title: Chinese folk religion

text: In fact, in the Chinese tradition there is no distinction between gods ("shen") and immortal beings ("xian"), transcendental principles and their bodily manifestations. Gods can incarnate with a human form and human beings can reach higher spiritual states by the right way of action, that is to say by emulating the order of Heaven. Humans are considered one of the three aspects of a trinity ( "Sāncái", "Three Powers"), the three foundations of all being; specifically, men are the medium between Heaven that engenders order and forms and Earth which receives and nourishes them. Men are endowed with the role of completing creation.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: The Chinese traditional concept of "bao ying" ("reciprocity", "retribution" or "judgement"), is inscribed in the cosmological view of an ordered world, in which all manifestations of being have an allotted span ("shu") and destiny, and are rewarded according to the moral-cosmic quality of their actions. It determines fate, as written in Zhou texts: "on the doer of good, heaven sends down all blessings, and on the doer of evil, he sends down all calamities" ().


title: Chinese folk religion

text: The cosmic significance of "bao ying" is better understood by exploring other two traditional concepts of fate and meaning:


title: Chinese folk religion

text: "Ming yun" and "yuan fen" are linked, because what appears on the surface to be chance (either positive or negative), is part of the deeper rhythm that shapes personal life based on how destiny is directed. Recognising this connection has the result of making a person responsible for his or her actions: doing good for others spiritually improves oneself and contributes to the harmony between men and environmental gods and thus to the wealth of a human community.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: These three themes of the Chinese tradition—moral reciprocity, personal destiny, fateful coincidence—are completed by a fourth notion:


title: Chinese folk religion

text: As part of the trinity of being (the Three Powers), humans are not totally submissive to spiritual force. While under the sway of spiritual forces, humans can actively engage with them, striving to change their own fate to prove the worth of their earthly life. In the Chinese traditional view of human destiny, the dichotomy between "fatalism" and "optimism" is overcome; human beings can shape their personal destiny to grasp their real worth in the transformation of the universe, seeing their place in the alliance with the gods and with Heaven to surpass the constraints of the physical body and mind.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: In Chinese religion the concept of "ling" () is the equivalent of holy and numen. "Shen" in the meaning of "spiritual" is a synonym. The "Yijing" states that "spiritual means not measured by yin and yang". "Ling" is the state of the "medium" of the bivalency ("yin"-"yang"), and thus it is identical with the inchoate order of creation. Things inspiring awe or wonder because they cannot be understood as either "yin" or "yang", because they cross or disrupt the polarity and therefore cannot be conceptualised, are regarded as numinous. Entities possessing unusual spiritual characteristics, such as albino members of a species, beings that are part animal part human, or people who die in unusual ways such as suicide or on battlefields, are considered numinous.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: The notion of "xian ling" (), variously translated as "divine efficacy, virtue" or the "numen", is important for the relationship between people and gods. It describes the manifestation, activity, of the power of a god ( "ling qi", "divine energy" or "effervescence"), the evidence of the holy.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: The term "xian ling" may be interpreted as the god revealing their presence in a particular area and temple, through events that are perceived as extraordinary, miraculous. Divine power usually manifests in the presence of a wide public. The "value" of human deities ("xian") is judged according to their efficacy. The perceived effectiveness of a deity to protect or bless also determines how much they should be worshipped, how big a temple should be built in their honour, and what position in the broader pantheon they would attain.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Zavidovskaya (2012) has studied how the incentive of temple restorations since the 1980s in northern China was triggered by numerous alleged instances of gods becoming "active" and "returning", reclaiming their temples and place in society. She mentions the example of a Chenghuang Temple in Yulin, Shaanxi, that was turned into a granary during the Cultural Revolution; it was restored to its original function in the 1980s after seeds stored within were always found to have rotted. This phenomenon, which locals attributed to the god Chenghuang, was taken a sign to empty his residence of grain and allow him back in. The "ling qi", divine energy, is believed to accumulate in certain places, temples, making them holy. Temples with a longer history are considered holier than newly built ones, which still need to be filled by divine energy.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Another example Zavidovskaya cites is the cult of the god Zhenwu in Congluo Yu, Shanxi; the god's temples were in ruins and the cult inactive until the mid 1990s, when a man with terminal cancer, in his last hope prayed ("bai" ) to Zhenwu. The man began to miraculously recover each passing day, and after a year he was completely healed. As thanksgiving, he organised an opera performance in the god's honour. A temporary altar with a statue of Zhenwu and a stage for the performance were set up in an open space at the foot of a mountain. During the course of the opera, large white snakes appeared, passive and unafraid of the people, seemingly watching the opera; the snakes were considered by locals to be incarnations of Zhenwu, come to watch the opera held in his honour.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Within temples, it is common to see banners bearing the phrase "if the heart is sincere, the god will reveal their power" ( "xin cheng shen ling"). The relationship between people and gods is an exchange of favour. This implies the belief that gods respond to the entreaties of the believer if their religious fervour is sincere ("cheng xin" ). If a person believes in the god's power with all their heart and expresses piety, the gods are confident in their faith and reveal their efficacious power. At the same time, for faith to strengthen in the devotee's heart, the deity has to prove their efficacy. In exchange for divine favours, a faithful honours the deity with vows ("huan yuan" or "xu yuan" ), through individual worship, reverence and respect ("jing shen" ).


title: Chinese folk religion

text: The most common display of divine power is the cure of diseases after a believer piously requests aid. Another manifestation is granting a request of children. The deity may also manifest through mediumship, entering the body of a shaman-medium and speaking through them. There have been cases of people curing illnesses "on behalf of a god" ("ti shen zhi bing" ). Gods may also speak to people when they are asleep ("tuomeng" ).


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Wu Hsin-Chao (2014) distinguishes four kinds of Chinese traditional religious organisation: ancestry worship; deity worship; secret societies; and folk religious sects.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Chinese religion in its communal expression involves the worship of gods that are the generative power and tutelary spirit ("genius loci") of a locality or a certain aspect of nature (for example water gods, river gods, fire gods, mountain gods), or of gods that are common ancestors of a village, a larger identity, or the Chinese nation (Shennong, Huangdi, Pangu).


title: Chinese folk religion

text: The social structure of this religion is the "shénshè" (literally "society of a god"), synonymous with "shehui" , in which "shè" originally meant the altar of a community's earth god, while "huì" means "association", "assembly", "church" or "gathering". This type of religious trusts can be dedicated to a god which is bound to a single village or temple or to a god which has a wider following, in multiple villages, provinces or even a national importance. Mao Zedong distinguished "god associations", "village communities" and "temple associations" in his analysis of religious trusts. In his words: "every kind and type of god ["shen"] can have an association ["hui"]", for example the Zhaogong Association, the Guanyin Association, the Guangong Association, the Dashen Association, the Bogong Association, the Wenchang Association, and the like. Within the category of "hui" Mao also distinguished the sacrifice associations ("jiàohuì" ) which make sacrifices in honour of gods.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: These societies organise gatherings and festivals ("miaohui" ) participated by members of the whole village or larger community on the occasions of what are believed to be the birthdays of the gods or other events, or to seek protection from droughts, epidemics, and other disasters. Such festivals invoke the power of the gods for practical goals to "summon blessings and drive away harm". Special devotional currents within this framework can be identified by specific names such as Mazuism ( "Māzǔjiào"), Wang Ye worship, or the cult of the Silkworm Mother.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: This type of religion is prevalent in north China, where lineage religion is absent, private, or historically present only within families of southern origin, and patrilineal ties are based on seniority, and villages are composed of people with different surnames. In this context, the deity societies or temple societies function as poles of the civil organism. Often deity societies incorporate entire villages; this is the reason why in north China can be found many villages which are named after deities and their temples, for example "Léishénmiào" village ( "[Village of the] Temple of the Thunder God") or "Mǎshénmiàocūn" ( "Village of the Temple of the Horse God").


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Another dimension of the Chinese folk religion is based on family or genealogical worship of deities and ancestors in family altars or private temples ("simiao" or "jiamiao" ), or ancestral shrines ("citang" or "zongci" , or also "zumiao" ). Kinship associations or churches ("zōngzú xiéhuì" ), congregating people with the same surname and belonging to the same kin, are the social expression of this religion: these lineage societies build temples where the deified ancestors of a certain group (for example the "Chens" or the "Lins") are enshrined and worshiped. These temples serve as centres of aggregation for people belonging to the same lineage, and the lineage body may provide a context of identification and mutual assistance for individual persons.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: The construction of large and elaborate ancestral temples traditionally represents a kin's wealth, influence and achievement. Scholar K. S. Yang has explored the ethno-political dynamism of this form of religion, through which people who become distinguished for their value and virtue are considered immortal and receive posthumous divine titles, and are believed to protect their descendants, inspiring a mythological lore for the collective memory of a family or kin.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: If their temples and their deities enshrined acquire popularity they are considered worthy of the virtue of "ling", "efficacy". Worship of ancestors ("jingzu" ) is observed nationally with large-scale rituals on Qingming Festival and other holidays.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: This type of religion prevails in south China, where lineage bonds are stronger and the patrilineal hierarchy is not based upon seniority, and access to corporate resources held by a lineage is based upon the equality of all the lines of descent.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: "The extent to which shamanism pervaded ancient Chinese society", says scholar Paul R. Goldin (2005), "is a matter of scholarly dispute, but there can be no doubt that many communities relied upon the unique talents of shamans for their quotidian spiritual needs". The Chinese usage distinguishes the Chinese "wu" tradition or "Wuism" as it was called by Jan Jakob Maria de Groot ( "wūjiào"; properly shamanic, with control over the gods) from the "tongji" tradition (; mediumship, without control of the godly movement), and from non-Han Chinese Altaic shamanisms ( "sàmǎnjiào") that are practised in northern provinces.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: According to Andreea Chirita (2014), Confucianism itself, with its emphasis on hierarchy and ancestral rituals, derived from the shamanic discourse of the Shang dynasty. What Confucianism did was to marginalise the "dysfunctional" features of old shamanism. However, shamanic traditions continued uninterrupted within the folk religion and found precise and functional forms within Taoism.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: In the Shang and Zhou dynasty, shamans had a role in the political hierarchy, and were represented institutionally by the Ministry of Rites (). The emperor was considered the supreme shaman, intermediating between the three realms of heaven, earth and man. The mission of a shaman ( "wu") is "to repair the dis-functionalities occurred in nature and generated after the sky had been separated from earth":


