infundibulum

Māori Queen Te Atairangikaahu passed away yesterday in Ngaruawahia, New Zealand. She helped to promote the Te Reo Māori (the Māori language) during her forty year reign.

Maori Queen worked for youth

Maori used to be dying language, but as patron of the Kohanga Reo movement, Dame Te Ata made Maori proud to speak their mother tongue.

The message from children at the marae: “It’s cool to korero!”

The Kōhanga reo (”language nest”) program which the Queen helped to promote has been quite a successful in helping to create a new generation of Māori speakers (and as a result it’s been emulated in Hawaiian punana leo).

The word “kōrero,” which our young interviewee used, means “to speak” or “to talk.” (There’s a very nice language learning website called Kōrero Māori.)

Here’s another obituary at the L.A. Times, and a lovely photo of her coronation in 1966.