The Kia Ora Incident

The Kia Ora Incident is an incident that took place in 1984, at a time when the use of Māori phrases was uncommon in New Zealand. An Auckland telephone operator, Naida Glavish, was instructed to stop using "kia ora" when greeting callers after the post office had received a complaint. She refused to do so and was consequently stood down, with the whole affair attracting much public interest.[1] The Postmaster-General, Rob Talbot, convinced the Prime Minister, Robert Muldoon, to overturn that prohibition.

This event is considered key in the movement to revitalise Te Reo Maori. A similar event took place in 2014 when KiwiYo Whangarei employees were banned from using the term "kia ora."[2][1]

References
  1. Curtis, Makyla (2016). "The Poetics of Bilanguaging: an Unfurling Literacy Ngā Toikupu o Ngā Reo Taharua: e Tākiri ana te Aroā Pānui" (PDF). Ka mate Ka ora: A New Zealand Journal of Poetry and Poetics. 14 (1).
  2. Te Karere TVNZ (2014-08-21), Political backlash over Kia Ora incident, retrieved 2018-10-13
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.