The likes of Hindi, Tagalog and Cantonese are commonly spoken in Aotearoa, but you can’t study them at university. Shanti Mathias looks into why that is.
When the prime minister announced last month that a free trade deal with India had finally been signed, he said it was “a landmark moment for New Zealand”. “India is the world’s most populous country and is the fastest-growing big economy – and that creates opportunities for jobs for Kiwis, exports and growth,” said Christopher Luxon. Getting the deal done had involved trade minister Todd McClay visiting India seven times.
India is the country with the biggest population in the world, and Indians are a significant proportion of new migrants to New Zealand. According to a press release sent when the FTA was announced, “India’s 300,000-strong diaspora in New Zealand forms a vital ‘living bridge’ that strengthens cultural, commercial, educational, and social connections, providing a strong foundation for deeper bilateral engagement.”
Hindi, the most commonly spoken language in India and the language of government there, is the fifth-most-common language spoken in New Zealand. Yet Hindi isn’t taught in any universities, and is not a subject students can receive NCEA credit for in secondary school. Why is that?
This isn’t the case for languages of many other countries New Zealand has significant diplomatic and trading relationships with. New Zealand has a FTA with the European Union; major European languages Spanish, French and German are taught in schools and universities. The same goes for China, Japan and Korea. Pacific countries have important connections to New Zealand; Samoan, Niuean, Cook Island Māori and Tokelauan are all taught through NCEA, and Samoan is offered at universities.
In the 2023 census, the most common language other than English was te reo Māori, with 4.3% of the population saying they were fluent. Te reo is taught in primary and secondary schools, in community classes, universities and wānanga around the country. New Zealand’s other official language, NZSL, is spoken by 0.49% of the population. There are NZSL degree programmes at Victoria University of Wellington and Auckland University of Technology, as well as NZSL at NCEA and in community classes. Obviously, these two official languages are taught widely.
New Zealand’s second-most-common non-English language, after te reo, is Samoan, which can be studied at NCEA level. It is taught at the University of Auckland (although there are not enough courses to offer a full degree), at the Manukau Institute of Technology and through other community classes.
For other languages, though, the question of where and how they are taught is trickier; why are some languages offered at NCEA and in universities, while others are not? Hindi is spoken by 1.6% of the New Zealand population, but is not taught at any universities; another 0.59% of people speak Fijian Hindi, a significantly different dialect with the same script. The same goes for the Filipino language Tagalog (1.2%), Cantonese and other Chinese languages (2.2% combined), Panjabi (0.99%) and Afrikaans (0.98%). These languages are not taught for NCEA credit, although Hindi is used in some primary schools. There are some community classes, but not everywhere; in some cases, most instruction is connected to places of worship.
Meanwhile, universities teach languages that are much less widely spoken, like Italian (0.21% of the population), taught at the University of Auckland, and Russian (0.27% of the population), taught at the University of Canterbury.
University language departments have seen a fall in enrolments, says Martin East, head of languages and cultures at the University of Auckland. “The perception is that English is sufficient, so there’s no need for an additional language,” he says.
In recent years, languages have been cut; VUW no longer offers Italian, Latin or Greek to new students, although students can still take the latter two through an arrangement with Otago. Students from Otago can take German at VUW. “We see German struggling to maintain relevance,” says Stephen Epstein, the deputy head of languages at VUW. Part of this is a flow-on effect from secondary school; Latin was removed from NCEA in 2021. Both VUW and UoA taught Indonesian in the past, but no longer offer it.
There’s a distinction between heritage languages – languages someone chooses to learn because of family connection to that culture – and “additional” languages, East says. Most people learning French at university, for example, may be learning it because they are interested in French language or culture, or because they have family connections to French-speaking countries. Almost all people learning Cantonese in a community-run class, by contrast, are probably studying the language because they have a family connection to it.
Languages can be trendy. Both East and Epstein say that Korean is on the rise; enrolments have been increasing at the University of Auckland, and Epstein thinks student demand could mean VUW offers the language again in future. Korea’s soft power – the appeal of K-pop and K-dramas – helps, even though the country is not an economic heavyweight in the same way China is. “I’m teaching a modern Korean society course this summer and it has 42 students,” Epstein says. “When I taught it in 2008, there were just five.”
