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Kia ora. This is a free resource for studying the New Zealand Māori language. I made it because I couldn’t find any other suitable resource online.

Kōrero aims to demonstrate the logic of te reo Māori in a succinct comprehensive manner. This is essentially my own study notes. I hope it helps you!

If you appreciate my work here, please consider donating!

Like a person, te reo Māori has its own whakapapa! It can be traced back to Taiwan as part of the great Austronesian language family.

In the original Austronesian language thousands of years ago, they had words such as the following.

• “buaq” (“fruit”)
• “ǩaliŋa” (“ear”)
• “manuk” (“chicken”)

In New Zealand Māori, those particular words turned into the following.

• “hua”
• “taringa”
• “manu” (now meaning “bird”)

For more examples, check out my full cognate dictionary.

Māori’s Austronesian whakapapa is evident in such faraway languages as Malagasy in Madagascar! Consider the words for “sky” in a few different Austronesian languages.

• Malagasy “lanitra”
• Indonesian “langit”
• Samoan “lagi”
• Hawaiian “lani”
• New Zealand Māori “rangi”
• Tahitian “raʻi”

The closest languages to New Zealand Māori are the other Polynesian languages, such as Sāmoan, Tongan, and especially the other Eastern Polynesian languages, including Cook Islands Māori, Tahitian, and Hawaiian.

Observe the similarities between some Polynesian cognates of “aroha”.

• Sāmoan “alofa”
• Tokelauan “alofa”
• Cook Islands Māori “aroʻa”
• Hawaiian “aloha”

Numbers might also look familiar to you.