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If we closed our eyes and went back in time to when waka sliced across the horizon, you would hear the slap of the waves against the hull, taste the salt drying on your lips, and feel the wind tugging you towards a destiny that was, actually, very deliberate. The moana wasn’t empty space; it was a highway. A living, breathing saltwater highway that connected Tangata Moana, not a void that kept us apart.

 

For Māori and our wider Pacific cousins, the moana is whakapapa in motion. But many of our fellow uni friends probably don’t realise the intentionality and sheer skill behind Māori and Pacific migration and might still imagine it as some lucky driftwood accident (before the release of Moana, the Disney animated movie, anyway). Spoiler: our tūpuna didn’t just stumble into Aotearoa because they were “lost”. They were scientists, navigators, and knowledge-holders who treated the moana as a whakapapa map. As a direct descendant of Kupe Nuku, I carry kōrero tuku iho that attests to this.

 

Here’s where language comes in. Te reo Māori isn’t a stand-alone quirk of Aotearoa – it’s a living link to this entire Pacific story. Our kupu are the taproot of our history. They prove we belong to a massive Austronesian whānau stretching from Taiwan all the way to Rapa Nui. So, strap in – we’re voyaging across time, space, and a vast blue to show you how te reo Māori carries the moana in its diction and underlying values.

Let’s close our eyes again and picture this: stars mapped the sky, swells patterned the sea, and birds told us when land was nearby. Wayfinding wasn’t a party trick (though it might have felt that easy for our ancestors), but an entire science – one our tūpuna commanded long before the word “compass” was invented. This was migration with intention, precision, and mana. This mastery was truly one of their greatest superpowers.

 

Anthropologists link these movements to the Lapita people, the ancient ancestors of Polynesians, who dispersed from Southeast Asia around 3,000 years ago. Through them, the Austronesian language family spread across Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa, from Taiwan to the Solomons, Sāmoa to Hawai‘i, and finally here to Aotearoa; a network of voyages that mapped a third of the planet.

 

Scotty Morrison nails this in his 2020 Origins documentary series, tracing how te reo Māori isn’t just language, it’s evidence. He explores how kupu can be time capsules, recording journeys through space and history. And that’s the wake-up call: our language proves we were explorers, not drifters.

 

Complementing this ancestral linguistic journey, Sir Patu Hōhepa – a renowned scholar of te reo Māori, and a gateway between Pacific languages – embodied the continuity of these voyaging traditions. He devoted his life to strengthening Māori and Pacific language connections, serving as Māori Language Commissioner and advising on the Waitangi Tribunal and legal reforms. In one of his most moving journeys, captured in the documentary The Lost Waka, Sir Patu and his wife Erena travelled to Rennell (Mu Ngiki) and Bellona (Mu Nggava) in the Solomon Islands. They went searching for the “lost waka” – not a physical canoe, but the living ties between Māori and the people of those islands. What they found was incredible: locals who greeted them with hongi, observed similar customs, and spoke a language so close to te reo Māori that conversations rolled with ease. Whakairo, pūrākau, and whakapapa told the same story – these weren’t strangers, but whanaunga across the moana. Sir Patu proved that kupu aren’t just words, they’re waka – carrying us back to each other across the Pacific.

Now, let’s talk about te reo Māori. I wouldn’t be the first Pacific descendant to sit at a gathering and quietly freak out at how I can follow along with a ‘different’ Pacific language – almost word for word. There’s a reason behind this magical feeling: te reo Māori is part of the Oceanic branch of Austronesian languages, the world’s largest language family. That in itself is a major flex. Just like many Western languages can be traced back to Latin roots, Austronesian languages share deep ancestral connections that explain their striking similarities. We’re talking cousins in Hawai‘i, Sāmoa, Tonga, Fiji, Niue, the Cook Islands, Tahiti, Rapa Nui, and beyond.

 

The receipts? Shared kupu and grammar.

