24 space)”, and also “Welsh learners” competitions are held at all levels, with the ultimate prize being awarded to Welsh Learner of the Year (Lewis 2025: 20-29). Through creating a space of normalcy and positioning Welsh as a pillar of shared identity, language revitalisation becomes achievable, as it brings its usage into everyday life. Similarly, Te Reo Māori is the main language of Te Matatini as “all Kapa Haka is performed in Te Reo Māori” (Royal-Taeao 2020: 49). Te Huia and Fox note that “the normalisation of Māori language use is one of the goals in the government’s Māori language strategy” and that “Te Matatini provides the environmental factors that are required in order to create the conditions needed to achieve the goals” as a re- sult of its intangible cultural heritage (Te Huia and Fox 2020: 2). Unlike the Eistedd- fod, all competitions have preliminary rounds, and there are no language immer- sion competitions. It could be argued that, due to the cultural significance of the Kapa Haka within Aotearoa, the festival itself is a place where intergenerational transmission of Te Reo Māori happens naturally due to the audiences it brings in. Royal-Taeao points out that Māori children now learn it “from school age, having attended the local kura (Māori-language immersion school), and from there carried the experience into adulthood” (Royal-Taeao 2020: 49). The intergenerational transmission of Māori in this scenario is interesting, as typically, language is passed down through generations; however, potentially due to its prior suppression, it is the children now teaching the older generations and reaffirming the language’s importance and normalcy. Within the six disciplines of Kapa Haka, there is also hybridisation. An example is the Haka, the most popular discipline within the festival. It is a traditional ritualistic chant and movement form that is sometimes used to “speak (chant) about current topics of importance” (Royal-Taeao 2020: 48). For revitalisation, using the language to speak about current topics through performance forms is critical in furthering its immersion as it creates a space where “compositions of resistance and hope encourage Māori to become involved in pressing issues of the present looking towards a better future,” (Papesch and Mazer 2016: 114) as languages help “transmit the values and beliefs of a people” (Pere 1997, cited in Ka’ai-Mahuta 2011: 208). It could be argued that the modernisation of language within the competitions has colonial roots. The Waiata tira section consists of groups presenting new songs; however, those songs typically adopt “western approaches to melody and harmony” (Royal-Taeao 2020: 48). The same applies for the Eisteddfod, where there are instances of English songs getting “translated and [given] Welsh inflection” (Lewis 2025: 23). Ultimately, the difference between the two festivals lies in traditional knowledge. It could be argued that for Māori, the preservation of traditional knowledge is more
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