1000 Years of Te Reo?
March 16, 2025
By AHNZ
There is an unattributed meme floating around about the Maori language (see image.) Specifically it says that “And people who complain about Te Reo Maori should remember that Te Reo has been spoken here for nearly a thousand years….maybe more.”
Is it true? ‘Maybe more than nearly a thousand years’ is a long time.
How long has Maori been spoken here really?
First answer: 184 years?
Until 1840 there was no “here” because New Zealand wasn’t one contiguous place but many. The map distributed with the claim shows, for example, the Chatham Islands which was not part of New Zealand until 1842 and they certainly had a distinctive language. What ‘here’ are we talking about?
New Zealand was created as a Crown Colony neighbouring any number of tribal groups. Here in New Zealand Maori was spoken as a foreign language. So we’ve cut down from nearly 1000 years to nearly 200.
Second Answer: 65 years?
Recently Maoris started migrating to New Zealand. Especially in the 1960s. It’s called The Second Great Migration. In that case the answer that Maori has been spoken here for 65 years.
Even so, Maori wasn’t one language but many languages. Only by academic and government activity was it homogenised into the newspeak monolith today referred to as Te Reo. A sub-dialect of English. If that is what we are referring to then it’s a matter of 50 years at most for a Third answer.
Forth Answer: Maori became an “official language” here in 1987. English is not. Maybe that’s the date so nearly 40 years.
On the other hand, there was no decisive reference to “Te Reo” as the name for Maori language even then. In 1991 the government propagandised “Akona Te Reo” meaning ‘lean Maori language’ in the song AEIOU by Moana and the Moahunters. That’s about 35 years ago now for our Fifth Answer.
Sixth Answer: 25 years of Te Reo Maori spoken here.
This number comes from the term being circulated back in 1999 and the catch-phrase “it’s cool to korero!” Ref. Mai FM – It’s Cool to Kōrero, NZ on Screen
Somewhere along the way ‘Maori’ became ‘Korero’ and most recently ‘Te Reo.’ Given this unsettled definition there’s no particular reason to suppose the language won’t be called by yet another name tomorrow.
The meme is supposed to be laying a case for a rock-solid and long-lasting presence. Yet it’s so new and fluid that agreement on what to call it is still a fresh argument being workshopped before our eyes.
Is it 184, 65, 50, 40, 35, 25 years? At any rate it’s not “nearly 1000!”
The real meaning of the meme is political. It only makes sense if you accept particular dissident Maori premises. The essential one is that New Zealand did not come to be when New South Wales carried on doing what it had been doing on the Australian continent by expanding its borders over our islands in the year 1840. “We” are therefore not just under 200 years old. In place of that, ‘Aotearoa New Zealand’ is supposed to be where we all live in this country: a dominion going back many hundreds of years “maybe more than nearly a 1000 years.” As such, the recent wave of Anglo colonies of 200 years ago that thought it was New Zealand is supposedly not. That entity is simply…what? Like a young kid riding an old whale? “Visitors” or “Pakeha” or “Tangata Tiriti” are terms that are quietly used.
It’s a puzzle but not one we’re likely to have disclosed for a national debate or opportunity to vote upon until it’s too late to contest. If it’s a conspiracy then those who know about it are keeping it under their hats. Sometimes it spills out a bit in Shortland Street: “The last gasp of a dying age. Puffed up, privileged Pakeha men…they will fall, and I’m here to make sure the right people take their place, kei te pai?”
Another slipping of the mask came in 2021 from Affirmative Action MP Rawiri Waititi MP who wrote: “The cau casity of Caucasian’s and their ‘active assimilation agenda’. Pay them no attention, their archaic species is becoming more extinct as a new Aotearoa is on the rise. Tangata Whenua + Tangata Tiriti = Aotearoa > Tangata Whenua + Pakeha = Old Zealand.” Ref. Stuff (2021)
As per usual, the Sun Tzu/Machiavellian tactics dictated that this clarifying disclosure was promptly redacted. We weren’t supposed to have this glimpse into what Rawiri’s team has in store for us.
History is in contention because the legitimacy of power is determined by the belief of the ruled. In the 2020s we are beyond bars and cages, castles and suits of armor. The population isn’t kept in line with whips and capital punishment but by the ideas they have about their identity. If people think their property and wealth is unearned, stolen, they’ll simply give it away. Power flows to those who have moral legitimacy. So, history is weaponised to that end to justify the claims of would-be rulers.
A new ‘Aotearoa’ ruled by ‘Tangata Whenua’ is supposedly on the way. There is room for whatever “caucasian archaic white dinosaur species” are willing to defect to it by some feat of Stockholm syndrome trauma bonding. The rest are to “go home” or “die.” This is done quietly but is, nevertheless, the mainstream view. It is the court language and the language of government both local and central. It is the language and mentality of State TV. Many mainstream institutions have adopted the orthodoxy too by voluntarily adopting it and often relegating their heritage names to a subtitle under a new Maori name.
And that’s the point here, the newness. We near a crucial identity crisis point about what the next great era of New Zealand history will be and one of the possible forks is indeed this ‘Aotearoa New Zealand’ identity. If it comes to be then part of the articles of faith will be that it is 1000 years old. Doubt this and you out yourself as one of the “dinosaurs” they want exiled or dead. So it might become the new “truth” but nevertheless it will only have been “true” on the day someone like Rawiri Waititi says it out loud without deleting it and nobody laughs him out of the room.
I take a more radical view. I say that it’s not possible to create a 1000 year entity in a single day.
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