Here are SOME examples:

 

English          Māori             Hawaiian       Sāmoan        Tongan          Fijian             

one                 tahi                  kahi                 tasi                  taha                dua

two                  rua                  lua                   lua                   ua                    rua

three               toru                 kolu                 tolu                  tolu                  dolu

four                 whā                 hā                    fā                     fā                     vā

five                  rima                lima                 lima                 nima               lima

 

Niuean           Cook Islands           Tahitian         Rapa Nui

taha                ta’i                               hō’ē                tahi

ua                    rua                              piti                   rua

tolu                  toru                             toru                 toru

fa                     ‘ā                                maha               hā

lima                 rima                            pae                 rima

 

English          Māori             Hawaiian       Sāmoan        Tongan          Fijian

love                 aroha              aloha              alofa               ‘ofa                  loloma

person            tangata           kanaka           tagata             tangata           tamata

mountain       maunga         mauna            mauga            mo’unga         ulunivanua

canoe             waka               wa’a                va’a                 vaka                waqa

land                whenua          ‘āina                fanua              fonua              vanua

ancestor         tūpuna            kupuna           tupuga            tupunga         tubuqu

 

Niuean           Cook Islands           Tahitian         Rapa Nui

fakaalofa        aro’a                           aroha              aroha

tagata             tangata                       ta’ata              taŋata

mouga            maunga                     mou’a             maunga

vaka                vaka                            va’a                 vaka

fonua              ‘enua                          fenua              henua

tupuna            tupuna                        tupuna            tupuna

 

The lists go on and on.

 

One of my favourite comparisons is between the words Hawaiki, ‘Avaiki, Havaiki, Hawai‘i, Savai‘i and Sawaiki. In te reo Māori, Hawaiki is known as the ancestral Polynesian homeland – our spiritual (and physical) place of origin. If you trace this word through the Pacific, it literally maps out a journey from island to island that mirrors our migrations across the moana.

 

It’s less a game of spot the difference than one of spot the similarities. Think of when one friend calls jandals ‘flip flops,’ while another might say ‘thongs.’ Or when a friend says ‘kettle’ and you say ‘jug’. That’s dialect in action. Now, imagine that stretched across thousands of kilometres of ocean. These similarities and variations are evidence of our migrations. While the movement of our tongues and the sound of our vowels changed, the heart of our language stayed the same. Morrison’s Origins makes this point beautifully: languages aren’t islands, they are neighbours. The way these kupu echo across the Pacific is whakapapa in sound waves. Every time we kōrero in te reo Māori, we’re literally speaking our hononga back into existence.

Here’s where it gets exciting. What if I told you our tūpuna reached South America long before Europeans even set foot there?

 

Exhibit A: kūmara. This humble root veg is native to the Andes but turned up in Polynesia centuries before Europeans drifted ashore. The biggest tell? The word “kūmara” lines up suspiciously well with Quechua and Aymara words like cumal and k’umar(a) – their word for the delicious sweet potato. Language doesn’t lie, and neither do taste buds: kūmara, in both places, is cooked the same, tastes the same, and carries the same name.

 

Exhibit B: chickens. In 2007, scientists found chicken bones in Chile dated between 1304–1424 CE, genetically similar to Polynesian chooks from Sāmoa and Tonga. Translation: our tūpuna may have left more than footprints on South American soil. Again, the language lines up – in the Mapuche tongue, “kollonka”, meaning chicken, has been used for centuries. The first syllable connects to “water”, and to the Mapuche it symbolises exchange. To put it plainly, the birds themselves – and the words for them – suggest contact and more than likely trade. Critics pushed back, arguing contamination or alternative origins, but the possibility itself? Iconic.

 

Exhibit C: people and exchange. A 2020 DNA study revealed Polynesians in the Marquesas and Rapa Nui carried genetic markers from the people of the South American coastline, suggesting contact as early as the 13th century, right around the time kūmara arrived in the Pacific. Moreover, some skeletal remains have been uncovered in Chile with distinctive Polynesian jawbones, larger builds than the locals, and toki pounamu hung around their necks. But the cultural echoes don’t stop there. The Mapuche name neckworn adornments, toki kura, mirrors our own toki pounamu. Their carved posts, pou whakarae, share a striking crossover in both name and design with our own pou whakarae. Even sound carried across the seas: the Andean pututu, a conch shell trumpet used for signalling across distances, calls close to our own pūtātara.

