How colonisers went from learning te reo Māori to trying to exterminate it

By HI Mama Productions

This story is part of Te Wiki o te Reo Māori. Check out the rest of the stories here. 

“I don’t think anybody truly could have foreseen what was going to happen up until we had Pākehā politicians who were really individually keen on killing the language” Dr. Vini Olsen-Reeder, Sociolinguist

When Pākehā first arrived here they were completely immersed in te ao Māori. Consequently, the vast majority learnt te reo Māori and were bilingual.

Here's how colonisation and the establishment of the first colonial government facilitated the campaign to exterminate te reo Māori.

This is a clip from a new documentary from Hi Mama Productions called Speak no Māori, available from September 13 on TVNZ+. 

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