Minding our language

Remember Grampa Simpson? Of course you do.

This week, the Otago Daily Times published a column by Joe Bennett, attacking the use of te reo Māori by RNZ.

It's an odd piece.  Bennett starts out complaining he doesn't follow the news, and only likes listening to centuries-old classical music.  It's like a weird ass love letter to avoiding change at all costs.  

Then he pivots.  He explains, te reo just isn't useful.  Useful languages endure; the others wither.  And that's because of 'evolution'.  The guy who doesn't like change now thinks it's 'inevitable, immutable'. That is, when it comes to stuff he doesn't like.

At this point Bennett hangs up his hammer, because he knows he's nailed it.  Evolution. Of course.  Why else would a language decline, he seems to wonder, while actively lobbying to stop people speaking it.  

This is trolling, and I don't care to feed it.  But Bennett is not alone.  The Broadcasting Standards Authority made a statement last year - you could almost feel their eyes rolling.  They explained, they won't accept further complaints about te reo on air, because it's not a bloody breach of standards.  In short, the BSA called BS.   

There's a lot going on behind complaints like these, including bedwetting levels of cultural insecurity.  

But the thing I want to talk about is this: Bennett is judging te reo by what it does for him, personally.  And that's a funny old world view.  Taking yourself, the stuff you care about, as the centre and the measure of all things.  Cranking up the Mozart on your AM radio - living a foreign dead guy's achievements like they're somehow your own - while feeling qualified to judge a whole language.  All while yelling at a cloud.  

Joe, this is going to be hard to hear.  IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU.  But for the sake of argument, I'm going to play your game.  I'm going to challenge the idea that te reo isn't valuable for people like you and I.  After all, I'm old, white and a bit grumpy too.

In that spirit, here are the top ways te reo Māori benefits me.  

1. Growth mindset.  I will tear my hair out next time someone says we can't have te reo on RNZ because 'old people don't understand it'.  What, old people can't learn and don't want to?  Sorry, your ageism is showing.  Learning is my lifelong love, and exposure to te reo is one way I nurture that love.  Always will be. Joe can pry it out of my cold dead hands.      
2. Intellectual curiosity.  Recently, I've been reading the story of Aotearoa's first migration. Like many of us, I never learned it before, at school or after - so I'm starting now.  You know the thing you feel when you're so immersed in a book you can hardly tell where it ends and your imagination begins?  I've read about the ingenuity of the mariners, their stories of sighting and settling the whenua. The cultivation of their skills and tools and art and technology, inspired by the flora and fauna and landscapes of this extraordinary place.  And all of these things - the concepts that animate them - are bound, inextricably, with the language.     
3. Learning accomplishment.  I never studied languages as a kid.  And so I missed out on the brain growth that language acquisition is so good at stimulating.  But old dogs can learn new tricks, and when I say old dogs, I mean badass middle aged b#tches.  Every time I figure out a new sentence structure, or make a successful stab at what a fluent speaker's saying, I get a joyful kick out of my brain cells firing. 
4. Sense of achievement.  A few years ago, I began my tentative steps toward using te reo.  I was the hell out of my comfort zone, and not very good.  When my phone rang at work one day, I took a deep breath, and answered with a greeting.  And I waited for the moment of awkwardness.  It never came: only a warm, generous tautoko.  The caller thought I was brave and cool and I was like WHY YES I AM.   

Views like Bennett's still get column inches.  The Otago Daily Times remains a safe space for old dudes who find themselves stumbling around in the wrong century.  But Joe got one thing right, even if it wasn't how he intended.  Useless language withers.  I've seen blokes of his own demographic distance themselves from his views, and views like them. Separate themselves from this shrill demand to be heard, that lacks the self-awareness it has nothing to say.  

That's where I could leave this post, I guess: with negativity.  I won't.  Instead, I will repeat this whakataukī: Ko taku reo taku ohooho.  It says, my language is my awakening.

Probably, I will never be much of a speaker - only an advocate, a well wisher. But I can play my part. My tongue might be tied, but my mind will not be closed. Always, I will learn.

Let’s just say, when I get to Joe’s age, I plan to yell at that cloud in English AND te reo.