26. How has the Māori language evolved from its origins as an oral tradition to a written and modern language?

Origins of the Māori Language

Evolution of Māori Language

All languages are constantly evolving. As cultures interact and merge, languages borrow words, phrases, and grammatical structures from each other. When different languages come into contact, they can influence each other, leading to changes in pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary.

Māori is a subgroup of the family of Malayo-Polynesian languages. They are spoken across a vast area, including Southeast Asia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Many languages of the Malayo-Polynesian family in insular Southeast Asia show the strong influence of Sanskrit, Tamil and Arabic.

Historically, Māori was an oral language, relying on carvings and symbols to pass knowledge onto future generations. As English-speaking settlers arrived in New Zealand, the need to communicate with Māori speakers grew. This eventually led to the need for a written form of Māori.

First Written Māori Language

The first book on the Māori written language was created by Anglican missionary Thomas Kendall in 1815, shortly after he began working in the Bay of Islands. The full title of the book was “A Korao no New Zealand,” or The New Zealander’s First Book: Being an Attempt to Compose Some Lessons for the Instruction of the Natives.

In 1820, Kendall, with help from Cambridge professor Samuel Lee and Māori chiefs Hongi Hika and Waikato, completed A Grammar and Vocabulary of the Language of New Zealand. As Māori had never been written down before, an orthography (set of conventions for how a language is written) needed to be created. Over time, both works were superseded as the written language evolved.

Influences on the Māori language continue in the next Blog.