Analysis: Could a language divide in Aotearoa risk a larger societal divide too, asks 1News reporter Corazon Miller.
In Canada, everything is said twice.
Train, flight and bus announcements; street signs, store signage and packaging – all of it is presented in both English and French. In Quebec, it’s the French that’s said first and displayed the largest.
I expected a level of bilingualism throughout Canada, but the extent it reached was still something that surprised me during my recent trip there.
This beauty I found, of two distinct languages co-existing in the public space, made me reflect on New Zealand’s own language journey.
Canada is, of course, an imperfect example. French and English are both colonial languages that took precedent over the nation’s indigenous languages – many of which are now endangered. Work is underway to reverse that damage so the future of these languages can be safeguarded – but there is still a long way to go.
Nevertheless, without minimising the impact colonisation has had on Canada’s first peoples, the bilingualism the country does have shows there is a way for multiple languages and cultures to co-exist.
The way French and English is interwoven into all aspects of daily life in Canada facilitates understanding with little effort. The reinforcement of common words in both languages means over time they are absorbed into one’s daily vocabulary with little effort.
It's a level of bilingualism New Zealand seemed to be working towards as we made greater strides to incorporate te reo across our schools, mainstream media outlets, government departments and in the public space.
But the new government appears to want te reo Māori to take a step back.
Amongst many other decisions that affect Māori, the new National-NZ First-ACT triad has made the call to dial back the use of the Māori language across government organisations.
The argument is that English speakers can’t understand it - an argument that seems weak when you consider the English translation usually sits right alongside it.
It’s also a move that risks erasing the strides we’ve made, by making it harder for non-reo speakers to see, and therefore learn, more of Aotearoa’s indigenous language, and culture.
Language is a doorway to better understanding
Language is, after all, best learnt when you don’t make it an onerous task but something that can be learnt through osmosis if it’s incorporated into aspects of daily life.
It’s something I wish had been done with te reo years earlier. Not because I’m of Māori heritage - I’m of NZ-European-Filipino descent. But because language is often the doorway to greater understanding of another culture.
English was my mother tongue, but Tagalog (Filipino) was a close second. My grasp of my mother’s language has meant despite growing up in New Zealand, I’ve been able to understand her and my Filipino family in a way I simply couldn’t have if I was monolingual.
Learning French also saw me welcomed into the lives of French families while I was travelling in France – something I think wouldn’t have been as easy if we didn’t cross the language divide.
But it’s a cause of some shame that I haven’t put as much effort into learning my own country’s indigenous language.
Of course, it’s never too late to learn, but starting young is key. Unfortunately, I grew up at a time when the use of te reo in school was still relatively minimal.
It was also a time where speaking languages other than English was sometimes actively discouraged. I recall parents of Filipino friends that were new to the county being told to only speak English at home. The rationale was that two languages would be confusing, and they wouldn’t learn. As a result, many of those friends have forgotten their mother tongue.
Lucky for me, my mother didn’t listen to that advice, and she continued to weave Filipino into our daily conversations that my younger brain rapidly absorbed.
It’s a battle the proponents of te reo have had to fight on a much, much bigger stage as they’ve sought to reclaim the space eroded by colonisation.
Their gradual success has not been without some backlash from those who appear unwilling to learn more about the language of Aotearoa’s indigenous people.
But with that rhetoric now having reached a political level, it appears it’s not just a growing linguistic divide we are risking, but a larger societal one as well.
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