Learning te reo Māori leads Sāmoan mother back to her own roots

What began as a Sāmoan mother’s effort to support her husband and children, has become a five-year journey through te reo Māori, culture and history.

Eseta Lemanu started learning te reo Māori in 2021 after her Sāmoa-Te Rarawa husband, Michael, wanted to reconnect with his Māori heritage when their daughter, Amorangi, was two years old.

"He was the one who really wanted to embrace his te reo Māori side," she tells PMN News. "And I said, ‘Yeah, let's do it!’"

The couple, who live in Taranaki, have since built te reo Māori into their home life.

Lemanu speaks about what she has learnt with thousands of people online through her SamoanSpeakingTeReo social media account.

Raised in South Auckland’s 275 in a proud Sāmoan household, Lemanu says learning te reo Māori soon revealed familiar sounds and words from Gagana Sāmoa.

She enrolled at Te Wānanga o Aotearoa before moving into a Rūmaki or full-immersion class.

“He maha ngā kupu he tino ōrite ki te reo Hāmoa [Many words are very similar to Gagana Sāmoa],” Lemanu explains. “And so the kupu wasn’t as much of a problem as it was the little nuances of the language.”

That connection became something Lemanu wanted to share, so she started making TikTok videos comparing te reo Māori and Gagana Sāmoa. Her account has reached 10,000 followers and over 135,000 likes.

The videos have drawn strong engagement, with viewers responding to the similarities between the two languages.

“This is awesome. You officially have a new student,” one commenter wrote.

At home, te reo Māori has become part of everyday life.

Lemanu’s two young sons attend kura kaupapa Māori and she says the family speaks te reo Māori majority of the time.

“I would say 70 per cent of the time we're speaking te reo Māori,” Lemanu says. “We're not perfect and I don't think we ever will be. But it's the trying that really counts.”

For Lemanu, her reo journey has come with learning the history of Taranaki.

Eseta Lemanu was born in Tutuila (American Sāmoa), raised in Māngere, South Auckland and now, she and her bi-cultural whānau call Inglewood Taranaki home. Photo/Supplied

She says becoming confident in te reo is about more than words. It means understanding the stories and experiences carried with the language.

“The thing about learning a language is you don't actually just inherit the language,” Lemanu says.

“You also inherit the trauma that a lot of people have gone through, because the language and the stories, they come together.

“It’s not just ‘a,e,i,o,u’, it’s where the ‘a,e,i,o,u actually came from.”

That deeper understanding has also sparked what Lemanu describes as a strong “yearning” to reconnect with her own Sāmoan language.

While she started the journey to support her husband and children, she and Michael are now looking for online classes to strengthen their Gagana Sāmoa together.

Lemanu says she does not see maintaining te reo Māori as a responsibility, but as a privilege.

“It's just such a natural hononga (connection). I don't feel a responsibility, I just feel really privileged that I'm able to partake in an authentic way.”

Her message to other language learners is to be patient through the highs and lows.

Inspired by the proverb, He iti te kupu, he nui te kōrero - A small word carries great/many meanings, the Lemanu whānau are continuing to nurture both reo as part of their family’s cultural journey.