There was also a number of people who had known how to speak Maori at some stage in their lives, mostly when they were very young , but who had forgotten it over the years. For many people this had happened when they went to school where the language of the teachers and many of the other pupils was often English. Peer pressure and lack of use were often contributing factors to the loss of a person's language, and one person said that after being punished at school for speaking Maori he gradually lost his knowledge of it. Some had been discouraged by their own parents from speaking it. They were told that it was a handicap and that they were better off learning English.
Waikato | Waikato | 1970-75 | 5% of Māori children can speak te reo. (1970-75) | Story is by tangata whenua
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