This brief article looks at the idea that the Māori language will be colonised if used in speech recognition, machine learning, AI and other linguist technologies. This article makes the argument that the Māori language can not be colonised and that by making such statements will only hinder Māori Peoples and wellbeing.

As technology is rapidly developing and assisting in our daily lives, there have been some Māori individuals and groups who believe that te reo Māori will be colonised if we allow our language to be used in digital technology. The immediate impacts already occurring are that disabled Māori children with speech issues can not use voice assisted technologies in te reo Māori as there is fear of this so called Māori colonisation and ownership. The language learning app Duolingo that allows people to learn a language from a large selection of international languages is also being criticised for its plan to offer te reo Māori.

Stating the Māori language will be colonised makes no sense if you have an understanding of:

1. The English definition of the word ‘colonised”
2. An intimate understanding of Māori culture and religion
3. An understanding of New Zealand’s colonial history and its impacts on Māori society.

As opposed to using the colonised, the correct term is “Linguistic imperialism” or “language imperialism” which is occasionally defined as “the transfer of a dominant language to other people”. This language “transfer” comes about because of imperialism. The transfer is considered to be a demonstration of power; traditionally military power but also, in the modern world, economic power.

Aspects of the dominant culture are usually transferred along with the language. In the modern world, linguistic imperialism may also be considered in the context of international development, affecting the standard by which organizations like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank evaluate the trustworthiness and value of structural adjustment loans (Master, 1998)

Language ownership, colonisation and imperialism

1. The Māori language is not owned by Māori as individuals or as a collective unless a single word or phrase has a TradeMark applied to it and then there are a number of restrictions that do not impact the majority of Māori and Māori language speakers.
2. Māori language has already suffered language imperialism when the British society who settled here in New Zealand decided to impose their language as the dominant language of New Zealand. Furthermore, the government legislated a prolonged campaign against the use of the Māori language including the Native Schools Act where Māori language could not be spoken.
3. Te Tiriti and then reinforced in the WAI 11 claim, recognise te reo Māori as a taonga that all New Zealanders can share and use.
4. The Māori Language Act 1987 that was repealed with Te Ture mō Te Reo Māori 2016/the Māori Language Act 2016 puts into legislation that Māori Language is an official language of New Zealand, thus encouraging anyone to speak Māori language and fufrther reinforces the fact that the Māori language can no be owned by anyone.

Digital apps can’t teach tikanga

There is a popular discourse that if you learn to speak Māori from an app, then you will not understand the tikanga and customs of Māori culture. While this may be correct, there is a Māori cultural belief that one should learn to speak Māori at home. This can be interpreted that in order to learn the tikanga and customs of your own people, family, history and tribe you need to learn from them and your unique dialect differences and various other nuances and unique terms, words and phrases. Regardless of where you learn, unless it is on your own marae and or with your own people, learning tikanga and learning a version of te reo Māori that has not been is linguistically imperialised is the status quo of the Māori language learning regardless of if it is at a course, online or in an app.

Pre Colonisation, Māori language was the only language used in New Zealand. It was a rich language full of colloquialisms, personifications, and a general knowledge of Māori religion/epistemologies. Even Māori language speakers/Experts who are fluent Māori language speakers but learnt away from their marae and learnt modern Māori language often cannot grasp the pre-colonial Māori language.

Due to colonisation and legislation such as the Tohunga Suppression Act, the Māori language spoken and learnt today from books and at education facilities is merely a translated version of English. So learning form an App or online merely provides an easier form of access to a Taonga and a birth right for many that will increase the number of Māori language speakers and further normalise te reo Māori.

Traditional language versus imperialised language.

I will provide three significant examples of how the Māori language has been linguistically imperialised and become the normal style that is found in Māori language learning books, resources, school and other educational facilities teaching Māori language.

Morning

Translations of waking in the morning commonly state “I woke up in the morning and the birds were chirping”.

• Morning/Ata
• Sun/Rā
• Churping/Waiata

A pre colonial way of making the same statement could be something similar to:

“My wairua returned to the karanga of Tāne Māhuta’s grandchildren, welcoming Tama nui I te Rā who was rising up above Moana a Kiwa spreading his arms over Tangaroa and Papatuanuku under the watchful eye of Ranginui.

Months and days

Māori language has had to ignore the nights of the moon which set months of the Māori calendar and each night and month had its own names. Post colonisation it is common to use transliterations of the month names and more recently Māori names adapted from Tūhoe and promoted by the Māori Language Commission/Te Taura Whiri I te reo Māori.

Counting

Pre colonisation Māori had their own forms of counting which was soon disregarded and the European numeral system we all use is now the only counting system used in te reo Māori. The traditional Māori counting system used pairs, meaning that pre colonisation the number 20/rua tekau would be 40 in the English numeric system.

Current status of digitised Māori language in foreign owned conglomerates and accessible to the public.

There are several conglomerates who already own large databases of Māori language text including Microsoft Corporation, Samsung, Moodle and Google. Then there are many professional language translators who store Māori language corpus and strings for automated learning and translations.

Freely available on the Internet are large Māori language corpus sets including the Māori Niupepa Collection, The National Library have digitised Māori language magazines and newspapers, ArchivesNZ, Thesis collections in te reo Māori, YouTube collections of recordings of formal orators, Māori language documentaries such as Waka Huia,  in addition to many other repositories tha researchers who are scraping social media for Māori language usages and creating new corpus that are shared with other researchers.

Conclusion

The Māori language like any other human language is not able to be owned by any one person or group. Significant harm is being caused to Māori Peoples who believe otherwise.

The Internet and academia have a myriad of language corpus in text and audio that is already capable of being used in speech technologies.

Stating that the Māori language will be colonised if used by foreign companies is untrue and the Māori language has already suffered generations of language imperialism to the state that most Māori language speakers do no know the difference.

The real risks to Māori occur with financial opportunities being lost with technology replacing the need for human translators and teachers and to Māori communities who may not see their people come back to the marae to learn. But, it could have the opposite impacts if planned for now. Technology, by making the Māori language more accessible and widely used could create a want to learn mātauranga Māori and to develop their Māori language skills.

References

Master, P. (1998). Positive and Negative Aspects of the Dominance of English. TESOL Quarterly, 32(4), 716-727. doi:10.2307/3588002