Robert Eruera and Maureen Ned from Auckland City Library Photo: Davina Zimmer
It's the end of Te Wiki o te Reo Māori for this year and Auckland City Library's newest exhibition celebrates the evolution of the language, from spoken into written form.
It includes the first official copy books in te reo Māori; a map of Aotearoa labelled 'New Munster' and 'New Ulster'; the original manuscripts capturing karakia and waiata for the first time; and a copy of The Cat in the Hat in te reo.
The exhibition, Waiwaia Ngā Ngutu, is free and does not close until next February.
Today on The Detail, Davina Zimmer takes a walk through some of the more fascinating parts of the display with curators Robert Eruera and Maureen Ned.
"The reo is more than just a language, it's really rooted in everything that we do, we say, we feel, and how we try to express ourselves," says Ned, who is Auckland Council's senior librarian of Māori Collections.
The exhibition centres on teaching resources, official documents and karakia that shows the process of te reo being taken from a spoken language into a written one.
Famous English literature has been translated to Te Reo Māori over centuries Photo: Davina Zimmer
The taonga chosen for the exhibition provide a snapshot of the history of Aotearoa New Zealand, from a time when Māori first engaged with missionaries.
Eruera, Auckland City Library's Māori senior adviser, says the purpose of bringing written reo back into spoken form is to breathe life back into the documents that are displayed.
"The content of what is captured in these manuscripts and these publications tells a story of Māori becoming literate and moving from an oral society to a written society."
Eruera adds that there is a lot of information in the written form that can be revived through reversing the process of documenting it.
Some of the first written documentation of some Māori karakia and waiata Photo: Davina Zimmer
"This [displaying the written document] does not do it justice just lying here, it needs to be in the hearts of the people and in the minds of the people from where it came," he says.
Ned says there is something about te reo Māori initially being only a spoken language that makes how one uses it more significant.
"What I was told by one of my kaiako is that you spoke when you really needed to, and that you had to be mindful of what you say because words are very powerful, words can make people feel amazing and they can make people feel like absolute crap."
The Detail also speaks to Hēmi Dale, the director of Māori medium education at the University of Auckland, about the importance of continuing the celebration of te Wiki o te reo Māori and the integration of Māori culture into modern Aotearoa.
He talks about the relevance of marking the week at a time when there is a resurgence of the language, and it is becoming more and more integrated into modern Aotearoa.
And although he acknowledges there are efforts this year from Parliament to unravel some gains, he has an interesting take on the prime minister's approach to te reo.
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