Te Wiki o te Reo Māori 2025: Ake, ake, ake, a forever language

Te wiki o te reo Māori turns 50

This year Te wiki o te reo Māori (Māori language week) runs from the 14th to the 20th of September. The theme for this year is 'Ake, Ake, Ake, a Forever Language':

Born of activism, the week grew from a single ‘Māori Language Day’ set up in 1972. The seeds of a full week dedicated to te reo Māori were planted in 1974. By 1975 Te Wiki had found its footing and was off! Its growth and gains are what we celebrate 50 years on.

Te wiki o te reo Māori aligns with Mahuru Māori, a month long challenge to embrace and use te reo as much as possible. This year Mahuru began on Saturday 23 August 2025 and it ends on Monday 22 September 2025. Mahuru Māori began as a personal social experiment by Paraone Gloyne in 2014 as a way of broadcasting te reo, and normalising it in every day dealings. The Mahuru website encourages people to take up the challenge whatever their level of proficiency is. This could include:

• "greeting everyone in te reo Māori
• speaking only te reo for an hour a day
• speaking te reo for 2 hours a day every day
• speaking te reo for half the day every day
• speaking te reo every day for the whole month"

It states that:

We know for many participants it will take a conscious effort to stick to your reo Māori goals. But we hope you’re encouraged that you’re not alone in this challenge and together we all help to normalise the use of te reo Māori within our many communities. Kia kaha!

‍Te Taura Whiri, the Maori Language Commission, has a wide range of research and resources on their website related to te reo Māori and the journey towards language revitalisation in Aotearoa . Recently, Māori Language Commissioner, Rawinia Higgins spoke at the Waves 2025 Indigenous Languages Summit, Ottawa Canada. Reflecting on her experience at the summit, Higgins commented that:

Our reo Māori narrative resonates far beyond Aotearoa. It is a story of resilience, innovation, and cultural reclamation. Time and again, I heard from fellow Indigenous delegates about how our approach to language planning and policy has inspired their own efforts. From immersion education to broadcasting, from legislative recognition to everyday usage, te reo Māori has become a blueprint for revitalisation. It is not just a language—it is a movement.

However, this movement is not without resistance. I spoke candidly about the antiquated views that still linger—those that suggest our Indigenous languages are irrelevant, not modern, or of no value outside our respective communities. These attitudes are relics of colonisation, where languages are often the first casualty. To this, I offered a simple but powerful phrase: “Not today, coloniser!” It became a rallying cry throughout the summit, emboldening others to push back against dismissive narratives and reclaim the dignity of their languages.

Higgins noted the Minister for Education's recent decision to remove kupu Māori from the Ready to Read Phonics Plus (RtRPP) series, designed to teach children to read. She commented that:

There is a contradiction of todayʻs experience—global admiration versus domestic erasure—which must be addressed. We cannot allow the progress of te reo Māori revitalisation to be undone by political short-sightedness. Our language is not a threat; it is a treasure. And as I saw at Waves 2025, it is a treasure that others around the world are eager to learn from.

This year Tukutuku Kōrero | Education Gazette have released a special edition in celebration of Te wiki o te reo Māori. Issue 9 ‘Reo in action – From poi to pūrākau to pepeha, ākonga and kaiako connect to culture and identity’ features a range of stories from schools and kura across Aotearoa:

Auahatanga and whakawhanaungatanga breathe life and colour into these pages. From pūrākau shared through tākaro in Marton, to ākonga in Te Whanganui-a-Tara and Taranaki designing and exhibiting their own korowai, each story offers grounded, practical examples of how te ao Māori and mātauranga Māori are being woven into learning in ways that connect all ākonga to their identity and their place in Aotearoa.

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Using te reo Māori to search our Vine library

There are two ways to search our library using te reo Māori. You can search for te reo Māori words or phrases. You can search using te reo Māori topic terms. The terms we use for our topic searches come from two Māori-led projects supporting te reo and mātauranga Māori, Ngā Upoko Tukutuku and Te Reo Hāpai.

Ngā Upoko Tukutuku is a growing list of te reo Māori topic terms “that enables quality access and findability for te Reo Māori language users and Te Ao Māori thinkers”. Vine uses a subset of these specific to our scope. The full set of terms is hosted by the National Library.

Vine uses Te Reo Hāpai for terms relating to mental health, addiction and disability. Te Reo Hāpai is a glossary of te reo Māori terms developed for those sectors: “Te Reo Hāpai is about enriching language, including ‘words of great power’ in te reo from a strengths base and a mana enhancing Māori worldview for the benefit of tāngata whai ora. Wherever possible, Te Reo Hāpai combines the lived experience of tāngata whai ora and tāngata whaikaha with clinician and practitioner input."