Sumary of the previous lecture

New Zealand, which is also called Aotearoa, was the last place in the Pacific settled by Austronesian people about 700 years ago, and it was also the last place on Earth to be inhabited by humans. Though Europeans landed in 1769, the British actually started settlement in 19th century. There were protestant missionaries and they converted the indigenous people to Christianity through bible. It doesn’t look so different from other Pacific Islands, but New Zealand is among the best examples of language revitalization. What makes it so? In New Zealand, even after European colonization, Maori language has remained as an official language along with English, so every sign board and warning label has to be written in Maori as well as English. Also many education institutions are bilingual system or Maori culture based. These kinds of efforts made New Zealand maintain its historically and culturally meaningful and valuable heritage, Maori language.
It was interesting and informative that what efforts New Zealand is making to maintain their own culture and language. As the world is getting more globalized with English as a global language, it became much harder to keep their own language. However, making Maori as a co0official language along with English, and encouraging many educational instititions to make an appropriate environment to teach children their culture and language played a very important role for language revitalization. I think this example of New Zealand can provide other pacific islands whose langeages are endangered the right way to go.