If you can search in the language of Elma Fudd and Kling-on search engine, Google then why not Te Reo Māori? Husband and wife team, Potaua and Nikolasa Biasiny-Tule could just be New Zealand’s answer to Bill and Melinda Gates. Not only did they found website TangataWhenua.com they led the team that established Google Maori, which launched earlier this week.
Internet service provider Google is planning to extend Te Reo Maori into a new dimension through making it accessible online.
With the ressurgence of Te Reo Maori, technology is an excellent way in which the language can be developed even more.
“Tuhia te haa o te reo ki te rangi. Let the language permeate the heavens” is the catch phrase to raise the use of Maori language to new heights and with the launch of Google Maori this will be about as close as people can get to achieving that.
For Potaua Tule and wife Nikolasa this has been a long time coming. They set up their own website TangataWhenua.com as a one stop shop where they can keep in touch with each other.
Now it’s time to take the language a step further.
We are big users of Google and noticed Maori wasn’t there, Afrikans was there, Bork Bork Bork was there, Klingon was there, but where was the Maori,” says Potaua Tule.
The Information Technology industry says using modern technology can only be a winner.
“Google is increasingly the way that technology is taught in school. It’s the way things are taught for anyone teaching any kind of class,” says IT Commentator Scott Bartley.
“And for anyone teaching Maori in the class then what better way than Google in Maori as well,” he says.
Approximately 40 volunteers put their time and efforts together to get Google Maori off the ground and one year later Google America is pleased to have Maori on board.
Now this language which said to be thousands of years old has been given a new lease of life in the most modern way.
The language needs to be in the hands, the ears and mouths of young people keeping those old traditions live in a modern way,” says Tule.
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