Language Planning in New Zealand

Abstract

New Zealand, a member of the Commonwealth of Nations having gained Dominion status in 1907, is a small polity consisting of two large islands and a number of smaller ones¹ covering approximately 268, 680 sq. km. (103, 884 sq. mi., about the size of Arizona, Colorado, or Nevada in the US and globally about the size of Burkino Faso, Gabon, Laos, Romania, Uganda, or the UK), and having a population of 3, 819, 762 people (roughly comparable to that of Arizona or Puerto Rico). (See Appendix A, Figure 14.) It was first settled by the Mäori, a Polynesian people, between 1, 000 and 1, 300 CE; the Mäori subjugated the indigenous Morioka inhabitants (a Polynesian group whose origin is unknown). The first European to ‘discover’ the islands was Captain Abel Tasman, in the employ of the Dutch East India Company, in 1642. Captain James Cook ‘rediscovered’ the islands in 1769, but British settlement of the islands did not seriously begin until 1839. Britain formally annexed the islands in 1840, signing the Treaty of Waitangi with the Mäori Chiefs that ceded the islands to Britain; in exchange for a British government promise to protect the Mäori people and to recognise Mäori land rights. Despite the treaty, Päkehä (inhabitants of European descent) continuously violated Mäori land rights, leading to the New Zealand Wars between 1861 and 1871 which delayed the creation of appropriate government and of genuine economic development. A full parliamentary government had been created in 1856, but it was not until the early 1870s that it became fully operational when the Mäori people were granted special representation in Parliament.