O Tatou Ō Aga'I I Fea?/'Oku Tau Ō Ki Fe?/Where Are We Heading?

Abstract

This paper examines the health of the four largest Polynesian Pasifika languages in Aotearoa/New Zealand (New Zealand). It presents perspectives and interpretations from the researchers and writers who are at the same time, parents and grandparents of Pasifika children of Tongan, Samoan and Cook Islands ancestry. It examines: findings from the 2006 Census; a major socio-linguistic study examining these four languages in New Zealand's most multicultural city between 2000 and 2008; and insider community sources. These indicate that Pasifika languages in New Zealand show significant signs of language shift and loss, with several languages unlikely to survive unless urgent maintenance and revival measures are adopted. It seeks reasons for the shift of Pasifika families to using more English. It argues that the discourses of family language for private use, and English for education and public use, emerged in the Pacific, came with the migrants and is now deeply entrenched in New Zealand. The paper suggests that expanding the role of Pasifika languages into education and the public domain through Bilingual/Immersion Education is the prime strategy for future survival of these languages. We use initial capitals for the term Bilingual/Immersion Education in this article to indicate that this is a major world approach to education. Following Baker (2006), Garcia (2009), and May and Hill (2005), we use bilingual and immersion to cover all forms of first language and second language medium education. This dual use is very important in New Zealand where until recently a rigid and artificial separation was made between Bilingual Education and Immersion Education (May & Hill, 2005, 2008).