Studying abroad in New Zealand has revealed something I have hardly encountered in the United States — indigenous language.
Upon landing in Auckland, I was immediately met with labels, menus and music in te reo Māori, the language of the native Māori. Bathroom signs are labeled “Wahine” and “Tāne” rather than “female” or “male.”
The number of te reo Māori speakers has grown by 15% since 2018 with 213,849 people able to understand the language, according to an Oct. 3, 2024 Stats NZ article.
Community efforts, normalization, and a significant increase in the number of schools including Māori curriculum have explained this growth, according to a Sep. 2, 2025 Māori Language Commission report.
In America, although many states teach basic Native American history, distinct regional differences exist with southern and mid-western states pushing back against these efforts, according to a Sep. 14, 2021 AP article.
Many Māori words have become as common among non-Māori New Zealanders as their English counterparts, such as “Kia Ora,” used as a greeting and a sign of appreciation; “Whānau,” or family; and “Whenua,” or land.
Although the total number of te reo Māori speakers has grown within the past decade, the number of Māori speakers has stayed relatively constant since 2013, at 18.6%. A te reo Māori educator, Rawiri Wright, claims that this is due to lingering effects of colonization and Māori population growth, according to an Oct. 10, 2024 RNZ article.
As of the 2024 census, 6.79 million Native Americans live in the U.S. Although there is no recent data on the number of indigenous language speakers, if the percentages have remained the same since 2021, about 5% of native populations speak a native language, according to a June 3, 2025 United States Census Bureau article.
Indigenous languages in America have been experiencing opposite trends to te reo Māori. North American Indian language use declined by 6% from 2013 to 2021, according to the article.
Since British colonization began in New Zealand in 1769, the number of speakers has dwindled, with an all-time low of about 30,000 speakers prior to World War II, according to the RNZ article.
In more recent times, New Zealand has worked towards preserving te reo Māori. There has been a significant resurgence in using the word Aotearoa rather than New Zealand, which means “land of the long white cloud,” with it even appearing in legal documents such as passports and birth certificates, according to a Feb. 20, 2025 Stuff article.
Aotearoa has been the name of New Zealand since roughly the thirteenth century, about six centuries before British colonization. Common stories indicate that the voyager Kupe labeled it as such, due to its appearance when he first discovered it on his canoe, according to The Encyclopedia of New Zealand.
In 2021, a referendum called for the country’s name to be legally changed to Aotearoa, with many arguing that since it is originally Māori land, it should have its Māori name, although there has been no government progress towards the change.
Winston Peters, along with other non-Māori New Zealand politicians, has openly spoken against using Aotearoa, hoping for things to stay the way they are, according to the Stuff article.
Native American language rates reflect a more extreme sense of erasure. The assimilation, oppression and genocide that Native Americans experienced during colonization has caused their current struggles.
American Indian communities disproportionately experience poverty, violence and sexual assault according to a June 13, 2024 Human Rights Research Center article.
Although New Zealand has taken steps towards recognizing, embracing and preserving Māori language and culture, Native Americans continue to be overlooked in the U.S.
No amount of land acknowledgments will compensate for the suffering that Native Americans experience to this day. The American government has the responsibility to do more, starting with increased education on American Indian history, culture, and language.
Language is key to the prosperity of a culture. The well-being of a language is a clear indication of the well-being of a culture.
