Māori language

The Māori language (Māori: Te Reo Māori, shortened to Te Reo) is the language of the Māori and an official language of New Zealand. It is an Austronesian language.

Māori
Māori
Native to	New Zealand
Region	Polynesia
Ethnicity	Māori people
Native speakers	(60,000 cited 1991) 157,000 New Zealand residents claim they can converse in Māori about everyday things (2006 census)[1]
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Polynesian Eastern Polynesian Tahitic Maori–Moriori Māori
Writing system	Latin (Māori alphabet) Māori Braille
Official status
Official language in	New Zealand
Regulated by	Māori Language Commission
Language codes
ISO 639-1	mi
ISO 639-2	mao (B) mri (T)
ISO 639-3	mri
ELP	Māori
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Although it is an official language, not many people speak it fluently. In the 2013 census, about 149,000 people, (3.7% of the population) said that they could have a conversation in Māori about a lot of everyday things.

The language can be seen everywhere throughout New Zealand, as many of the placenames are Māori, such as Whangarei, Rotorua, and Timaru. Lots of government or city buildings use te reo on their signs as well as English, and most of the public schools have a Māori name as well as an English one.^[2][3] Some Māori people living in Australia also speak the language.

Te Reo Māori did not have a writing system until the Europeans arrived. In 1817, a Ngāpuhi chief, Tītori, and his relative Tui worked with Professor Samuel Lee and prepared a writing system for te reo.