 

Scholars continue to debate, some agreeing, others suggesting mistakes were made. But the truth feels clear: our tūpuna didn’t just explore the Pacific, they intentionally pushed further east, connecting with South America long before Europeans ever did. The kōrero shows us this isn’t just a myth but a fascinating possibility supported by evidence. Honestly, I kind of love that Western science is still catching up to what our kūmara have been quietly whispering to us for generations, and what we’ve always known.

Now, let’s bring it home. Te reo Māori isn’t a one-size-fits-all language. Dialects and regional variations are living proof of our migration and settlement patterns here in Aotearoa. These variations are enrichments, adding flavour to our reo, just as different notes enrich a waiata. Take Ngāi Tahu in Te Waipounamu. Here in Te Tai Tonga, the ‘ng’ often shifts to a ‘k’. So “ngā” becomes “kā” and Ngāi Tahu becomes Kāi Tahu. These shifts in dialect reflect the isolation, adaptation, whakapapa, and settlement journey of the iwi of this area. Every iwi carries its own flavour, its own kōrero, its own history.

 

For Ngāi Tahu, the unique dialect came dangerously close to disappearing. By the early 2000s, only five native speakers remained after more than 150 years of language decline that began with the loss of land. But thanks to the drive of Ngāi Tahu whānau and the Kotahi Mano Kāika vision – a thousand homes where Ngāi Tahu reo is spoken – the revival is nothing short of historic.

 

Kiringāua Cassidy, a rangatahi raised through this vision, shows just how inseparable mita is from history. Growing up with te reo Māori as his first language – a rarity in Te Waipounamu at the time – he now stands as the youngest certified reo Māori translator and interpreter in the world and is beginning a Masters in Indigenous Studies. Kiringāua carries both the privilege and the weight of revival, noting how even fragments hold whakapapa: “Some of our dialectical features tie us to other iwi. Some kupu reflect our migration path down from the East Coast, and others directly from the Pacific.” 

 

Today, the dialect is unapologetically strong, heard from kaumātua to tamariki kōhungahunga, flourishing across generations. When people complain about “different versions” of te reo Māori, they’re missing the point. Language isn’t meant to sit in a glass box – it lives, breathes, and adapts. Dialects aren’t deviations, but rather celebrations. 

Those in colonial power know that our language is our mauri; our life-force. A hard truth to swallow is that colonisation didn’t just attack land, it went for the jugular: our language. Schools banned te reo Māori, tamariki were punished for speaking it, and kōrero tuku iho were silenced. For a while, the waka of our reo Māori sat in drydock, battered and bruised, before our own people braved the tides of cultural and linguistic suppression and pioneered a revitalisation – sparking the rebirth of te reo Māori.

 

Now, here we are, celebrating 50 years of Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori, and our reo is the IT girl on the world stage, thanks to the likes of reo Māori champions like Sir Hirini Moko Mead, Te Wharehuia Milroy, Rāhera Shortland and even my Mum and Dad, to name a few. Let’s not forget Kura Kaupapa Māori, Māori language classes, Māori media, rangatahi dropping kupu into social media content like it’s nothing – it’s all proof that revitalisation isn’t about nostalgia, it’s about survival, resilience and reconnecting with the very systems that carried our tūpuna across the Pacific in the first place.

 

So, here’s the scoop, e te iwi: te reo Māori isn’t just a subject on a degree planner, or a word you sprinkle in your acknowledgements to sound cultured. It’s a waka – a living vessel that carries the memory of stars, tides, histories, whakapapa, and everything in between. When we speak te reo Māori, we’re paddling with our ancestors. Every kupu is a paddle stroke that keeps the waka moving and our language alive. That's why Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori isn’t just about including a karakia at the start of class or your Monday morning hui – it is a call to climb aboard the waka and ride the waves of our reo Māori, linking us to a vast Pacific legacy we should be proud of.