Excerpt from rnz.co.nz
Tokelau has launched a digital project – Te Kupega o te Vateatea o te Gagana Tokelau (Tokelau Language Website) – to help preserve the atolls’ language.
The three atolls that make up the Tokelau group, Fakaofo, Nukunonu and Atafu, are a protectorate of New Zealand. But many more Tokelauans, around 8000, live in New Zealand compared to the 1500 on the atolls.
With only about 4500 fluent Tokelauan speakers in the world today, the language has been classified as “severely endangered” by UNESCO.
It is into this space that Te Kupega o te Vateatea o te Gagana Tokelau has been launched to revive and advance the language’s use by making access to the remote atolls’ resources available with a click of a mouse.
The goal is to give Tokelauans and non-Tokelauans everywhere an opportunity to bring the language up to pace with English in terms of learning.
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