under 40 years.

Sex differences

Sex differences in the proportion of Māori language speakers among Māori were also apparent. From age 40 years onwards, males were more likely than females to speak Māori, while for those younger than 20 years a higher proportion of females than males could speak Māori.

Among non-Māori, the proportion of Māori language speakers was higher in the younger ages. Females were also more likely to be Māori language speakers than males.

Ethnic differences

The 2001 Census showed that 4.5 percent of the total population could hold a conversation in Māori. After Māori, Pacific peoples had the highest proportion who could speak Māori (5.8 percent), followed by Europeans (1.7 percent) and Asians (0.8 percent).⁷⁷

Regional differences

Māori who live in areas with a high proportion of Māori residents are the most likely to be Māori language speakers. The regions with the highest proportion of people with conversational Māori skills were Gisborne (35 percent), the Bay of Plenty (32 percent), Northland (30 percent), Waikato (28 percent) and Hawke’s Bay (27 percent).