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Since the 1980s the practice and study of shamanism has undergone a massive revival in Chinese religion as a means to repair the world to a harmonious whole after industrialisation. Shamanism is viewed by many scholars as the foundation for the emergence of civilisation, and the shaman as "teacher and spirit" of peoples. The Chinese Society for Shamanic Studies was founded in Jilin City in 1988.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Nuo folk religion is a system of the Chinese folk religion with distinct institutions and cosmology present especially in central-southern China. It arose as an exorcistic religious movement, and it is interethnic but also intimately connected to the Tujia people.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Confucianism and Taoism—which are formalised, ritual, doctrinal or philosophical traditions—can be considered both as embedded within the larger category of Chinese religion, or as separate religions. In fact, one can practise certain folk cults and espouse the tenets of Confucianism as a philosophical framework, Confucian theology instructing to uphold the moral order through the worship of gods and ancestors that is the way of connecting to the Tian and awakening to its harmony ("li", "rite").


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Folk temples and ancestral shrines on special occasions may choose Confucian liturgy (that is called "rú", or sometimes "zhèngtǒng", meaning "orthoprax" ritual style) led by Confucian "sages of rites" ( "lǐshēng") who in many cases are the elders of a local community. Confucian liturgies are alternated with Taoist liturgies and popular ritual styles.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: There are many organised groups of the folk religion that adopt Confucian liturgy and identity, for example the Way of the Gods according to the Confucian Tradition or phoenix churches (Luanism), or the Confucian churches, schools and fellowships such as the "Yīdān xuétáng" () of Beijing, the "Mèngmǔtáng" () of Shanghai, the Confucian Fellowship ( "Rújiào Dàotán") in northern Fujian, and ancestral temples of the Kong (Confucius) lineage operating as well as Confucian-teaching churches. In November 2015 a national Church of Confucius was established with the contribution of many Confucian leaders.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Scholar and Taoist priest Kristofer Schipper defines Taoism as a "liturgical framework" for the development of local religion. Some currents of Taoism are deeply interwoven with the Chinese folk religion, especially the Zhengyi school, developing aspects of local cults within their doctrines; however Taoists always highlight the distinction between their traditions and those which are not Taoist. Priests of Taoism are called "daoshi" (), literally meaning "masters of the Tao", otherwise commonly translated as the "Taoists", as common followers and folk believers who are not part of Taoist orders are not identified as such.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Taoists of the Zhengyi school, who are called "sǎnjū dàoshi" () or "huǒjū dàoshi" (), respectively meaning "scattered daoshi" and "daoshi living at home (hearth)", because they can get married and perform the profession of priests as a part-time occupation, may perform rituals of offering ("jiao"), thanks-giving, propitiation, exorcism and rites of passage for local communities' temples and private homes. Local gods of local cultures are often incorporated into their altars. The Zhengyi Taoists are trained by other priests of the same sect, and historically received formal ordination by the Celestial Master, although the 63rd Celestial Master Zhang Enpu fled to Taiwan in the 1940s during the Chinese Civil War.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Lineages of ritual masters ( "fashi"), also referred to as practitioners of "Faism", also called "Folk Taoism" or (in southeast China) "Red Taoism", operate within the Chinese folk religion but outside any institution of official Taoism. The ritual masters, who have the same role of the "sanju daoshi" within the fabric of society, are not considered Taoist priests by the "daoshi" of Taoism who trace their lineage to the Celestial Masters and by Taoists officially registered with the state Taoist Church. "Fashi" are defined as of "kataphatic" (filling) character in opposition to professional Taoists who are "kenotic" (of emptying, or apophatic, character).


title: Chinese folk religion

text: China has a long history of sect traditions characterised by a soteriological and eschatological character, often called "salvationist religions" ( "jiùdù zōngjiào"). They emerged from the common religion but are not part of the lineage cult of ancestors and progenitors, nor the communal deity religion of village temples, neighbourhood, corporations , or national temples.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Prasenjit Duara has termed them "redemptive societies" ( "jiùshì tuántǐ"), while modern Chinese scholarship describes them as "folk religious sects" ( "mínjiān zōngjiào", "mínjiān jiàomén" or "mínjiān jiàopài"), abandoning the derogatory term used by imperial officials, "xiéjiào" (), "evil religion".


title: Chinese folk religion

text: They are characterised by several elements, including egalitarianism; foundation by a charismatic figure; direct divine revelation; a millenarian eschatology and voluntary path of salvation; an embodied experience of the numinous through healing and cultivation; and an expansive orientation through good deeds, evangelism and philanthropy. Their practices are focused on improving morality, body cultivation, and recitation of scriptures.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Many of the redemptive religions of the 20th and 21st century aspire to become the repository of the entirety of the Chinese tradition in the face of Western modernism and materialism. This group of religions includes Yiguandao and other sects belonging to the Xiantiandao ( "Way of Former Heaven"), Jiugongdao ( "Way of the Nine Palaces"), various proliferations of the Luo teaching, the Zaili teaching, and the more recent De teaching, Weixinist, Xuanyuan and Tiandi teachings, the latter two focused respectively on the worship of Huangdi and the universal God. Also, the qigong schools are developments of the same religious context.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: These folk sectarian offer different world views and compete for influence. To take one example, Yiguandao focuses on personal salvation through inner work and considers itself the most valid "Way of Heaven" ( "Tiāndào"). Yiguandao offers its own "Way of Former Heaven" ( "Xiāntiāndào"), that is, a cosmological definition of the state of things prior to creation, in unity with God. It regards the other Luanism, a cluster of churches which focus on social morality through refined Confucian ritual to worship the gods, as the "Way of Later Heaven" ( "Hòutiāndào"), that is the cosmological state of created things.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: These movements were banned in the early Republican China and later Communist China. Many of them still remain illegal, underground or unrecognised in China, while others—specifically the De teaching, Tiandi teachings, Xuanyuan teaching, Weixinism and Yiguandao—have developed cooperation with mainland China's academic and non-governmental organisations. The Sanyi teaching is an organised folk religion founded in the 16th century, present in the Putian region (Xinghua) of Fujian where it is legally recognised. Some of these sects began to register as branches of the state Taoist Association since the 1990s.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: A further distinctive type of sects of the folk religion, that are possibly the same as the positive "secret sects", are the martial sects. They combine two aspects: the "wénchǎng" ( "cultural field"), that is the doctrinal aspect characterised by elaborate cosmologies, theologies, initiatory and ritual patterns, and that is usually kept secretive; and the "wǔchǎng" ( "martial field"), that is the body cultivation practice and that is usually the "public face" of the sect. They were outlawed by Ming imperial edicts that continued to be enforced until the fall of the Qing dynasty in the 20th century. An example of martial sect is Meihuaism ( "Méihuājiào", "Plum Flowers"), that has become very popular throughout northern China. In Taiwan, virtually all of the "redemptive societies" operate freely since the late 1980s.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: The Tiandi teachings are a religion that encompasses two branches, the Holy Church of the Heavenly Virtue ( "Tiāndé shèngjiào") and the Church of the Heavenly Deity ( "Tiāndìjiào"), both emerged from the teachings of Xiao Changming and Li Yujie, disseminated in the early 20th century. The latter is actually an outgrowth of the former established in the 1980s.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: The religions focus on the worship of "Tiandi" (), the "Heavenly Deity" or "Heavenly Emperor", on health through the proper cultivation of qi, and teach a style of qigong named "Tianren qigong". According to scholars, Tiandi teachings derive from the Taoist tradition of Huashan, where Li Yujie studied for eight years. The Church of the Heavenly Deity is very active both in Taiwan and mainland China, where it has high-level links.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Weixinism ( or ) is a religion primarily focused on the "orthodox lineages of "Yijing" and feng shui", the Hundred Schools of Thought, and worship of the "three great ancestors" (Huangdi, Yandi and Chiyou). The movement promotes the restoration of the authentic roots of the Chinese civilization and Chinese unification.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: The Weixinist Church, whose headquarters are in Taiwan, is also active in Mainland China in the key birthplaces of the Chinese culture. It has links with the government of Henan where it has established the "City of Eight Trigrams" templar complex on Yunmeng Mountain (of the Yan Mountains), and it has also built temples in Hebei.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Recent scholarly works have found basic differences between north and south folk religion. Folk religion of southern and southeastern provinces is focused on the lineages and their churches ("zōngzú xiéhuì" ) focusing on ancestral gods, while the folk religion of central-northern China (North China Plain) hinges on the communal worship of tutelary deities of creation and nature as identity symbols by villages populated by families of different surnames. They are structured into "communities of the god(s)" ("shénshè" , or "huì" , "association"), which organise temple ceremonies ("miaohui" ), involving processions and pilgrimages, and led by indigenous ritual masters ("fashi") who are often hereditary and linked to secular authority.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Northern and southern folk religions also have a different pantheon, of which the northern one is composed of more ancient gods of Chinese mythology. Furthermore, folk religious sects have historically been more successful in the central plains and in the northeastern provinces than in southern China, and central-northern folk religion shares characteristics of some of the sects, such as the heavy importance of mother goddess worship and shamanism, as well as their scriptural transmission. Confucian churches as well have historically found much resonance among the population of the northeast; in the 1930s the Universal Church of the Way and its Virtue alone aggregated at least 25% of the population of the state of Manchuria and contemporary Shandong has been analysed as an area of rapid growth of folk Confucian groups.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Along the southeastern coast, ritual functions of the folk religion are reportedly dominated by Taoism, both in registered and unregistered forms (Zhengyi Taoism and unrecognised "fashi" orders), which since the 1990s has developed quickly in the area.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Goossaert talks of this distinction, although recognising it as an oversimplification, of a "Taoist south" and a "village-religion/Confucian centre-north", with the northern context also characterised by important orders of "folk Taoist" ritual masters, one of which are the "yīnyángshēng" ("sages of yin and yang"), and sectarian traditions, and also by a low influence of Buddhism and official Taoism.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: The folk religion of northeast China has unique characteristics deriving from the interaction of Han religion with Tungus and Manchu shamanisms; these include "chūmǎxiān" ( "riding for the immortals") shamanism, the worship of foxes and other zoomorphic deities, and the Fox Gods ( "Húshén")—Great Lord of the Three Foxes ( "Húsān Tàiyé") and the Great Lady of the Three Foxes ( "Húsān Tàinǎi")—at the head of pantheons. Otherwise, in the religious context of Inner Mongolia there has been a significant integration of Han Chinese into the traditional folk religion of the region.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: In recent years there has also been an assimilation of deities from Tibetan folk religion, especially wealth gods. In Tibet, across broader western China, and in Inner Mongolia, there has been a growth of the cult of Gesar with the explicit support of the Chinese government, a cross-ethnic Han-Tibetan, Mongol and Manchu deity (the Han identify him as an aspect of the god of war analogically with Guandi) and culture hero whose mythology is embodied as a culturally important epic poem.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Chinese religion has both influenced, and in turn has been influenced by, indigenous religions of ethnic groups that the Han Chinese have encountered along their ethnogenetic history. Seiwert (1987) finds evidence of pre-Chinese religions in the folk religion of certain southeastern provinces such as Fujian and Taiwan, especially in the local "wu" and lineages of ordained ritual masters.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: A process of sinicization, or more appropriately a "Taoisation", is also the more recent experience of the indigenous religions of some distinct ethnic minorities of China, especially southwestern people. Chinese Taoists gradually penetrate within the indigenous religions of such peoples, in some cases working side by side with indigenous priests, in other cases taking over the latter's function and integrating them by requiring their ordination as Taoists. Usually, indigenous ritual practices remain unaffected and are adopted into Taoist liturgy, while indigenous gods are identified with Chinese gods. Seiwert discusses this phenomenon of "merger into Chinese folk religion" not as a mere elimination of non-Chinese indigenous religions, but rather as a cultural re-orientation. Local priests of southwestern ethnic minorities often acquire prestige by identifying themselves as Taoists and adopting Taoist holy texts.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Mou (2012) writes that "Taoism has formed an indissoluble bond" with indigenous religions of southwestern ethnic minorities, especially the Tujia, Yi and Yao. Seiwert mentions the Miao of Hunan. "Daogongism" is Taoism among the Zhuang, directed by the "dàogōng" ( "lords of the Tao") and it forms an established important aspect of the broader Zhuang folk religion.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: On the other hand, it is also true that in more recent years there has been a general revival of indigenous lineages of ritual masters without identification of these as Taoists and support from the state Chinese Taoist Church. An example is the revival of lineages of "bimo" ("scripture sages") priests among the Yi peoples. Bimoism has a tradition of theological literature and though clergy ordination, and this is among the reasons why it is taken in high consideration by the Chinese government. Bamo Ayi (2001) attests that "since the early 1980s ... minority policy turned away from promoting assimilation of Han ways".