Funding, of course, helps. “Other institutions in New Zealand have withdrawn Italian as a subject – we maintain a programme with the support of the Italian embassy,” says East. The Korean Foundation, funded by the Korean government, supports the University of Auckland’s Korea Studies Centre. In the past, when VUW offered Brazilian Portuguese as a language option, they had funding from the Brazilian embassy.
“Maybe there could be a huge fandom of Bollywood which drives people to learn Hindi in some parts of the world,” Epstein says. But that cultural push doesn’t exist in New Zealand yet. One reason, he suggests, is because Hindi is a North Indian language promoted by the government in India, while many Indians will speak another language – Panjabi, Gujarati, Tamil, Kannada, Bengali – at home. English is often preferred as a lingua franca instead of Hindi.
While numerous “regional languages” are recognised by the Indian government and taught in schools there, the Chinese government promotes Mandarin above other languages spoken in the country, like Cantonese, Hakka or Tibetan. “Mandarin is pushed much more strongly in China,” Epstein says. This means that many people with Chinese heritage have a standard form of Mandarin as a shared language, because other regional languages aren’t taught formally.
If a New Zealand university started teaching Hindi, there would be a question of why Hindi was being taught over another Indian language, because of its connection with the Indian government, Epstein says.
Offering languages people also speak at home can be challenging. Spanish, German and French have standardised national versions of the language, which are the variations taught around the world. “People might have a different way of speaking a language at home. Implicitly or explicitly, it might seem there is a ‘right’ way to learn it,” East says.
The languages offered in secondary schools make a difference to what is taken in university, which is another reason Tagalog, Hindi or Cantonese aren’t offered at a tertiary level. “There are fewer students taking a second language in secondary school, and some schools shut up languages when a staff member retires or takes a different job,” East says. The languages most commonly taught in New Zealand universities – Chinese, Japanese, French, German, Spanish – have all been part of New Zealand’s curriculum for many years, providing a reliable flow of new students.
So, with a curriculum overhaul under way again, are there any changes coming to languages at NCEA level? In 2021, a review of achievement standards in NCEA considered which languages were taught. Latin was removed as an NCEA course, while Gagana Tokelau and Vagahau Niue were added. Arabic and Hindi were considered for inclusion, but the review delayed making a decision about including these languages until a later date. One factor the Ministry for Education would consider is the number of qualified teachers available to teach these subjects, which would take time to develop – especially if those languages are not available as degree programmes in New Zealand universities.
“The introduction of new language subjects provides a way to credential language learning for a wider range of communities,” said Pauline Cleaver, acting deputy secretary at Te Poutāhū/Curriculum Centre at the Ministry for Education, in comments provided to The Spinoff. “However, language subjects being offered as part of qualifications need to have strong student numbers and the availability of qualified teachers to ensure viability,”
Why do some languages end up being officially taught in schools and universities while others are taught in community classes or in homes? Which languages are taught, and how they are taught, is an intensely political question, as the ongoing struggle in Aotearoa to protect and promote te reo Māori has shown. Perhaps learning a second language could become mandatory in all New Zealand schools – but if that was the case, should te reo Māori be the priority, over languages from other parts of the world?
Similarly, universities could offer more languages if learning a language was a requirement for more degrees. “To learn global studies [a degree programme] you have to learn a language, that’s an important channel for students,” East says. But the way New Zealand’s three-year degrees are structured doesn’t leave much time for subjects outside a major, unlike, for example, liberal arts education in the US, where undergrad degrees usually take four years.
Both East and Epstein say they can’t predict which languages universities will offer in the future. But though digital translation tools make it possible to communicate without a shared language, they believe in the value of learning something new. Learning a new language, whether you have family connections to it or not, offers a lot, says East. “It means you can see something from a different perspective, encounter a different perspective, and communicate on equal terms with people who are different to you.”
