It’s Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori – Māori Language Week!
The Māori Language Commission says Maori Language Week has been celebrated every year since 1975. Māori Language Day is September 14 and commemorates the presentation of the 1972 Māori language petition to parliament.
There are plenty of online resources to help you celebrate the week. We made a list of some favourites here:
- 100 Māori words every New Zealander should know
- A Māori word a day
- Make bilingual signs for your office
- Order your coffee in te reo
- Explore the Māori Language website
- Listen to a special Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori playlist
We also asked some friends how they’re marking Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori and why it’s important to them.
"Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori is important to us at Mercury because it’s a chance to celebrate our indigenous language that is key for us connecting with our partnerships, which include the Waikato River iwi and our commercial geothermal partners. These relationships are important to Mercury’s strategic pillars of Kaitiakitanga and Partnerships that underpin important mahi for our business.
We’ll be launching Te Wiki o te Reo Māori with:
- Joining the worldwide Māori Language Moment (14 Sep): Over MS Teams we are singing a waiata together. This has been advertised in all our comms channels.
- We have an employee video with several people from across our business. In the video, they are explaining how to use te reo Māori at work and at home and share top tips and tricks.
- Launching our new sharepoint site that covers off the following:
- Partnerships
- Pronunciations - this is especially important for us at Mercury as all our asset sites have Māori names
- Waiata – selection of our teams’ favourites
- Tikanga – important for attending meetings with our partners
- History
- Digital signage around our buildings that will display daily tips and tricks
- Yammer campaign, internal social media. Different posts will go up every day with a call to action
- We are having a wero (challenge) similar to that of an ‘ice bucket challenge’. The wero has just been laid down, so over the week different people will pick it up
- Basic greetings
- How to order kawhe (coffee)
- What’s your favourite waiata
- How to download the Māori keyboard to ensure the use of macrons"
“Inclusion & Diversity is very important at Vend! We have a global I&D committee who ensure this is at the forefront of what we do.
For Māori Language Week we are aiming to get ‘Venders’ speaking, singing and celebrating te reo.
Our colleague, Krysten, taking us through why Māori language week is important to be part of and what the moment signifies. Another colleague, Campbell, will teach us some Māori phrases to use around the office and how to properly pronounce Māori words we already use.
We will also have a list of Māori words printed out and stuck around the office that we can use in our everyday work lingo.
And we have...for a long time now...a te reo slack channel.
Lastly, we will be playing a game of Pukana during our Friday wind-down drinks.”
"We are posting a video on our social pages featuring staff using basic te reo Māori sayings. We will be lighting the Sky Tower to support Te Wiki o Te Reo in association with Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori. The Sky Tower will be rainbow for the week. Also, we will have the Te Taura Whiri Hei Tiki projected onto the southern side of the Sky Tower
Māori Language Moment (staff event)
To support Te Taura Whiri’s movement, we will be running our own SkyCity Māori Language Moment Zoom call. There will be an interactive half-hour session open to all staff teaching basic te reo Māori at midday today, run internally by our Māori Group Te Roopu Maori o SkyCity."
