Tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou, haere atu rā ngā mate. Mihi mai rā karanga mai, ko te reo Māori, ko te iwi Māori e ngunguru nei, i au, au, aue hā, kokiri!
Mā tōu rourou, mā tōku rourou, ka ora te iwi. Thanks guys, for your warm welcome to me, the Māori people and our language. My people say; With your food basket and mine we can feed he multitudes. Basically coming together and working as a community as Ooo does goes well with the Māori ethos, I am surprised others have not taken this on as a project or is Graham not telling me everything? :) Sorry I have been slow in replying, flat out, as I am sure we all are. I wanted to be ready and have all the right things to say etc. But if I wait for that it will never happen. Thanks very much again for the warm welcome. Te Reo Māori or the Māori language is a huge passion for me personally. My children are all native speakers of the language and are of the few thousand Māori children that attend immersion schooling here in New Zealand, our pre schools (kōhanga reo) and primary / secondary schools (Kura Kaupapa Māori) are an integral part of efforts to revitalise Te Reo Māori, the Māori language. It makes my wife and I proud to be part of an effort to restore the language to our whānau(families), as both our parents spoke Māori, but none of our brothers or sisters do. Currently I am the Corporate Services Manager for the Māori Langauge Commission and have recently picked up the role of the Language Services Manager. The Māori Language Commission was founded in 1987 after a legal battle that declared Te Reo Māori an Official Language of New Zealand and established Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori / Māori Language Commission. The following information is from our webpage. History of Māori language Māori is the foundation language of New Zealand. It is the ancestral language of the tangata whenua (indigenous people) and one of the taonga(highly prized possession)guaranteed protection under the Treaty of Waitangi (founding document of New Zealand). During the 19th and early 20th century in New Zealand, Māori language was the main language of communication. However, the establishment of schools saw Māori children being taught almost entirely in English. An English language only policy was often strictly enforced, sometimes through physical punishment. Urban migration During the 1940s-1970s Māori migrated from their rural communities to urban centres. English language skills were seen by many Māori as the key to wealth, increased social standing and better standards of living. Many Māori parents stopped speaking Māori to their children. This, together with policies which favoured English as the dominant language, resulted in a massive language shift within the Māori population from Māori to English. Language initiatives By the 1970s, it was predicted that Māori would soon be a language without native speakers. This caused grave concern among Māori groups and communities and resulted in a range of initiatives to revitalise the language including Te Ataarangi (a language learning system), Kōhanga Reo (Māori language pre-schools), Kura Kaupapa Māori (Māori language schools) and Māori broadcasting. Māori Language Act In 1987, the Māori Language Act declared Māori to be an official language of New Zealand and established the Māori Language Commission - Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori to promote the growth of Māori language. Research Recent research suggests that the number of Māori speakers has stabilised with approximately 130,000 Māori indicating some ability to speak Māori. This represents about 25% of the Māori population. However, the number of fluent speakers is significantly less and the situation requires concentrated efforts to ensure that the language survives. It is hoped that the establishment of the Māori Television Service along with other initiatives in recent years will bear further fruits for the revitalisation of Māori language. For more information on Māori Language go to http://www.koreromaori.co.nz/ For more information on the commission http://www.tetaurawhiri.govt.nz/ I am not totally surprised that we are the first Polynesian language, I am not sure why Hawai'i has not done anything yet, they and Samoa will not be far behind I would say. The ISO code for Māori is 'mi'. I will register as soon as I can. I would also like to formally request that a Māori Native Language Project is initiated. For the meantime it will be myself and Graham Lauder starting it. Thanks Wareko Te Angina -----Karere taketake----- Mai: Louis Suarez-Potts [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Kua Tukua: 21 Pipiri 2006 6:01 a.m. Ki: Graham Lauder P: [email protected]; Wareko Te Angina Marau: Re: Introducing an upcoming NL Project Hello All, On 2006-06-14, at 20:22 , Graham Lauder wrote: > I'd like to introduce to the list Wareko Te Angina who has > volunteered to become lead of a new Maori native language project. > Establishing a Maori Native language project has been a bit of a > obsession of mine, even tho I speak very little of Te Reo, and now > with Wareko coming on board it brings it one step closer to fruition. Welcome Wareko Te Angina! > > Wareko is Corporate Services Manager for Te Taura Whiri i te Reo > Maori, (the New Zealand Government's Maori Language Commission) and > was involved with the MS Office and XP Maori Language translations. > > Wareko, welcome to the OOo Native Language Confederation. > Feel free to browse through http://native-lang.openoffice.org/ and > ask any questions that may arise on this list. > > Charles and Louis are the Native Language project leads and can > provide far more intelligent answers to most questions than I. Well, we can try to answer them. From my perspective, I'd like to see OOo adopted by Maori and other native peoples both as a product and project. The product is nice--it works well--but the project is even better. :-) It's a group thing, and what you do locally can be seen globally; what is done globally can be made--up to you--a local thing. So, let's get the discussions going! Best Louis > > > > Cheers > > Graham Lauder > > -- > "GET LEGAL - GET OPENOFFICE.ORG" > http://why.openoffice.org > ISO 26300 compliant > > Graham Lauder, > OpenOffice.org MarCon (Marketing Contact) NZ > http://marketing.openoffice.org/contacts.html > > INGOTs Assessor Trainer > (International Grades in Office Technologies) > www.theingots.org.nz > -- Louis Suarez-Potts Community Manager OpenOffice.org --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
