Ka Ngaro Te Reo: Maori Language Under Siege in the 19th Century

Ka ngaro te reo, ka ngaro taua, pera i te ngaro o te moa. If the language be lost, man will be lost, as dead as the moa. In 1800, te reo Maori was the only language spoken in New Zealand. By 1899, it was on the verge of disappearing altogether. In Ka Ngaro Te Reo, Paul Moon traces the spiralling decline of the language during an era of prolonged colonisation that saw political, economic, cultural and linguistic power shifting steadily into the hands of the European core. In this revelatory and hard-hitting account, Moon draws on a vast range of published and archival material, as well as oral histories and contemporary Maori accounts, to chart the tortuous journey of a language under siege in a relentless European campaign to save and civilise the remnant of the Maori Race’. He also chronicles the growing commitment among many Maori towards the end of the nineteenth century to ensure that the language would survive.