A new study has found non-fluent speakers of te reo Māori can identify 70 kupu Māori on average, but don’t yet have the skill to define all of them.
As part of a research on assessing the size of non-Māori speakers’ proto-lexicon, or word knowledge, of te reo, participants were asked to identify Māori words and rate their level of confidence in recognising the words or phrases. Then in a separate follow-up experiment, participants were given a list of kupu and asked to give definitions.
The two experiments aimed to test the passive and active knowledge of participants in order to determine the size of their vocabulary and how that affects their level of te reo knowledge.
University of Canterbury Professor Jeanette King said it shows “that increasing exposure to the Māori language, even if you don’t speak it, you’re building up all sorts of knowledge."
Broadcaster Scotty Morrison says some - like mana, kai, whare and whānau - "are pretty normal in the New Zealand vernacular". (Source: Breakfast)
“Things like bilingual road signs help build up knowledge that you might even not know you have. Our brains are taking note of it. It will then help you to learn Māori words.”
But while the study showed New Zealanders could identify dozens of words, they still struggled to define many of them, a trend King and her team isn’t concerned about.
“We've always thought that New Zealanders didn't know that many Māori words. Who knows? If we did this study in another five or ten years people will probably be able to define more Māori words.”
She said language initiatives such as Te Rangaihi Reo Māori, or the Māori Language Movement, are important, and that the more a person knows a language, “the more that you'd appreciate people's cultural differences and the ways they express themselves, the way they think and interact with the environment.”
Glossary
kupu - word(s)
Te Rangaihi Reo Māori - Māori Language Movement
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