Key findings from this section

• International research on language revitalisation suggests that for minority languages like Māori to survive, intergenerational transmission is required.
• Māori speakers are clustered together and are not spread evenly throughout the Māori population. Forty percent of Māori households have at least one Māori language speaker. In half of these households there is only one speaker, limiting the possibility of language use in the home.
• Thirty-two percent of children or dependants live in households where there is at least one adult speaker of te reo, meaning that acquisition through intergenerational transmission is possible.
• For people with Māori language skills, use of te reo Māori in the home has increased overall since 2001, especially in communications between Māori adults and their children and other adults. While this is a positive indicator of the occurance of intergenerational transmission, communication patterns in the home have not yet reached a level where the Māori language is considered the primary means of communication.
• The use of the Māori language in the community remains most common in cultural domains. The Māori language is not the primary means of communication in other everyday activities within the community setting.

Ngāti Kahungunu Iwi Incorporated Strategic Language Plan

Ngāti Kahungunu’, from which a range of language revitalisation initiatives have been implemented in the Hawkes Bay region. These initiatives sit under one of five dimensions to the strategic plan; whakaoho, whakamana, whakamahi, whakaako and whakawhānaungatanga. In 2007, a public event was held at Splash Planet in Hastings to raise awareness and status of te reo with bilingual signage and maps, and the use of tee-shirts and water bottles to deliver key messages about the importance of te reo Māori. The collection and distribution of Kahungunu lexicon is the focus of a research project that has been undertaken with kaumātua and kuia in Wairoa. From audio recordings of interviews a word and phrase list will be developed to be used by whānau of Kahungunu. Following a pilot project, ‘He Hoa Kōrero’, in a kura kaupapa Māori based in Napier, a 12-week whānau language project will be implemented in other community settings. The focus of this initiative is to provide resources for the practical use of te reo. Ngāti Kahungunu Iwi Incorporated will continue to facilitate whānau language planning and develop an online language learning programme for Ngāti Kahungunu descendants.