Launch of Cook Islands Mind Your Language Website

Launch of 'Tuatua Mai' Cook Islands Mind Your Language website, Sir Edmund Hillary Collegiate, Otara, Manukau City

Kia Orana kotou katoatoa e te iti tangata Kuki Airani I teia avatea. Te Ui Ariki, te ui Mataiapo, te ui Rangatira; Te komitiona ngateitei o te Kuki Airani – Tepure Tapaitau; Te tauturu Mea o Manukau Gary Troup; Te Au Orometua Katoatoa e to kotou au akaperepere; Te aronga mana o te enua e to te ture; Te au Metua, te au tamariki, te’unga ma te potiki; Te Ai Metua o Toku Reo Tupuna Project.

Kia Orana rava kotou kataotao I te aroa maata, O te Atua I teia ra.

Kia orana , Talofa lava, Malo e lelei, Fakaalofa lahi atu, Ni sa bula vinaka, Namaste, Ia Orana, Gud de tru olgeta, Taloha ni, Talofa, Kia ora tatou and Warm Pacific Greetings to you all this evening.

Meitaki maata. Thank you all for being here tonight for the launch of our colourful and informative Cook Islands Mind Your Language website, Tuatua Mai. This really is an exciting resource, with the ability to promote the use of Cook Islands Māori far and wide.

I would like to acknowledge all our guests here this evening. Your interest and support for this project is evident by your presence tonight. I would particularly like to acknowledge:
• His Excellency Mr Tepure Tapaitau the Cook Islands High Commissioner who joins us this evening
• Thank you to George George for his warm welcome and Reverend Bill Cuthers for our blessing
• Tupuna Ai Metua, our Cook Islands community group who have had a pivotal role in the success of this project
• “Isite”, the web developers of Tuatua Mai, particularly Ropeti Gafa
• Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs Chief Executive Dr Colin Tukuitonga and his Innovative Projects team who have worked very hard on this project
• All our members of the Cook Island community who join us this evening – this website is for you, and I hope you use it, and encourage others to do the same.

We have come a long way since members of the New Zealand Cook Islands, Niuean and Tokelauan communities first approached then Minister of Pacific Island Affairs Hon Vui Mark Gosche in 2002 with concerns that their heritage languages faced imminent danger of extinction; that young people were no longer developing and using their mother tongues in the home or in their communities; and that the languages could well be lost to future generations.

At that time, the figures spoke for themselves. The 2001 census had shown that:
– of New Zealand-born Cook Islands peoples, only 6 per cent could hold a conversation in their heritage language;
– of New Zealand born Niuean peoples, only 12 per cent could hold a conversation in the Niuean language;
– and while some 30 per cent of New Zealand-born Tokelauan people spoke their mother tongue, that had fallen from 38 per cent in 1996.

Let us never forget that New Zealand is a Pacific country with our Pacific cultures and languages increasingly important in the way New Zealanders see themselves.

We want the number of New Zealanders able to speak an additional language, particularly their native tongue to increase.

Mind Your Language (MYL) is the Labour-led government's commitment to working with our Cook Islands, Niue and Tokelau communities in New Zealand to nurture and sustain your beautiful languages.

Through Budget 2006 the government invested $600,000 in MYL to expand Niuean resources which had been piloted, and develop Cook Islands and Tokelau resources.

A whole series of consultations were held with key language experts from the communities whose languages were most at-risk, and with young people to canvass their views on learning Pacific languages – leading to the launch of the Cook Islands and Tokelau language resources to encourage the use of the languages in both the home and community.

These were the early steps in a series of achievements – and all who have been involved must feel very excited and proud to have arrived at tonight's destination for the Cook Islands Mind Your Language project – the launch of your Tuatua Mai website.

Your dream and vision of fostering and preserving the Cook Islands language for future generations is coming true.

This evening’s launch is the culmination of over six years’ work by our Pacific communities in partnership with the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs.

From what I have seen over the years, one of the most outstanding qualities of this whole project has been a sense of commitment to a common purpose and vision, that typifies a successful partnership.

For the Cook Islands Mind Your Language project, the partnership between the Ai Metua group and the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs has been crucial to the success of this project.

Vital to MYL's success is community ownership - where those most closely concerned about an issue are intimately involved with its solution. Ownership by the Cook Islands community has been a hallmark of this project. The battalions of the willing and the able were already there – and keen to get on with it!

Thank you all for your hard work, and both the organisational and individual contributions that have brought this project so far.

We all understand the advantages of learning another language. Most of us here will have grown up hearing more than one language in our homes, or learnt a second language at school, or we may have travelled, taken an interest in another culture and picked up a language later in life.

Language is not solely a way of communicating. It expresses all sorts of things about us and our culture, about the world around us, our lives, histories and the ways in which our societies have evolved.

It defines the ways in which we interact with others.

Languages are living things. They grow, they adapt to new times, new technologies and new lands; and they need to be nurtured, in order to serve the new generations and the new peoples.

Tuatua Mai has been developed with this aim in mind.

I have had a sneak preview of the new website and I can tell you it is absolutely stunning! It glows with the colours of the Cook Islands and has the sounds of the chants and beating drums that our Cook Islands peoples are known for.

The important thing about this website it is that it’s going to achieve its purpose. It will offer an accessible, easy-to-follow, engaging and compelling language guide in a modern medium.

It will mean that anyone with access to the web can, with one click, begin the process of learning Cook Islands Māori. It will encourage all peoples young and old to look, listen and learn, and in doing so will kick-start the process of reviving a language so recently seen on a downward spiral.

In addition to this, Tuatua Mai will offer an exciting opportunity to hear the songs of the Cooks, visit the villages, and experience the art and traditional performances of Cook Islands culture. It will also teach users how to hold an every-day conversation about those experiences while they're doing it!

Visitors to this website can hear the words they are learning and test themselves on spelling and pronunciation, explore myths and stories, and songs – and this is all at no cost!

You’ll hear and see more of the websites details shortly – and I’m sure you'll be impressed.

The completion of this project is a real tribute to those who recognised the value of their language as part of their cultural identity, and cared deeply enough to do something about keeping it.

I thank those who offered their expertise and traditional knowledge, consulted, planned and managed the project; the designers, website developers and all involved in translating that knowledge into digital format and preparing it to be loaded up, ready to go.

The Mind Your Language project has been driven from within the Cook Islands community. It would have come to nothing without the advice and support so generously and freely given by the Cook Islands language champions – the people who were willing to nurture and raise the profile of their beautiful language.

Our Pacific peoples have long been travellers and explorers – many of our parents and grandparents have followed that tradition.

When we travel to a new land, we take our cultural practices, including our languages, with us. We must ensure that those traditions, too, can put down roots and thrive in the new land.

Five years after the statistics were first publicised, the 2006 census shows that New Zealand-born Cook Islanders able to speak their language has fallen to 5 per cent. It’s also showing that the median age of Cook Islands peoples in New Zealand is 19 years; forty-one per cent of them are under 15 years of age.

That means that an initiative like MYL, which targets young people and their learning abilities – is an idea whose time has truly come!!

We need to band together to ensure our children and our mokopuna grow in their own sense of identity – by learning the languages of their forebears, and through this share in the history and stories of their people.

The success of Mind Your Language and Tuatua Mai depends on our communities’ collective ability to support each and every new learner of Cook Islands Māori.

Tamou i Te Reo Maori Kuki Airani, te oraanga, meitaki no te tuatau, meitaki no toou oranga. 
 

Meitaki maata.