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Chinese religions are polytheistic, meaning that many deities are worshipped as part of what has been defined as "yǔzhòu shénlùn" (), translated as "cosmotheism", a worldview in which divinity is inherent to the world itself. The gods ("shen" ; "growth", "beings that give birth") are interwoven energies or principles that generate phenomena which reveal or reproduce the way of Heaven, that is to say the order ("li") of the Greatnine("Tian").


title: Chinese folk religion

text: In Chinese tradition, there is not a clear distinction between the gods and their physical body or bodies (from stars to trees and animals); the qualitative difference between the two seems not to have ever been emphasised. Rather, the disparity is said to be more quantitative than qualitative. In doctrinal terms, the Chinese view of gods is related to the understanding of "qi", the life force, as the gods and their phenomenal productions are manifestations of it. In this way, all natural bodies are believed to be able to attain supernatural attributes by acting according to the universal oneness. Meanwhile, acting wickedly (that is to say against the Tian and its order) brings to disgrace and disaster.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: In folk religions, gods ("shen") and immortals ("xian" ) are not specifically distinguished from each other. Gods can incarnate in human form and human beings can reach immortality, which means to attain higher spirituality, since all the spiritual principles (gods) are begotten of the primordial "qi" before any physical manifestation.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: In the "Doctrine of the Mean", one of the Confucian four books, the "zhenren" (wise) is the man who has achieved a spiritual status developing his true sincere nature. This status, in turn, enables him to fully develop the true nature of others and of all things. The sage is able to "assist the transforming and nourishing process of Heaven and Earth", forming a trinity (三才 "Sāncái", the "Three Powers") with them. In other words, in the Chinese tradition humans are or can be the medium between Heaven and Earth, and have the role of completing what had been initiated.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Taoist schools in particular espouse an explicit spiritual pathway which pushes the earthly beings to the edge of eternity. Since the human body is a microcosm, enlivened by the universal order of yin and yang like the whole cosmos, the means of immortality can be found within oneself.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Among those worshipped as immortal heroes ("xian", exalted beings) are historical individuals distinguished for their worth or bravery, those who taught crafts to others and formed societies establishing the order of Heaven, ancestors or progenitors ("zu" ), and the creators of a spiritual tradition. The concept of "human divinity" is not self-contradictory, as there is no unbridgeable gap between the two realms; rather, the divine and the human are mutually contained.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: In comparison with gods of an environmental nature, who tend to remain stable throughout human experience and history, individual human deities change in time. Some endure for centuries, while others remain localised cults, or vanish after a short time. Immortal beings are conceived as "constellations of qi", which is so vibrant in certain historical individuals that, upon the person's death, this "qi" nexus does not dissipate but persists, and is reinforced by living people's worship. The energetic power of a god is thought to reverberate on the worshipers influencing their fortune.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Gods and immortals (collectively "shénxiān") in the Chinese cultural tradition reflect a hierarchical, multiperspective experience of divinity. In Chinese language there is a terminological distinction between "shén", "dì" and "xiān". Although the usage of the former two is sometimes blurred, it corresponds to the distinction in Western cultures between "god" and "deity", Latin "genius" (meaning a generative principle, "spirit") and "deus" or "divus"; "dì", sometimes translated as "thearch", implies a manifested or incarnate "godly" power. It is etymologically and figuratively analogous to the concept of "di" as the base of a fruit, which falls and produces other fruits. This analogy is attested in the "Shuowen jiezi" explaining "deity" as "what faces the base of a melon fruit". The latter term "xiān" unambiguously means a man who has reached immortality, similarly to the Western idea of "hero".


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Many classical books have lists and hierarchies of gods and immortals, among which the "Completed Record of Deities and Immortals" ( "Shénxiān tōngjiàn") of the Ming dynasty, and the "Biographies of Deities and Immortals" ( "Shénxiān zhuán") by Ge Hong (284–343). There's also the older "Liexian zhuan" ( "Collected Biographies of Immortals").


title: Chinese folk religion

text: There are the great cosmic gods representing the first principle in its unmanifested state or its creative order—Yudi ( "Jade Deity") and Doumu ( "Mother of the Meaning" or "Great Chariot"), Pangu (, the macranthropic metaphor of the cosmos), Xiwangmu ( "Queen Mother of the West") and Dongwanggong ( "King Duke of the East") who personificate respectively the yin and the yang, as well as the dimensional Three Patrons and the Five Deities; then there are the sky and weather gods, the scenery gods, the vegetal and animal gods, and gods of human virtues and crafts. These are interpreted in different ways in Taoism and folk sects, the former conferring them long kataphatic names. Below the great deities, there is the unquantifiable number of gods of nature, as every phenomena have or are gods.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: The Three Patrons ( "Sānhuáng")—Fuxi, Nüwa and Shennong—are the "vertical" manifestation of the primordial God corresponding to the Three Realms ( "Sānjiè"), representing the yin and yang and the medium between them, that is the human being.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: The Five Deities ( "Wǔdì") or "Five Forms of the Highest Deity" ( "Wǔfāng Shàngdì")—the Yellow, Green or Blue, Black, Red and White Deities—are the five "horizontal" manifestations of the primordial God and according with the Three Realms they have a celestial, a terrestrial and a chthonic form. They correspond to the five phases of creation, the five constellations rotating around the celestial pole, the five sacred mountains and the five directions of space (the four cardinal directions and the centre), and the five Dragon Gods ( "Lóngshén") which represent their mounts, that is to say the chthonic forces they preside over.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: The Yellow God ( "Huángshén") or "Yellow God of the Northern Dipper" ( "Huángshén Běidǒu") is of peculiar importance, as he is a form of the universal God (Tian or Shangdi) symbolising the "axis mundi" (Kunlun), or the intersection between the Three Patrons and the Five Deities, that is the center of the cosmos. He is therefore described in the "Shizi" as the "Yellow Emperor with Four Faces" ( "Huángdì Sìmiàn"). His human incarnation, the "Yellow Emperor (or Deity) of the Mysterious Origin" ( "Xuānyuán Huángdì"), is said to be the creator of the "Huaxia" civility, of marriage and morality, language and lineage, and patriarch of all the Chinese together with the Red Deity. Xuanyuan was the fruit of virginal birth, as his mother Fubao conceived him as she was aroused, while walking in the country, by a lightning from the Big Dipper.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: The worship of mother goddesses for the cultivation of offspring is present all over China, but predominantly in northern provinces. There are nine main goddesses, and all of them tend to be considered as manifestations or attendant forces of a singular goddess identified variously as Bixia ( "Blue Dawn"), the daughter or female consort of the Green God of Mount Tai, or Houtu ( the "Queen of the Earth"). Bixia herself is identified by Taoists as the more ancient goddess Xiwangmu, Goddesses are commonly entitled "mǔ" ( "mother"), "lǎomǔ" ( "old mother"), "shèngmǔ" ( "holy mother"), "niángniáng" ( "lady"), "nǎinai" ( "granny").


