Office 2010 now available in Māori
The Office 2010 Language Interface Pack for Maori is now available for free download.
A Language Interface Pack allows you to change the user interface in the following Office 2010 applications: Excel, OneNote, InfoPath, Outlook, PowerPoint and Word. The pack includes a spell checker and is available for both 32-bit and 64-bit systems.
SOME FACTS ABOUT MAORI
- Number of speakers: ~100,000
- Name in native language: Te Reo Maori
- Maori is the second official language of New Zealand (the other being English). It was the predominant language in New Zealand until the 1860s, then became a minority language in the shadow of English. In the 1970s concerns about the decline of Maori initiated a multitude of activities to support the survival and growth of the language. One of the language recovery programs is the Kohanga Reo (“language nests”) movement in which language immersion centers were established for pre-school children.
- New Zealand’s Rugby team, the All Blacks, perform a Maori dance before every game. The dance they perform is a “Haka,” which was traditionally performed by the Maori before the onset of a war.
- More information from Wikipedia about the Maori language
To see why it’s important to local communities to be able to use their pcs in Maori, have a look at this video from the Local Language Program:
OTHER MICROSOFT SOFTWARE IN MAORI