Abstract

The enormous growth of the Māori population in Australia since the late 1970s has coincided with the modern Māori language revival movement. The two phenomena are seldom considered together. Now that the Waitangi Tribunal has highlighted the faltering health of te reo, however, it is timely to assess what impact trans-Tasman migration is having on revival efforts. The sheer number of Māori emigrants who speak te reo suggests that emigration has played more of a role in the language’s renewed decline than has been recognised. At the same time, te reo struggles in Australia, and may suffer one of the highest rates of shift of any community language. That is because practically all the factors that contribute to language shift apply to Māori in Australia. In any event, te reo Māori has now become a transnational language, which raises the question as to what, if any, support speakers in Australia should receive from the Government and organisations committed to maintaining the language in New Zealand.

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