Samoan Language Week 2024: Celebrating the third most spoken language in New Zealand

Give it a go

Samoan Language Week officially starts today and kicks off the same way many Samoan events begin – in prayer.

A number of services around the country have been planned to acknowledge the start of the special week, which celebrates its 17th birthday and was the first of what is now known as the Pacific Language Weeks throughout the year.

There are services in Auckland, Whangārei, Invercargill, Levin and Nelson today; while more community events and activities start tomorrow.

This year’s Vaiaso o le Gagana Samoa (Samoan Language Week) has a theme based around the concept of service: Tautua i le alofa, manuia le lumana’i – Serve in love for a blessed future.

The Ministry for Pacific Peoples says this year’s theme was chosen by the community and acknowledges that the maintenance of gagana (language) is achieved with consistent tautua (service) and particularly through the values of alofa (love), fa’aaloalo (respect) and vā fealoa’i (respectful relationships).

Secretary Gerardine Clifford Lidstone said: “Vaiaso o le Gagana Samoa became the first of the Pacific Language Weeks to be celebrated in New Zealand back in 2007.

“I encourage everyone to get behind the Samoa Language Week tradition, whether that’s learning a word, email greeting or sign-off or connecting with the content shared online by the community throughout the week.”

There are more than 381,000 Pacific peoples living in Aotearoa, according to the 2018 Census. Of that population, just over 182,700 people identified as being of Samoan descent.

A push to maintain Pacific languages for future generations

Samoan is the second most spoken language in Aukilani (Auckland), which is regarded as the biggest Polynesian city in the world.

It is also the third most spoken language in Niu Sila (New Zealand), following te reo Māori and English.

In 2001, 81,033 people identified themselves as Samoan speakers in the Census. That figure has grown steadily over the years, with 101,937 people able to hold a conversation in Samoan, according to the 2018 Census.

Despite that, there remains a push for New Zealand-born Samoans to learn and maintain the mothertongue; given there has been a threat to those communities learning the language in previous years.

Such a threat has ramped up efforts among not only the Samoan community, but other Pasefika communities in New Zealand to come up with ways to promote their respective languages and cultures through regular community events, bilingual units in schools and dedicated full-immersion preschools.

Samoan Language Week is one of 11 official Pacific language weeks announced this year, also celebrating gagana from Rotuma, Kiribati, Cook Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Fiji, Niue, Tokelau and for the first time this year, the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea.

For more information on events around the country, visit: Ministry for Pacific Peoples

Vaimoana Mase is the Pasifika editor for the Herald’s Talanoa section, sharing stories from the Pacific community. She won junior reporter of the year at the then Qantas Media Awards in 2010 and won the best opinion writing award at the 2023 Voyager Media Awards.