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Altars of goddess worship are usually arranged with Bixia at the center and two goddesses at her sides, most frequently the Lady of Eyesight and the Lady of Offspring. A different figure but with the same astral connections as Bixia is the Qixing Niangniang ( "Goddess of the Seven Stars"). There is also the cluster of the Holy Mothers of the Three Skies ( "Sanxiao Shengmu"; or "Ladies of the Three Skies", "Sanxiao Niangniang"), composed of "Yunxiao Guniang", "Qiongxiao Guniang" and "Bixiao Guniang". In southeastern provinces the cult of Chen Jinggu () is identified by some scholars as an emanation of the northern cult of Bixia.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: There are other local goddesses with motherly features, including the northern Canmu ( "Silkworm Mother") and Mazu ( "Ancestral Mother"), popular in provinces along the eastern coast and in Taiwan. The title of "Queen of Heaven" ( "Tiānhòu") is most frequently attributed to Mazu and Doumu (the cosmic goddess).


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Generally speaking, the Chinese believe that spiritual and material well-being ensues from the harmony of humanity and gods in their participation in the same cosmic power, and also believe that by taking the right path and practice anybody is able to reach the absolute reality. Religious practice is therefore regarded as the bridge to link the human world to the spiritual source, maintaining the harmony of the micro and macrocosmos, protecting the individual and the world from disruption. In this sense, the Chinese view of human life is not deterministic, but one is a master of his own life and can choose to collaborate with the deities for a harmonious world.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Chinese culture being a holistic system, in which every aspect is a part of a whole, Chinese folk religious practice is often intermingled with political, educational and economic concerns. A gathering or event may be encompassed with all of these aspects; in general, the commitment (belief) and the process or rite (practice) together form the internal and external dimensions of Chinese religious life. In village communities, religious services are often organised and led by local people themselves. Leaders are usually selected among male heads of families or lineages, or village heads.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: A simple form of individual practice is to show respect for the gods ("jing shen" ) through "jingxiang" (incense offering), and the exchange of vows ("huan yuan" ). Sacrifice can consist of incense, oil, and candles, as well as money. Religious devotion may also express in the form of performance troupes ("huahui"), involving many types of professionals such as stilt walkers, lion dancers, musicians, martial arts masters, "yangge" dancers, and story-tellers.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Deities can also be respected through moral deeds in their name ("shanshi" ), and self-cultivation ("xiuxing" ). Some forms of folk religion develop clear prescriptions for believers, such as detailed lists of meritorious and sinful deeds in the form of "morality books" ("shanshu" ) and ledgers of merit and demerit. Involvement in the affairs of communal or intra-village temples are perceived by believers as ways for accumulating merit ("gongde" ). Virtue is believed to accumulate in one's heart, which is seen as energetic centre of the human body ("zai jun xin zuo tian fu" ). Practices of communication with the gods comprehend different forms of Chinese shamanism, such as "wu" shamanism and "tongji" mediumship, or "fuji" practice.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Classical Chinese has characters for different types of sacrifice, probably the oldest way to communicate with divine forces, today generally encompassed by the definition "jìsì" (). However different in scale and quantity, all types of sacrifice would normally involve food, wine, meat and later incense.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Sacrifices usually differ according to the kind of deity they are devoted to. Traditionally, cosmic and nature gods are offered uncooked (or whole) food, while ancestors are offered cooked food. Moreover, sacrifices for gods are made inside the temples that enshrine them, while sacrifices for ancestors are made outside temples. Yearly sacrifices ("ji") are made to Confucius, the Red and Yellow Emperors, and other cultural heroes and ancestors.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Both in past history and at the present, all sacrifices are assigned with both religious and political purposes. Some gods are considered carnivorous, for example the River God ( "Héshén") and Dragon Gods, and offering to them requires animal sacrifice.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: The aims of rituals and sacrifices may be of thanksgiving and redeeming, usually involving both. Various sacrifices are intended to express gratitude toward the gods in the hope that spiritual blessing and protection will continue. The "jiào" (), an elaborate Taoist sacrifice or "rite of universal salvation", is intended to be a cosmic community renewal, that is to say a reconciliation of a community around its spiritual centre. The "jiao" ritual usually starts with "zhai", "fasting and purification", that is meant as an atonement for evil-doing, then followed by sacrificial offerings.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: This rite, of great political importance, can be intended for the whole nation. In fact, as early as the Song dynasty, emperors asked renowned Taoists to perform such rituals on their behalf or for the entire nation. The modern Chinese republic has given approval for Taoists to conduct such rituals since the 1990s, with the aim of protecting the country and the nation.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: A variety of practices are concerned with personal well-being and spiritual growth. Rites of passage are intended to narrate the holy significance of each crucial change throughout a life course. These changes, which are physical and social and at the same time spiritual, are marked by elaborate customs and religious rituals.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: In the holistic view about nature and the human body and life, as macro and microcosmos, the life process of a human being is equated with the rhythm of seasons and cosmic changes. Hence, birth is likened to spring, youth to summer, maturity to autumn and old age to winter. There are ritual passages for those who belong to a religious order of priests or monks, and there are the rituals of the stages in a life, the main four being birth, adulthood, marriage and death.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Chinese language has a variety of words defining the temples of the Chinese religion. Some of these terms have a precise functional use, although with time some confusion has arisen and some of them have been used interchangeably in some contexts. Collective names defining "temples" or places of worship are "sìmiào" and "miàoyǔ".


title: Chinese folk religion

text: However, "sì", which originally meant a type of residence for imperial officials, with the introduction of Buddhism in China became associated with Buddhist monasteries as many officials donated their residences to the monks. Today "sì" and "sìyuàn" ("monastery") are used almost exclusively for Buddhist monasteries, with sporadic exceptions, and "sì" is a component character of names for Chinese mosques. Another term now mostly associated with Buddhism is "ān", "thatched hut", originally a form of dwelling of monks later extended to mean monasteries.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Temples can be public, private ( "sìmiào") and household temples ( jiāmiào). The "jing" is a broader "territory of a god", a geographic region or a village or city with its surroundings, marked by multiple temples or complexes of temples and delineated by the processions.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Pertaining to Chinese religion the most common term is "miào" graphically meaning a "shrine" or "sacred enclosure"; it is the general Chinese term that is translated with the general Western "temple", and is used for temples of any of the deities of polytheism. Other terms include "diàn" which indicates the "house" of a god, enshrining one specific god, usually a chapel within a larger temple or sacred enclosure; and "tán" which means "altar" and refers to any indoor or outdoor altars, majestic outdoor altars being those for the worship of Heaven and Earth and other gods of the environment. "Gōng", originally referring to imperial palaces, became associated to temples of representations of the universal God or the highest gods and consorts, such as the Queen of Heaven.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Another group of words is used for the temples of ancestral religion: "cí" (either "temple" or "shrine", meaning a sacred enclosure) or "zōngcí" ("ancestor shrine"). These terms are also used for temples dedicated to immortal beings. "Zǔmiào" ("original temple") instead refers to a temple which is believed to be the original temple of a deity, the most legitimate and powerful.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Generic terms include "yuàn" meaning "sanctuary", from the secular usage for a courtyard, college or hospital institution; "yán" ("rock") and "dòng" ("hole", "cave") referring to temples set up in caves or on cliffs. Other generic terms are "fǔ" ("house"), originally of imperial officials, which is a rarely used term; and "tíng" ("pavilion") which refers to the areas of a temple where laypeople can stay. There is also "shéncí", "shrine of a god".


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Ancestral shrines are sacred places in which lineages of related families, identified by shared surnames, worship their common progenitors. These temples are the "collective representation" of a group, and function as centers where religious, social and economic activities intersect.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Chinese temples are traditionally built according to the styles and materials (wood and bricks) of Chinese architecture, and this continues to be the rule for most of the new temples. However, in the early 20th century and especially in the mainland religious revival of the early 21st century, there has been a proliferation of new styles in temple construction. These include the use of new materials (stones and concrete, stainless steel and glass) and the combination of Chinese traditional shapes with styles of the West or of transnational modernity. Examples can be found in the large ceremonial complexes of mainland China.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: "Fēnxiāng", meaning an "incense division", is a term that defines both hierarchical networks of temples dedicated to a god, and the ritual process by which these networks form. These temple networks are economic and social bodies, and in certain moments of history have even taken military functions. They also represent routes of pilgrimage, with communities of devotees from the affiliated temples going up in the hierarchy to the senior temple ("zumiao").


