New Zealand Culture & Language

New Zealand is formally bicultural — Māori and Pākehā, the descendants of European settlers — and in practice more than that. Auckland has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world, with large Samoan, Tongan, Cook Islands and Niuean communities, and Asian New Zealanders now make up a substantial share of the population.

Three concepts from te ao Māori come up constantly and are worth knowing. Manaakitanga is hospitality and care for guests. Whanaungatanga is relationship and belonging. Kaitiakitanga is guardianship of the natural world — it is the word used in actual environmental legislation, not just in speeches.

The social grain runs strongly against self-promotion. Tall poppy syndrome is the local name for the impulse to cut down anyone who claims too much for themselves, and it is discussed as both a national fault and a national virtue. Its positive twin is No. 8 wire — improvising a fix from whatever is to hand, named for fencing wire.

Rugby is the national sport and the All Blacks matter more than a sports team ordinarily does; the haka performed before their matches is a Māori ceremonial form, not a team invention. Netball has a comparable standing in women's sport.

Public holidays say something about where the country has got to. Waitangi Day on 6 February marks the 1840 treaty and is regularly a day of protest as well as commemoration. Matariki, the Māori new year marked by the rising of the Pleiades, became a public holiday in 2022 — the first new one in decades and the first drawn from te ao Māori.

Food is coastal and informal: a summer barbecue, fish and chips eaten out of paper, the hāngī cooked in an earth oven, whitebait fritters in season on the West Coast. Pavlova, the flat white and Anzac biscuits are all claimed by both New Zealand and Australia, and the argument is enjoyed rather than resolved.

New Zealand has three official languages: English, te reo Māori and New Zealand Sign Language. Everything a visitor needs is in English, but te reo is woven through public life — place names, official titles, greetings on the phone, announcements on aircraft — and making an attempt is noticed warmly.

Pronunciation is regular and worth five minutes. Vowels are pure, as in Spanish or Italian: a as in "car", e as in "egg", i as in "ee", o as in "or", u as in "oo". Wh is roughly an f, so Whanganui begins like "fong". Ng is the sound in "singer", not "finger". A macron (ā, ē, ī, ō, ū) lengthens the vowel and changes the word.

Worth knowing: kia ora (hello, and also thanks), haere mai (welcome), ka kite anō (see you again), whānau (family), kai (food), marae (meeting ground), iwi (tribe), Pākehā (New Zealander of European descent), aroha (love, compassion).

New Zealand English has its own vocabulary too: a bach is a holiday cottage, jandals are flip-flops, a dairy is a corner shop, sweet as means fine, and tramping is hiking — the word used on every sign and in every forecast.