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Every year since 1975 New Zealand has marked Maori Language Week. This is a time for all New Zealanders to celebrate te reo Maori (the Maori language) and to use more Maori phrases in everyday life.
Hear Clerk of the House T.D.H. Hall talk about Maori Members of Parliament using te reo in the House.
The story of the decline and revival of the Maori language is one of the major issues in modern New Zealand history.
100 Maori words for everyday usage. We have included individual sound files of spoken versions of all these words – just click on the word and it will be spoken!
The Waitangi Tribunal claim for te reo Maori
Hoani Waititi teaching te reo, possibly at Queen Victoria School for Maori Girls.
Maori women have been the backbone of kohanga reo (language 'nurseries' where pre-schoolers were immersed in the language) since the first opened in 1982. By July 2000 there were a total of 11,519 children attending 611 kohanga reo.
During the 1980 Maori Language Week a march was held to demand that the Maori language have equal status with English. Another seven years passed before it became an official language of New Zealand.
Piripi Walker (right) and Tama Te Huki in the studio of the Wellington Maori language radio station, Te Upoko o Te Ika, on its first day of broadcast in 1987.
Teacher assistant Nan Bella with a new generation of Maori speakers at the bilingual unit in a Lower Hutt school in 1981.
There were considerable tensions between the Americans and Maori, so strenuous efforts were made to build inter-racial bridges. Princess Te Puea arranged a series of visits to Ngaruawahia in the Waikato, and the Americans were also welcomed by Ngati Poneke Young Maori Club in Wellington and on to a marae in Gisborne.
Waitangi Tribunal members Chief Judge Edward Durie (left) and Paul Temm QC visit a kohanga reo at Waiwhetu, Lower Hutt, in 1985. Kohanga reo or language 'nurseries' immersed infants in a Maori language environment; the first of these opened in 1982.
Marama Ormsby (left) and Erina Hurihanganui won the 1985 National Maori Speech Contests held in Wellington.
Te reo (the Maori language) came into Parliament with the first Maori MPs, elected in 1868.
Map showing the retention and protection of the Maori language, 1973-1991 
Missionary Thomas Kendall is painted with Waikato and Hongi Hika in London in 1820. In 1815 Kendall wrote the first book to be published in the Maori language.