title: Chinese folk religion

text: When a new temple dedicated to the same god is founded, it enters the network through the ritual of division of incense. This consists in filling the incense burner of the new temple with ashes brought from the incense burner of an existing temple. The new temple is therefore spiritually affiliated to the older temple where the ashes were taken, and directly below it in the hierarchy of temples.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Activities include rituals, theatrical performances, processions of the gods' images throughout villages and cities, and offerings to the temples. In north China temple gatherings are generally week-long and large events attracting tens of thousands of people, while in south China they tend to be smaller and village-based events.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: According to their research, 55.5% of the adult population (15+) of China, or 578 million people in absolute numbers, believe and practise folk religions, including a 20% who practice ancestor religion or communal worship of deities, and the rest who practise what Yang and Hu define "individual" folk religions like devotion to specific gods such as Caishen. Members of folk religious sects are not taken into account. Around the same year, Kenneth Dean estimates 680 million people involved in folk religion, or 51% of the total population. At the same time, self-identified folk religion believers in Taiwan are 42.7% of the adult (20+) population, or 16 million people in absolute numbers, although devotion to ancestors and gods can be found even among other religions' believers or 88% of the population. According to the 2005 census of Taiwan, Taoism is the statistical religion of 33% of the population.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: The Chinese Spiritual Life Survey conducted by the Center on Religion and Chinese Society of Purdue University, published in 2010, found that 754 million people (56.2%) practise ancestor religion, but only 216 million people (16%) "believe in the existence" of the ancestor. The same survey says that 173 million (13%) practise Chinese folk religion in a Taoist framework.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: The China Family Panel Studies' survey of 2012, published in 2014, based on the Chinese General Social Surveys which are held on robust samples of tens of thousands of people, found that only 12.6% of the population of China belongs to its five state-sanctioned religious groups, while among the rest of the population only 6.3% are atheists, and the remaining 81% (1 billion people) pray to or worship gods and ancestors in the manner of the traditional popular religion. The same survey has found that 2.2% (≈30 million) of the total population declares to be affiliated to one or another of the many folk religious sects. At the same time, reports of the Chinese government claim that the sects have about the same number of followers of the five state-sanctioned religions counted together (~13% ≈180 million).


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Scholars have studied the economic dimension of Chinese folk religion, whose rituals and temples interweave a form of grassroots socio-economic capital for the well-being of local communities, fostering the circulation of wealth and its investment in the "sacred capital" of temples, gods and ancestors.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: This religious economy already played a role in periods of imperial China, plays a significant role in modern Taiwan, and is seen as a driving force in the rapid economic development in parts of rural China, especially the southern and eastern coasts.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: According to Law (2005), in his study about the relationship between the revival of folk religion and the recostruction of patriarchal civilisation:


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Mayfair Yang (2007) defines it as an "embedded capitalism", which preserves local identity and autonomy, and an "ethical capitalism" in which the drive for individual accumulation of money is tempered by religious and kinship ethics of generosity which foster the sharing and investment of wealth in the construction of civil society.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Most of the overseas Chinese populations have maintained Chinese folk religions, often adapting to the new environment by developing new cults and incorporating elements of local traditions. In Southeast Asia, Chinese deities are subject to a "re-territorialisation" and maintain their relation to the ethnic associations (i.e. the Hainanese Association or the Fujianese Association, each of them has a patron deity and manages one or more temples of such a deity).


title: Chinese folk religion

text: The most important deity among Southeast Asian Chinese is Mazu, the Queen of Heaven and goddess of the sea. This is related to the fact that most of these Chinese populations are from southeastern provinces of China, where the goddess is very popular. Some folk religious sects have spread successfully among Southeast Asian Chinese. They include especially Church of Virtue (Deism), Zhenkongdao and Yiguandao.


title: Māori language

text: Māori (), or ' ('the Māori language'), also known as ' ('the language'), is an Eastern Polynesian language spoken by the Māori people, the indigenous population of mainland New Zealand. Closely related to Cook Islands Māori, Tuamotuan, and Tahitian, it gained recognition as one of New Zealand's official languages in 1987. The number of speakers of the language has declined sharply since 1945, but a Māori-language revitalisation effort has slowed the decline.


title: Māori language

text: The 2018 New Zealand census reported that about 186,000 people, or 4.0% of the New Zealand population, could hold a conversation in Māori about everyday things. , 55% of Māori adults reported some knowledge of the language; of these, 64% use Māori at home and around 50,000 people can speak the language "very well" or "well".


title: Māori language

text: The Māori language did not have an indigenous writing system. Missionaries arriving from about 1814, such as Thomas Kendall, learned to speak Māori, and introduced the Latin alphabet. In 1817, Tītore and his junior relative, Tui, sailed to England. They visited Professor Samuel Lee at the University of Cambridge and assisted him in the preparation of a grammar and vocabulary of Māori. Thomas Kendall travelled to London with Hongi Hika and Waikato (a lower-ranking Ngāpuhi chief) in 1820, during which time further work was done with Professor Lee, who gave phonetic spellings to a written form of the language, which resulted in a definitive orthography based on North Island usage. By 1830, the Church Missionary Society (CMS) missionaries had revised the orthography for writing the Māori language; for example, "Kiddeekiddee" became, as in the modern spelling, .


title: Māori language

text: Māori distinguishes between long and short vowels; modern written texts and those designed for standard use usually mark the long vowels with a macron. However, some iwi, such as those within the Tainui confederation of the Waikato, represent long vowels with double letters (for example: rather than ). This was the standard for older romanisation. For modern exceptions see below.


title: Māori language

text: The English word "Maori" is a borrowing from the Māori language, where it is spelled . In New Zealand, the Māori language is often referred to as ("the language"), short for ("the Māori language").


title: Māori language

text: The Māori-language spelling (with a macron) has become common in New Zealand English in recent years, particularly in Māori-specific cultural contexts, although the traditional macron-less English spelling is still sometimes seen in general media and government use.


title: Māori language

text: Preferred and alternative pronunciations in English vary by dictionary, with being most frequent today, and , , and also given, while the 'r' is always a rolled r.


title: Māori language

text: New Zealand has two "de jure" official languages: Māori and New Zealand Sign Language, whereas New Zealand English acts as a "de facto" official language. "Te reo Māori" gained its official status with the passing of the Māori Language Act 1987.


title: Māori language

text: Most government departments and agencies have bilingual names—for example, the Department of Internal Affairs is alternatively —and places such as local government offices and public libraries display bilingual signs and use bilingual stationery; some government services now even use the Māori version solely as the official name. Personal dealings with government agencies may be conducted in Māori, but in practice, this almost always requires interpreters, restricting its everyday use to the limited geographical areas of high Māori fluency, and to more formal occasions, such as during public consultation. An interpreter is on hand at sessions of the New Zealand Parliament for instances when a member wishes to speak in Māori. Māori may be spoken in judicial proceedings, but any party wishing to do so must notify the court in advance to ensure an interpreter is available. Failure to notify in advance does not preclude the party speaking in Māori, but the court must be adjourned until an interpreter is available and the party may be held liable for the costs of the delay.


title: Māori language

text: A 1994 ruling by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (then New Zealand's highest court) held the Government responsible under the Treaty of Waitangi (1840) for the preservation of the language. Accordingly, since March 2004, the state has funded Māori Television, broadcast partly in Māori. On 28 March 2008, Māori Television launched its second channel, , broadcast entirely in the Māori language, with no advertising or subtitles. The first Māori TV channel, Aotearoa Television Network (ATN) was available to viewers in the Auckland region from 1996 but lasted for only one year.


title: Māori language

text: In 2008, Land Information New Zealand published the first list of official place names with macrons. Previous place name lists were derived from computer systems (usually mapping and geographic information systems) that could not handle macrons.


title: Māori language

text: According to legend, Māori came to New Zealand from Hawaiki. Current anthropological thinking places their origin in eastern Polynesia, mostly likely from the Southern Cook or Society Islands region, and says that they arrived by deliberate voyages in seagoing canoes, possibly double-hulled, and probably sail-rigged. These settlers probably arrived by about AD 1280 (see Origins of the Māori people). Their language and its dialects developed in isolation until the 19th century.


title: Māori language

text: Since about 1800, the Māori language has had a tumultuous history. It started this period as the predominant language of New Zealand. In the 1860s, it became a minority language in the shadow of the English spoken by many settlers, missionaries, gold-seekers, and traders. In the late 19th century, the colonial governments of New Zealand and its provinces introduced an English-style school system for all New Zealanders. From the mid-19th century, due to the Native Schools Act and later the Native Schools Code, the use of Māori in schools was slowly filtered out of the curriculum in order to become more European. Increasing numbers of Māori people learned English.


title: Māori language

text: Until the Second World War (1939–1945), most Māori people spoke Māori as their first language. Worship took place in Māori; it functioned as the language of Māori homes; Māori politicians conducted political meetings in Māori, and some literature appeared in Māori, along with many newspapers.


title: Māori language

text: Before 1880, some Māori parliamentarians suffered disadvantages because Parliament's proceedings took place in English. However, by 1900, all Māori members of parliament, such as Sir Āpirana Ngata, were university graduates who spoke fluent English. From this period greater emphasis was placed on Māori learning English, but it was not until the migration of Māori to urban areas after the Second World War that the number of speakers of Māori began to decline rapidly. Some Māori children who spoke at school were beaten for speaking the language, which contributed to the decline of from the 1940s to 1980s. By the 1980s, fewer than 20 per cent of Māori spoke the language well enough to be classed as native speakers. Even many of those people no longer spoke Māori in their homes. As a result, many Māori children failed to learn their ancestral language, and generations of non-Māori-speaking Māori emerged.


title: Māori language

text: By the 1950s some Māori leaders had begun to recognise the dangers of the loss of "te reo Māori." By the 1970s there were many strategies used to save the language. This included Māori-language revitalization programs such as the Kōhanga Reo movement, which from 1982 immersed infants in Māori from infancy to school age. There followed in 1985 the founding of the first Kura Kaupapa Māori (Years 1 to 8 Māori-medium education programme) and later the first Wharekura (Years 9 to 13 Māori-medium education programme). In 2011 it was reported that although "there was a true revival of te reo in the 1980s and early to mid-1990s … spurred on by the realisation of how few speakers were left, and by the relative abundance of older fluent speakers in both urban neighbourhoods and rural communities", the language has continued to decline." The decline is believed "to have several underlying causes". These include:


title: Māori language

text: Based on the principles of partnership, Māori-speaking government, general revitalisation and dialectal protective policy, and adequate resourcing, the Waitangi Tribunal has recommended "four fundamental changes":


title: Māori language

text: The changes set forth by the Tribunal are merely recommendations; they are not binding upon government.


