PMN Summer Series: Decolonisation necessary to appreciate language says academic

Welcome to PMN's Summer Series, where we republish some of our best and most popular stories from the last 12 months - in largely their original form.

A renowned Sāmoan academic says reo Māori (Māori language) is a must for residents of Aotearoa.

"I strongly believe that people should have some knowledge of Māori because that's the indigenous language of Aotearoa," Muli'agatele Dr Vavaō Fetui says.

Muli'agatele, who hails from Fagali'i of Vaimauga, Saoluafata of Anoama'a, Tafuna of American Sāmoa and Fagasa of Tutuila, wrote the second only PhD thesis entirely in Samoan in the world.

The 78-year-old says his affinity for indigeneity stems from seeing Māori and Pacific languages constantly come second to English.

"Growing up I remember our parents weren't interested in teaching [Sāmoan] language and culture: Our indigenous knowledge," Muli'agatele says.

"At school, there was no programme teaching the Sāmoan language properly. And the Palagi New Zealanders knew that so they tried to formulate ways to ensure their language and culture was taught first."

Muli'agatele says his school restricted speaking gagana Sāmoa so that students' English improved. He also points out better job opportunities incentivises English learning, a result of colonisation.

"It's the system that makes people think that their language and culture is second-class," he says.

However, Muli'agatele admits English is useful as it is an international language but emphasises that indigenous languages should come first.

A teacher at heart

The accomplished scholar had started his academic journey through a government scholarship, where in his early 20s he travelled to Auckland for his NZ Certificate of Teaching.

"When I came to New Zealand I looked at the Māori and how proud they are of their language and culture."

He says witnessing this pride had taught him that his language and culture should come first.

After two years Muli'gatele gained his certificate and returned to Sāmoa where he taught primary and junior high school students in Apia. He also got married and had a son.

He and his aiga would eventually relocate to Aotearoa, following his parents who had already done so due to New Zealand's labour shortage that promised opportunities for migrants.

There Muli'agatele taught English to new migrants for 15 years at Mt Roskill Grammar, under the fledgling English as a Second Language (ESL) programme.

With the introduction of Tomorrow's Schools and the resulting 1993 curriculum reform, Muli'agatele got a job at the Ministry of Education as a principal writer.

"The new curriculum which, among other things, introduced the teaching of Sāmoan language and culture in New Zealand," he says.

"Some thought Sāmoan was only a social language used for everyday conversations."

Muli'agatele refutes this as he says the value of learning any language, including Sāmoan, transcends social uses.

"In some ways even we Sāmoans had to decolonise ourselves to appreciate our language."

Lost in translation

Muli'agatele is currently translating his thesis into English but is cautious as translations often lose the origin source’s meaning.

He is also translating it into everyday Sāmoan, as the thesis is written in the complex matai (chief) form.

​It's called Toe Laumeanuti o le Fa'aaloalo i Agatausili a Sāmoa i Atualuluga: Notions of Respect and Politeness in a Transnational Sāmoan Community and focuses on the Sāmoan matai ava (kava) ceremony as a metaphor for fa'aaloalo (respect)

"It's a learning experience for me, my supervisors and the team that worked on thesis," he says.

There are multiple Sāmoan words that relate to the English word respect, each with their own variations in historical meaning.

"Fa'aaloalo means 'to honour' and covers status, recognition and respect. For example, we recognise the Prime Minister and so we consider him honourable," he says.

"In Sāmoan, the bible uses the word 'matau,' because God is referred as 'Matautia,' so it's about a power relation between God, the creator, and the created.

"But you'll never see equal respect in that relationship because the created must respect the creator."

Muli'agatele says the word fa'aalo would later become fa'aaloalo, in which the predecessor means "to salute."

"Over time and space we brought in the word fa'aaloalo to mean 'a meal, behaviour and culture'," he says.

"Nowadays when you talk about fa'aaloalo it's another way of saying culture because our culture is centred on fa'aaloalo: Respect."