Is language the truest representation of a culture? And if not, what do you think is the truest representation? 

I probably wouldn’t use the word ‘true’ or ‘truth’ in reference to culture, but I am very interested in the belief systems that underpin our cultural practices, how we express those beliefs through language, and also through non-verbal forms of communication. We are complex creatures, and language is certainly integral to that complexity. 

Do majority languages threaten the existence of minority languages? 

Both in our histories and in the present day, we have multiple examples of majority languages threatening the existence of minority languages. The influx of colonial settlers in Aotearoa had an incredibly damaging impact on te reo Māori; colonial governance in the Pacific has also had significant negative impacts on the languages of the Pacific Islands.  

Today’s global languages (English, Mandarin Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Spanish and French) are spoken by humans who assert the greatest control over the planet’s resources, and who have greater wealth, social power and military dominance (note the role of speakers of these languages in colonisation and/or unification of smaller nations).  And we can add control over technology and the development of Artificial Intelligence as another domain of control. The speakers of global languages quite literally make the rules that everyone else must follow, including choosing the languages that can be spoken in international forums.     

How does immigration to New Zealand have an impact on the use of a person’s mother tongue? 

An English-speaking family is unlikely to experience much of a shift in language when immigrating to New Zealand. They are likely to add a little Māori vocabulary to their speech over time, and their pronunciation might shift towards New Zealand English. 

A family whose home language is not English is most likely to experience a language shift over two to three generations. Research tells us that each successive generation born in Aotearoa has less capacity to speak the home language. Sometimes families deliberately stop speaking the home language in favour of English but more often, the loss is gradual and unnoticed until the oldest family members pass away, and the family is faced with the realisation that they no longer speak their home language. Language shift is often motivated by the desire for better educational achievement, and employment opportunities. In families where the home language is maintained after migration, the transmission of the home language to new generations of children is often linked to religious and/or cultural beliefs, and to traditions of marriage within a community of speakers.  

What do you think is a starting point for language revival?  

 The heart of language revitalisation and ongoing language maintenance is in the home, with younger generations learning from their elders. Yes, language within the education system is very important, and continuous government funding to support language initiatives and resource development is vital. But uninterrupted intergenerational transmission of language and culture between family members is where language and culture thrive. 

What determines the language choice in a bilingual or multilingual community? 

For individuals going about their daily lives, and speaking more than one language, many factors can influence language choice. Who we are talking to and their language competencies is obviously a big one. What we are talking about can also affect language choice. I taught a Japanese student a few years ago. She found it easier to speak English to talk about linguistics, even when she went back to Japan and attended linguistics conferences there. She didn’t know the technical terminology in Japanese, even though it was her dominant language.  

For society at large, language choices are often made for us by our governments. Our Ministry of Education decides on what languages can be the medium of formal education (receiving government funding), and what languages can be taught and assessed in schools (resulting in formal qualifications). These choices have a direct impact on the languages that children exit their schooling with, and their perceptions of those languages. We also respond to messaging around us. When signs in our communities are bilingual in English and te reo Māori, this normalises the use of te reo Māori in public, and (provided the lettering is equal in size) we begin to see English and te reo Māori as equally valid languages of communication. When bilingual signage is problematised, the normalisation of bilingualism is undermined.