title: Māori language

text: There is, however, evidence that the revitalisation efforts are taking hold, as can be seen in the teaching of in the school curriculum, the use of Māori as an instructional language, and the supportive ideologies surrounding these efforts. In 2014, a survey of students ranging in age from 18 to 24 was conducted; the students were of mixed ethnic backgrounds, ranging from to Māori who lived in New Zealand. This survey showed a 62% response saying that was at risk. Albury argues that these results come from the language either not being used enough in common discourse, or from the fact that the number of speakers was inadequate for future language development.


title: Māori language

text: The policies for language revitalisation have been changing in attempts to improve Māori language use and have been working with suggestions from the Waitangi Tribunal on the best ways to implement the revitalisation. The Waitangi Tribunal in 2011 identified a suggestion for language revitalisation that would shift indigenous policies from the central government to the preferences and ideologies of the Māori people. This change recognises the issue of Māori revitalisation as one of indigenous self-determination, instead of the job of the government to identify what would be best for the language and Māori people of New Zealand.


title: Māori language

text: Beginning in about 2015, the Māori language underwent a revival as it became increasingly popular, as a common national heritage and shared cultural identity, even among New Zealanders without Māori roots. Surveys from 2018 indicated that "the Māori language currently enjoys a high status in Māori society and also positive acceptance by the majority of non-Māori New Zealanders".


title: Māori language

text: As the status and prestige of the language rose, so did the demand for language classes. Businesses, including Google, Microsoft, Vodafone NZ and Fletcher Building, were quick to adopt the trend as it became apparent that using made customers think of a company as "committed to New Zealand". The language became increasingly heard in the media and in politics. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern—who gave her daughter a Māori middle name, and said she would learn both Māori and English—made headlines when she toasted Commonwealth leaders in 2018 with a Māori proverb, and the success of Māori musical groups such as Alien Weaponry and Maimoa further increased the language's presence in social media.


title: Māori language

text: In August 2017, Rotorua became the first city in New Zealand to declare itself as bilingual in the Māori and English languages, meaning that both languages would be promoted. During the same year, Disney's "Moana" received a Māori-language dubbing, which premiered in Auckland on September 11, during Te Wiki o te Reo Māori. "Moana" became the first of at least three titles the company agreed to have dubbed in Māori, in collaboration with Matewa Media: a dubbing of "The Lion King" premiered in Auckland on June 21, 2022, and the Māori version of "Frozen" premiered on October 25 of the same year.


title: Māori language

text: In 2019, the New Zealand government launched the "Maihi Karauna" Māori language revitalisation strategy with a goal of 1 million people speaking "te reo Māori" by 2040.


title: Māori language

text: Also in 2019, Kotahi Rau Pukapuka Trust and Auckland University Press began work on publishing a sizeable library of local and international literature in the language, including the Harry Potter books.


title: Māori language

text: Some New Zealanders have pushed against the revival, debating the replacement of English-language place names with original Māori names, criticising a Police car having Māori language and graphics, and complaining about "te reo Māori" being used by broadcasters. In March 2021, the Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) said it would no longer entertain complaints regarding the use of the Māori language in broadcasts. This followed a fivefold increase in complaints to the BSA. The use of Māori in itself does not breach any broadcasting standards.


title: Māori language

text: Comparative linguists classify Māori as a Polynesian language, specifically as an Eastern Polynesian language belonging to the Tahitic subgroup, which includes Cook Islands Māori, spoken in the southern Cook Islands, and Tahitian, spoken in Tahiti and the Society Islands. Other major Eastern Polynesian languages include Hawaiian, Marquesan (languages in the Marquesic subgroup), and the Rapa Nui language of Easter Island.


title: Māori language

text: While the preceding are all distinct languages, they remain similar enough that Tupaia, a Tahitian travelling with Captain James Cook in 1769–1770, communicated effectively with Māori. Māori actors, travelling to Easter Island for production of the film noticed a marked similarity between the native tongues, as did arts curator Reuben Friend, who noted that it took only a short time to pick up any different vocabulary and the different nuances to recognisable words. Speakers of modern Māori generally report that they find the languages of the Cook Islands, including Rarotongan, the easiest amongst the other Polynesian languages to understand and converse in.


title: Māori language

text: Nearly all speakers are ethnic Māori resident in New Zealand. Estimates of the number of speakers vary: the 1996 census reported 160,000, while other estimates have reported as few as 10,000 fluent adult speakers in 1995 according to the Māori Language Commission.


title: Māori language

text: As reported in the 2013 national census, only 21.31 per cent of Māori (self-identified) had a conversational knowledge of the language, and only around 6.5 per cent of those speakers, 1.4 per cent of the total Māori population, spoke the Māori language only. This percentage has been in decline in recent years, from around a quarter of the population to 21 per cent. In the same census, Māori speakers were 3.7 per cent of the total population.


title: Māori language

text: The level of competence of self-professed Māori speakers varies from minimal to total. Statistics have not been gathered for the prevalence of different levels of competence. Only a minority of self-professed speakers use Māori as their main language at home. The rest use only a few words or phrases (passive bilingualism).


title: Māori language

text: Māori is a community language in some predominantly Māori settlements in the Northland, Urewera and East Cape areas. Māori-immersion kindergartens throughout New Zealand use Māori exclusively. Increasing numbers of Māori raise their children bilingually.


title: Māori language

text: Urbanisation after the Second World War led to widespread language shift from Māori predominance (with Māori the primary language of the rural ) to English predominance (English serving as the primary language in the cities). Therefore, Māori speakers almost always communicate bilingually, with New Zealand English as either their first or second language. Only around 9,000 people speak only in Māori.


title: Māori language

text: The use of the Māori language in the Māori diaspora is far lower than in New Zealand itself. Census data from Australia show it as the home language of 11,747, just 8.2% of the total Australian Māori population in 2016. However, this could just be due to more Māori immigrants leaving to Australia.


title: Māori language

text: The modern Māori alphabet has 15 letters, two of which are digraphs (character pairs). The five vowels have both short and long forms, with the long forms denoted by macrons marked above them.


title: Māori language

text: There was originally no native writing system for Māori. It has been suggested that the petroglyphs once used by the Māori developed into a script similar to the Rongorongo of Easter Island. However, there is no evidence that these petroglyphs ever evolved into a true system of writing. Some distinctive markings among the (rafter paintings) of meeting houses were used as mnemonics in reciting (genealogy) but again, there was no systematic relation between marks and meanings.


title: Māori language

text: Attempts to write Māori words using the Latin script began with Captain James Cook and other early explorers, with varying degrees of success. Consonants seem to have caused the most difficulty, but medial and final vowels are often missing in early sources. Anne Salmond records "aghee" for aki (in the year 1773, from the North Island East Coast, p. 98), "Toogee" and "E tanga roak" for Tuki and Tangaroa (1793, Northland, p. 216), "Kokramea", "Kakramea" for Kakaramea (1801, Hauraki, p. 261), "toges" for tokis, "Wannugu" for Uenuku and "gumera" for kumara (1801, Hauraki, pp. 261, 266 and 269), "Weygate" for Waikato (1801, Hauraki, p. 277), "Bunga Bunga" for pungapunga, for tupua and "gure" for kurī (1801, Hauraki, p. 279), as well as "Tabooha" for Te Puhi (1823, Northern Northland, p. 385).


title: Māori language

text: From 1814, missionaries tried to define the sounds of the language. Thomas Kendall published a book in 1815 entitled "A korao no New Zealand", which in modern orthography and usage would be . Beginning in 1817, Professor Samuel Lee of Cambridge University worked with the Ngāpuhi chief Tītore and his junior relative Tui (also known as Tuhi or Tupaea), and then with chief Hongi Hika and his junior relative Waikato; they established a definitive orthography based on Northern usage, published as the "First Grammar and Vocabulary of the New Zealand Language" (1820). The missionaries of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) did not have a high regard for this book. By 1830 the CMS missionaries had revised the orthography for writing the Māori language; for example, ‘Kiddeekiddee’ became, what is the modern spelling, ‘Kerikeri’. This orthography continues in use, with only two major changes: the addition of "wh" to distinguish the voiceless bilabial fricative phoneme from the labio-velar phoneme ; and the consistent marking of long vowels.


title: Māori language

text: The Māori embraced literacy enthusiastically, and missionaries reported in the 1820s that Māori all over the country taught each other to read and write, using sometimes quite innovative materials in the absence of paper, such as leaves and charcoal, and flax. Missionary James West Stack recorded the scarcity of slates and writing materials at the native schools and the use sometimes of "pieces of board on which sand was sprinkled, and the letters traced upon the sand with a pointed stick".


title: Māori language

text: The alphabet devised at Cambridge University does not mark vowel length. The examples in the following table show that vowel length is phonemic in Māori.


title: Māori language

text: Māori devised ways to mark vowel length, sporadically at first. Occasional and inconsistent vowel-length markings occur in 19th-century manuscripts and newspapers written by Māori, including macron-like diacritics and doubling of letters. Māori writer Hare Hongi (Henry Stowell) used macrons in his "Maori-English Tutor and Vade Mecum" of 1911, as does Sir Āpirana Ngata (albeit inconsistently) in his "Maori Grammar and Conversation" (7th printing 1953). Once the Māori language was taught in universities in the 1960s, vowel-length marking was made systematic. Bruce Biggs, of Ngāti Maniapoto descent and professor at the University of Auckland, promoted the use of double vowels (e.g. "Maaori"); this style was standard at the university until Biggs died in 2000.


