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Kia orāna
My name is Marcel, and I am from Mauke. I was raised among knowledgeable Pā Metua whose deep understanding of Mauke Kōrero Māori inspired me to help keep our language present and thriving in the digital space.
I created this free, non-profit website as a simple go-to resource for anyone learning Reo Māori Kūki ʻĀirani, with a particular focus on the Mauke and Ngāpūtoru dialects. My hope is to encourage more people to use, learn, and share our language so it continues to live on for future generations.
This project is far from perfect, and I intend to keep adding learning content to it. Constructive feedback is genuinely welcome — corrections to the reo most of all. You can reach me about this webpage at m4rc3lt2a@proton.me, or leave a note here.
Is the Language Endangered?
Yes, Cook Islands Māori is an endangered language. Fewer than 50,000 people are estimated to speak it, and numbers have been steadily decreasing over the past decades. Many young Cook Islanders now grow up speaking only English.
Impact of Westernisation
Western influences have had a major impact on the Cook Islands. The introduction of English as the primary language in education, media, and public life has diminished the daily use of Cook Islands Māori. This trend continues today, fuelled by migration, tourism, and global media, threatening the survival of the language.
Why is the Language Important?
- It is a crucial part of Cook Islands identity and culture.
- It carries traditional knowledge, values, and stories.
- Language strengthens community ties and connects generations.
- Losing the language means losing a unique worldview.
Keeping Cook Islands Māori alive is vital for cultural pride and heritage.
How Can Technology Help?
- Online resources and mobile apps can make language learning accessible to anyone, anywhere.
- Social media and video platforms allow sharing of conversations, stories, and songs in Māori.
- Digital dictionaries and games can engage young people and help keep the language vibrant.
- Technology connects the diaspora, making revitalisation a global movement.
By using technology, we can ensure Cook Islands Māori is not only preserved but revitalised for future generations.
Our Government Departments and Local Businesses Must Lead
A language does not survive in a dictionary. It survives in the home — and much of the home is now a screen, carried in a pocket and read a hundred times a day. Cook Islands Māori will live or die on the things people actually read: the form at the counter, the menu on the wall, the sign in the shop, the website they open for an answer.
Each of these is a place where Cook Islands Māori should stand beside English. Yet across Rarotonga, it is almost entirely absent. This is not because the language lacks words. Te Kōpapa Reo Māori has created them for years: vairanga tiorangi, kupu tāviri, 'Uipā'anga ata veka uira. What is missing is not vocabulary but visibility places for people to encounter, recognise, and use these words.
The Cook Islands Parliament has already shown it can be done
Every item on the Parliament of the Cook Islands website carries its Māori name alongside the English one.
Go and look for yourself
Open these in another tab. They belong to six different organisations, built by different people at different times.
Now notice what they have in common. Every one of them is built from the same small set of labels:
That is the whole task — about a dozen words on a list every organisation already uses. Agree it once and someone who meets ʻĀtui mai on a health page meets it again on a bank page, on a form at the counter, on a shop sign. Nobody is studying. They are reading, and the same words keep arriving until they are theirs.
It is closer than it looks. Parliament has settled two. The Ministry of Health is Te Marae Ora — its own name is already in the language. The Bank of the Cook Islands sells a Vaka Debit Mastercard and runs TakuBCI, so the reo is on its products and in its customers' pockets. Putting it on the buttons is the smaller step.
It works inward too. Staff who read these words daily begin saying them at the counter and on the phone, so customers hear the language from a person, not a screen. One decision reaches every employee and everyone they serve.
If Parliament can do it, every ministry can. The Ministry of Cultural Development should lead — and the duty runs past government. Banks, shops, tour operators, cafés and resorts trade on Cook Islands culture daily. Bilingual signs, menus, receipts and websites cost little and return something the place cannot buy.
A word people never meet is a word they will never use. Put kupu tāviri beside “password”. Reinga tutaki beside “EFTPOS”. ʻAkakiteʻanga beside “information”. No lesson, no lecture: a new term becomes a living word not by sitting in a dictionary, but by being repeated in ordinary moments.
Our language will not be saved by the people who speak it best. It will be saved by the institutions that put it in front of everyone else — every day, on every screen, until using it is simply normal again.
New Words for a New World
A living language needs words for things that did not exist when it was young. Te Kōpapa Reo Māori, the Cook Islands Māori Language Commission, creates them — vairanga tiorangi for iCloud, 'Uipā'anga ata veka uira for a Zoom meeting, Reinga Akakaiou for a credit card.
Browse the glossary → 273 terms across 22 categories, searchable in English or Māori — macrons and the amata optional.
Everyday Words & Phrases
The glossary holds the new and the specialist. This is the reo you need on an ordinary day: how to greet someone, name your family, count, order food, name a part of the body, say what colour something is — 836 words and phrases across 35 categories, grouped the way you would teach them.
Above them sit the au araara mou, the sayings that refuse to translate. Topa te tipi is not "the knife fell"; it means you are completely worn out. Kare pā ki te mata is not about eyes; it means the thing is an eye-sore. Fifteen of these, and they are the hardest part of the language to get from a dictionary — which is exactly why they are here.
All of it comes from spreadsheets you can add to at any time, and the page updates itself.
