Moana Reo Maori

This article discusses the immense popularity of the Maori dub of Moana, showed at 30 free theaters across New Zealand. Maori has historically been a highly stigmatized language in New Zealand, and many speakers of the boomer generation were discouraged from speaking Maori when they were younger. Much like Hungarian in the Gal (1978) paper dealing with a Hungarian/German bilingual community, Maori is in danger of extinction as younger speakers use it less and less to attain prestige through English. However, this film is part of an effort to give Maori covert and explicit prestige among younger speakers through its association with a cool, hip film.

Posted by Isaac Gray on March 7, 2018

Tags:
Code-switching;
Language Revitalization;
Stigma;
Language Shift

+ Show more artifacts