title: Māori language

text: Macrons () are now the standard means of indicating long vowels, after becoming the favoured option of the Māori Language Commission—set up by the Māori Language Act 1987 to act as the authority for Māori spelling and orthography. Most news media now use macrons; Stuff websites and newspapers since 2017, TVNZ and NZME websites and newspapers since 2018.


title: Māori language

text: Technical limitations in producing macronised vowels on typewriters and older computer systems are sometimes resolved by using a diaeresis or circumflex instead of a macron (e.g., Mäori or Mâori).


title: Māori language

text: Although it is commonly claimed that vowel realisations (pronunciations) in Māori show little variation, linguistic research has shown this not to be the case.


title: Māori language

text: Vowel length is phonemic, but four of the five long vowels occur in only a handful of word roots, the exception being . As noted above, it has recently become standard in Māori spelling to indicate a long vowel with a macron. For older speakers, long vowels tend to be more peripheral and short vowels more centralised, especially with the low vowel, which is long but short . For younger speakers, they are both . For older speakers, is only fronted after ; elsewhere it is . For younger speakers, it is fronted everywhere, as with the corresponding phoneme in New Zealand English. Due to the influence of New Zealand English, the vowel [e] is raised to be near [i], so that "pī" and "kē" (or "piki" and "kete") now largely share the very same vowel space.


title: Māori language

text: Beside monophthongs Māori has many diphthong vowel phonemes. Although any short vowel combinations are possible, researchers disagree on which combinations constitute diphthongs. Formant frequency analysis distinguish as diphthongs.


title: Māori language

text: As in many other Polynesian languages, diphthongs in Māori vary only slightly from sequences of adjacent vowels, except that they belong to the same syllable, and all or nearly all sequences of nonidentical vowels are possible. All sequences of nonidentical short vowels occur and are phonemically distinct.


title: Māori language

text: The consonant phonemes of Māori are listed in the following table. Seven of the ten Māori consonant letters have the same pronunciation as they do in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For those that do not, the IPA phonetic transcription is included, enclosed in square brackets per IPA convention.


title: Māori language

text: The pronunciation of is extremely variable, but its most common pronunciation (its canonical allophone) is the labiodental fricative, IPA (as in the English word "fill"). Another allophone is the voiceless bilabial fricative, IPA , which is usually supposed to be the sole pre-European pronunciation, although linguists are not sure of the truth of this supposition. At least until the 1930s, the bilabial fricative was considered to be the correct pronunciation. The fact that English gets substituted by and not in borrowings (for example, English "February" becomes "Pēpuere" instead of ) would strongly hint that the Māori did not perceive English to be the same sound as their .


title: Māori language

text: Because English stops primarily have aspiration, speakers of English often hear the Māori nonaspirated stops as English . However, younger Māori speakers tend to aspirate as in English. English speakers also tend to hear Māori as English in certain positions (cf. Japanese r). These ways of hearing have given rise to place-name spellings which are incorrect in Māori, like Tolaga Bay, Otago and Waihola ( respectively in Māori).


title: Māori language

text: In some western areas of the North Island, is pronounced as a glottal stop instead of , and the digraph is pronounced as instead of or .


title: Māori language

text: In borrowings from English, many consonants are substituted by the nearest available Māori consonant. For example, the English fricatives , , and are replaced by , becomes /, and becomes (the is sometimes retained in the southern dialect, as noted below).


title: Māori language

text: Syllables in Māori have one of the following forms: V, VV, CV, CVV. This set of four can be summarised by the notation, , in which the segments in parentheses may or may not be present. A syllable cannot begin with two consonant sounds (the digraphs "ng" and "wh" represent single consonant sounds), and cannot end in a consonant, although some speakers may occasionally devoice a final vowel. All possible CV combinations are grammatical, though "wo", "who", "wu", and "whu" occur only in a few loanwords from English such as , "wool" and , "football".


title: Māori language

text: As in many other Polynesian languages, e.g., Hawaiian, the rendering of loanwords from English includes representing every English consonant of the loanword (using the native consonant inventory; English has 24 consonants to 10 for Māori) and breaking up consonant clusters. For example, "Presbyterian" has been borrowed as "Perehipeteriana"; no consonant position in the loanword has been deleted, but and have been replaced with and , respectively.


title: Māori language

text: Stress is typically within the last four vowels of a word, with long vowels and diphthongs counting double. That is, on the last four moras. However, stressed moras are longer than unstressed moras, so the word does not have the precision in Māori that it does in some other languages. It falls preferentially on the first long vowel, on the first diphthong if there is no long vowel (though for some speakers never a final diphthong), and on the first syllable otherwise. Compound words (such as names) may have a stressed syllable in each component word. In long sentences, the final syllable before a pause may have a stress in preference to the normal stressed syllable.


title: Māori language

text: Biggs proposed that historically there were two major dialect groups, North Island and South Island, and that South Island Māori is extinct. Biggs has analysed North Island Māori as comprising a western group and an eastern group with the boundary between them running pretty much along the island's north–south axis.


title: Māori language

text: Within these broad divisions regional variations occur, and individual regions show tribal variations. The major differences occur in the pronunciation of words, variation of vocabulary, and idiom. A fluent speaker of Māori has no problem understanding other dialects.


title: Māori language

text: There is no significant variation in grammar between dialects. "Most of the tribal variation in grammar is a matter of preferences: speakers of one area might prefer one grammatical form to another, but are likely on occasion to use the non-preferred form, and at least to recognise and understand it." Vocabulary and pronunciation vary to a greater extent, but this does not pose barriers to communication.


title: Māori language

text: In the southwest of the island, in the Whanganui and Taranaki regions, the phoneme is a glottal stop and the phoneme is . This difference was the subject of considerable debate during the 1990s and 2000s over the then-proposed change of the name of the city Wanganui to Whanganui.


title: Māori language

text: In Tūhoe and the Eastern Bay of Plenty (northeastern North Island) has merged with . In parts of the Far North, has merged with .


title: Māori language

text: In South Island dialects, "ng" merged with "k" in many regions. Thus "Kāi Tahu" and "Ngāi Tahu" are variations in the name of the same iwi (the latter form is the one used in acts of Parliament). Since 2000, the government has altered the official names of several southern place names to the southern dialect forms by replacing "ng" with "k". New Zealand's highest mountain, known for centuries as in southern Māori dialects that merge "ng" with "k", and as by other Māori, was later named "Mount Cook". Now its sole official name is "Aoraki / Mount Cook", which favours the local dialect form. Similarly, the Māori name for Stewart Island, , is cognate with the name of the Canterbury town of Rangiora. Likewise, Dunedin's main research library, the Hocken Collections, has the name rather than the northern (standard) . Maarire Goodall and George Griffiths say there is also a voicing of "k" to "g", which explains why the region of Otago (southern dialect) and the settlement it is named after – Otakou (standard Māori) – vary in spelling (the pronunciation of the latter having changed over time to accommodate the northern spelling).


title: Māori language

text: The standard Māori "r" is also found occasionally changed to an "l" in these southern dialects and the "wh" to "w". These changes are most commonly found in place names, such as Lake Waihola, and the nearby coastal settlement of Wangaloa (which would, in standard Māori, be rendered ), and Little Akaloa, on Banks Peninsula. Goodall and Griffiths suggest that final vowels are given a centralised pronunciation as schwa or that they are elided (pronounced indistinctly or not at all), resulting in such seemingly bastardised place names as The Kilmog, which in standard Māori would have been rendered , but which in southern dialect would have been pronounced very much as the current name suggests. This same elision is found in numerous other southern placenames, such as the two small settlements called The Kaik (from the term for a fishing village, in standard Māori), near Palmerston and Akaroa, and the early spelling of Lake Wakatipu as . In standard Māori, Wakatipu would have been rendered , showing further the elision of a final vowel.


title: Māori language

text: Despite the dialect being officially regarded as extinct, its use in signage and official documentation is encouraged by many government and educational agencies in Otago and Southland.


title: Māori language

text: Māori has mostly a verb-subject-object word order, is analytical and makes extensive use of grammatical particles to indicate grammatical categories of tense, mood, aspect, case, topicalization, among others. The personal pronouns have a distinction in clusivity, singular, dual and plural numbers, and the genitive pronouns have different classes ("a" class, "o" class and neutral) according to whether the possession is alienable or the possessor has control of the relationship ("a" category), or the possession is inalienable or the possessor has no control over the relationship ("o" category), and a third neutral class that only occurs for singular pronouns and must be followed by a noun.


title: Māori language

text: Biggs (1998) developed an analysis that the basic unit of Māori speech is the phrase rather than the word. The lexical word forms the "base" of the phrase. Biggs identifies five types of bases.


title: Māori language

text: Noun bases include those bases that can take a definite article, but cannot occur as the nucleus of a verbal phrase; for example: (fish) or (tree). Plurality is marked by various means, including the definite article (singular , plural ), deictic particles (that tree), (those trees), possessives (my house), (my houses). A few nouns lengthen a vowel in the plural, such as (woman); (women). In general, bases used as qualifiers follow the base they qualify, e.g. "matua wahine" (mother, female elder) from "matua" (parent, elder) "wahine" (woman).


title: Māori language

text: Universal bases are verbs which can be used passively. When used passively, these verbs take a passive form. Biggs gives three examples of universals in their passive form: (drunk), (wept for), and (said).


title: Māori language

text: Stative bases serve as bases usable as verbs but not available for passive use, such as "ora", alive or "tika", correct. Grammars generally refer to them as "stative verbs". When used in sentences, statives require different syntax than other verb-like bases.


title: Māori language

text: Locative bases can follow the locative particle "ki" (to, towards) directly, such as "runga", above, "waho", outside, and placenames ("ki Tamaki", to Auckland).


