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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
World
Jamie Tahana

Māori language ‘at risk’ as a result of government policies, commissioner says

Māori flag
New research shows around one in 25 people in New Zealand can speak the Māori language, teo reo Māori. Photograph: Marty Melville/AFP/Getty Images

New Zealand’s Māori language commissioner has described government policies to limit the use of the Indigenous language in the public service as “a risk” to the half-century effort to revive it.

“Any affront to the efforts that we have been making has to be taken seriously,” the commissioner, Prof Rawinia Higgins, told the Guardian. “We’re seeing a reaction – only from a small corner of people, but enough that we don’t want that to snowball.”

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