A teacher with some te reo resources for a class. File pic Photo: RNZ/Vinay Ranchhod
Wellington mana whenua and the city council have launched a new Māori language app to celebrate and encourage the use of te reo Māori in the capital.
The free app called Mahau was created alongside Taranaki Whānui and Ngāti Toa to help the community incorporate more te reo Māori into their day and to help with local dialects.
The interactive app took around a year to develop and will help beginners with kupu, pronunciation and include Wellington landmarks and place names.
Users even have the option of creating their pepeha (introduction) and mihimihi (greeting).
Jill Day Photo: James Gilberd Photospace / LDR
Outgoing councillor Jill Day hoped Wellingtonians would get on board with using the app and learn more about the language and culture.
"We've been working on uplifting te reo Māori, we created Te Tauihu and that was about uplifting te reo Māori in Te Whanganui-A-Tara. And this is a great way to help our community access our real Matauranga in particularly our mana whenua reo," Day said.
She said the app will help Wellington become a bilingual city by 2040 because it put mātauranga Māori back into the community and was easily accessible.
"One of the big benefits is understanding our places and spaces from a Maori perspective. Te Whanganui-A-Tara was very well colonised and our city has become a very well built city, there's so many awa and beautiful nahiri in the city and people want to understand the ingoa, the names and also a little bit of background, mātauranga some knowledge around those and this app contains that."
Council's Tātai Heke Māori Karepa Wall said the best place to grow te reo Māori was in homes.
"If we invested in 5000 families, so that's mum, dad and children, in approximately 10 to 20 years' time it would result in about 55,000 new speakers of te reo Māori," Wall said.
He said it has been a huge year for Māori in Pōneke.
"It's been a remarkable year with the first Matariki public holiday happening in Aotearoa, the council's formalising of a partnership with mana whenua through Tākai Here, a new Māori Language Festival Te Hui Ahurei Reo Māori o Te Whanganui-a-Tara as part of Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori, and celebrations for Te Petihana Reo Māori, the 50th anniversary of the Māori language petition being delivered to Parliament.
"This is a continuation on the strong foundations laid by Te Tauihu o Te Reo Māori, the Māori language policy created to celebrate te reo Māori and support the revitalisation of the language within council activities and Wellington City," he said.
He acknowledged that the app alone would not make the city bilingual by 2040 but said it was one of the tools that would help the city get there.
The app development, translation services and ongoing promotional campaign costs are estimated to cost $70,000.