title: Māori language

text: Personal bases take the personal article "a" after "ki", such as names of people ("ki a Hohepa", to Joseph), personified houses, personal pronouns, "wai?" who? and "mea", so-and-so.


title: Māori language

text: Like all other Polynesian languages, Māori has a rich array of particles, which include verbal particles, pronouns, locative particles, articles and possessives.


title: Māori language

text: Verbal particles indicate aspectual, tense-related or modal properties of the verb which they relate to. They include:


title: Māori language

text: Possessives fall into one of two classes of prepositions marked by "a" and "o", depending on the dominant versus subordinate relationship between possessor and possessed: "ngā tamariki a te matua", the children of the parent but "te matua o ngā tamariki", the parent of the children.


title: Māori language

text: The definite articles are (singular) and (plural). Several other determiners termed definitives are related to the singular definite article , such as the definitive possessive constructions with and and the demonstrative determiners.


title: Māori language

text: The Māori definite articles are frequently used where the equivalent, "the", is not used in English, such as when referring generically to an entire class. In these cases, the singular can even be used with a morphologically plural noun, as in


title: Māori language

text: In other syntactic environments, the definite article may be used to introduce a noun-phrase which is pragmatically indefinite due to the restrictions on the use of as discussed below.


title: Māori language

text: The indefinite article is used most frequently in the predicate and occasionally in the subject of the sentence, although it is not allowed in subject position in all sentence types. In the predicate, the indefinite article can introduce either nouns or adjectives. The article either can be translated to the English ‘a’ or ‘some’, but the number will not be indicated by . With nouns that show morphological number, may be used either with singular or plural forms. The indefinite article when used with mass nouns like water and sand will always mean 'some'.


title: Māori language

text: The indefinite article is highly restricted in its use and is incompatible with a preceding preposition. For this reason, it cannot be used in the grammatical object of the sentence as these are marked prepositionally, either with or . In many cases, speakers simply use the definite articles and in positions where is disallowed, however the indefinite articles and may be used in these situations to emphasise the indefiniteness.


title: Māori language

text: In positions where both and / may occur, there are sometimes differences of meaning between them as the following examples indicate.


title: Māori language

text: The proper article is used before personal and locative nouns acting as the subject of the sentence or before personal nouns and pronouns within prepositional phrases headed by prepositions ending in "i" (namely , , and ).


title: Māori language

text: The personal nouns are not accompanied by definite or indefinite articles unless they are an intrinsic part of the name, as in Te Rauparaha.


title: Māori language

text: Proper nouns are not preceded by the proper article when they are neither acting as the subject of the sentence nor in a prepositional phrase headed by , , or . For example, after the focusing particle , the proper article is not used.


title: Māori language

text: Demonstratives occur after the noun and have a deictic function, and include , this (near me), , that (near you), , that (far from us both), and , the aforementioned (anaphoric). These demonstratives, having a connection to the definite article are termed definitives. Other definitives include (which?), and , (a certain). The plural is formed just by dropping the "t": (this), (these). The related adverbs are (here), (there, near you), (over there, near him).


title: Māori language

text: Phrases introduced by demonstratives can also be expressed using the definite article or preceding a noun followed by one of the deictic particles , or . The "t" of the singular definite article appears in the singular demonstratives but is replaced by "∅" in the plural, having no connection with in the majority of dialects.


title: Māori language

text: However, in dialects of the Waikato area, plural forms of demonstratives beginning with "ng-" are found, such as 'these' instead of the more widespread (as well as and possessives such as 'my (plural, inalienable)' instead of ).


title: Māori language

text: Pronouns have singular, dual and plural number. Different first-person forms in both the dual and the plural are used for groups inclusive or exclusive of the person(s) addressed.


title: Māori language

text: Like other Polynesian languages, Māori has three numbers for pronouns and possessives: singular, dual and plural. For example: (he/she), (those two), (they, three or more). Māori pronouns and possessives further distinguish exclusive "we" from inclusive "we", second and third. It has the plural pronouns: (we, exc), (we, inc), (you), (they). The language features the dual pronouns: (me and another), (me and you), (you two), (those two). The difference between exclusive and inclusive lies in the treatment of the person addressed. refers to the speaker and others but not the person or persons spoken to ("I and some others but not you"), and refers to the speaker, the person or persons spoken to and everyone else ("you, I and others"):


title: Māori language

text: The possessive pronouns vary according to person, number, clusivity, and possessive class (a class or o class). Example: (my pen), (my pens). For dual and plural subject pronouns, the possessive form is analytical, by just putting the possessive particle (tā/tō for singular objects or ā/ō for plural objects) before the personal pronouns, e.g. (our class), (their [dual] house); (our classes). The neuter one must be followed by a noun and only occur for singular first, second and third persons. is my, is my (plural, for many possessed items). The plural is made by deleting the initial [t].


title: Māori language

text: A phrase spoken in Māori can be broken up into two parts: the "nucleus" or "head" and "periphery" (modifiers, determiners). The nucleus can be thought of as the meaning and is the centre of the phrase, whereas the periphery is where the grammatical meaning is conveyed and occurs before and/or after the nucleus.


title: Māori language

text: The nucleus can be translated as "house", the periphery is similar to an article "the" and the periphery indicates proximity to the speaker. The whole phrase, , can then be translated as "this house".


title: Māori language

text: A definite and declarative sentence (may be a copulative sentence) begins with the declarative particle "ko". If the sentence is topicalized (agent topic, only in non-present sentences) the sentence begins with the particle nā (past tense) or the particle mā (future, imperfective) followed by the agent/subject. In these cases the word order changes to subject-verb-object. These agent topicalizing particles can contract with singular personal pronouns and vary according to the possessive classes: "nāku" can be thought of as meaning "as for me" and behave like an emphatic or dative pronoun.


title: Māori language

text: Forming negative phrases in Māori is quite grammatically complex. There are several different negators which are used under various specific circumstances. The four main negators are as follows:


title: Māori language

text: The general usage of can be seen in the following examples. The subject is usually raised in negative phrases, although this is not obligatory. Each example of a negative phrase is presented with its analogue positive phrase for comparison.


title: Māori language

text: The passive voice of verbs is made by a suffix to the verb. For example, -ia (or just -a if the verb ends in [i]). The other passive suffixes, some of which are very rare, are: -hanga/-hia/-hina/-ina/-kia/-kina/-mia/-na/-nga/-ngia/-ria/-rina/-tia/-whia/-whina/. The use of the passive suffix -ia is given in this sentence: "Kua hangaia te marae e ngā tohunga" (The marae has been built by the experts). The active form of this sentence is rendered as: "Kua hanga ngā tohunga i te marae" (The experts have built the marae). It can be seen that the active sentence contains the object marker 'i', that is not present in the passive sentence, while the passive sentence has the agent marker 'e', which is not present in the active sentence.


title: Māori language

text: Polar questions (yes/no questions) can be made by changing the intonation of the sentence. The answers may be āe (yes) or kāo (no).


title: Māori language

text: From missionary times, Māori adopted phonetic variants of the English names for the days of the week and the months of the year. Since about 1990, the Māori Language Commission has promoted new "traditional" sets. Its days of the week have no pre-European equivalent, but reflect the pre-Christian origins of the English names. The commission based the months of the year on those of the traditional Māori lunar calendar ().


title: Māori language

text: New Zealand English has gained many loanwords from Māori, mainly the names of birds, plants, fishes and places. For example, the kiwi, the national bird, takes its name from . "Kia ora" (literally "be healthy") is a widely adopted greeting of Māori origin, with the intended meaning of "hello". It can also mean "thank you", or signify agreement with a speaker at a meeting. The Māori greetings (to one person), (to two people) or (to three or more people) are also widely used, as are farewells such as . The Māori phrase , "be strong", is frequently encountered as an indication of moral support for someone starting a stressful undertaking or otherwise in a difficult situation. Many other words such as (meaning "family") and (meaning "food") are also widely understood and used by New Zealanders. The Māori phrase means 'until I see you again' is quite commonly used.


title: Māori language

text: Māori is available on Google Translate, Microsoft Translator and Yandex.Translate. Various Māori dictionaries exist on the website Glosbe. Another popular online dictionary is "Māori Dictionary".


title: Max Headroom

text: Max Headroom is a fictional artificial intelligence (AI) character portrayed by actor Matt Frewer. Advertised as "the first computer-generated TV presenter", Max was known for his biting commentary on a variety of topical issues, arrogant wit, stuttering, and pitch-shifting voice. The character was created by George Stone, Annabel Jankel, and Rocky Morton. Max was advertised as "computer-generated" and some believed this, but he was actually actor Frewer wearing prosthetic makeup, contact lenses, and a plastic molded suit, and sitting in front of a blue screen. Harsh lighting and other editing and recording effects heighten the illusion of a CGI character. According to his creators, Max's personality was meant to be a satirical exaggeration of the worst tendencies of television hosts in the 1980s who wanted to appeal to youth culture yet weren't a part of it. Frewer proposed that Max reflected an innocence, largely influenced not by mentors and life experience but by information absorbed from television.


title: Max Headroom

text: Max Headroom debuted in April 1985 on Channel 4 in the British-made cyberpunk TV movie "Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future", his origin story. In the movie, Edison Carter (portrayed by Frewer) is a journalist fleeing enemies into a parking garage, crashing his motorcycle through the entrance barrier reading "Max. Headroom 2.3 metres". At the time, UK clearance height signs used the phrase "Max. Headroom" as opposed to "Max. Height". While Carter is unconscious, an AI program based on his mind is created. The AI develops a personality identified as "Max Headroom", and becomes a TV host who exists only on broadcast signals and computer systems. Like Carter, Max openly challenges the corporations that run his world, but using commentary and sarcastic wit rather than journalism.