Churches urged to help preserve Pacific languages

By ANGELA GREGORY

Pacific Island churches in New Zealand are being urged not to use English in their services as new research shows such shifts are contributing to the loss of the region's languages.

A joint study into the use and retention of four main Pasifika languages has shown a rising use of English in Pacific people's homes and churches.

The three-year research project by Auckland University, the Manukau Institute of Technology and Auckland University of Technology, concentrated on Samoan, Tongan, Cook Islands Maori and Niuean.

Researcher Dr Melenaite Taumoefolau, of Auckland University's Centre for Pacific Studies, said the use of all the Pacific Islands languages was declining, and Cook Islands, Maori and Niuean languages risked being lost altogether.

With more Cook Islanders and Niueans living in New Zealand than in their home countries, those groups in particular could no longer depend on their homelands to support the continuation of their language, she said.

Dr Taumoefolau said that parents and churches were inadvertently contributing to the loss of the Pacific Islands languages by the increasing - though well-intentioned - use of English..

"What we need is for community events such as church services, funeral services and cultural celebrations to all take place in the Pasifika languages."

Dr Taumoefolau said in some Pacific communities teenagers were leaving church because they did not understand their Pacific language.

Some churches then decided to hold services in English, but those teenagers who remained never got to hear their own language in church.

Dr Taumoefolau said for Pasifika languages to survive in New Zealand, parents, schools and the Pacific communities all needed to place a greater emphasis on communicating in their own languages.

That included Pacific Island teachers, doctors, nurses and lawyers, she said.

Dr Taumoefolau said it was easy to see why Pacific families choose to communicate in English.

"In New Zealand, many Pacific families regard English as the key to success, so they naturally encourage their children to use English all the time. They perhaps do not realise that this can come at the expense of the language from their home country."

Dr Taumoefolau said the process of losing or keeping a language began at home with the very young.

"Our people need now to attend to the young ones ... in a way, it is too late to get back the language of teenagers who have lost it."

Dr Taumoefolau said parents or caregivers who did not speak the languages themselves could provide their children with access to books or audio material.