Moriori language

Not to be confused with Morori language.

Moriori
Native to	New Zealand
Region	Polynesia
Extinct	1898, with the death of Hirawanu Tapu
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Polynesian Eastern Polynesian Tahitic Maori Moriori
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	None (mis)
Glottolog	mori1267

Moriori is an extinct Malayo-Polynesian language most closely related to New Zealand Māori. It is the native language of the Moriori, the indigenous people of the Chatham Islands (Rēkohū in Moriori), which are east of New Zealand and under its sovereignty.

History

The invasion from Taranaki had a heavy impact on Moriori population, culture and language, with only 101 Moriori remaining in 1862, and few speaking the language by the 1870s. However, Samuel Deighton, Resident Magistrate on the Chathams from 1873 to 1891, compiled a short vocabulary of Moriori words, with their equivalents in Māori and English. The vocabulary was published as an appendix of Michael King's Moriori: A People Rediscovered.

The language was reconstructed for Barry Barclay's 2000 film documentary The Feathers of Peace, in a recreation of Moriori contact with Pākehā and Māori.

In 2001, as part of a cultural revival movement, Moriori people began attempts to revive the language, and compiled a database of Moriori words. There is a POLLEX (Polynesian Lexicon Project Online) database of Moriori words as well.

The 2006 New Zealand Census showed 945 people choosing to include "Moriori" amongst their tribal affiliations, compared to 35 people in the 1901 census.

Further reading

• Galbraith, Sarah. A Grammar of the Moriori language.
• Clark, R. (1994). "Moriori and Maori: The Linguistic Evidence". In Sutton, D. (ed) The origins of the First New Zealanders. Auckland: Auckland University Press. pp. 123–135.