Tōku reo, tōku ohooho: meaning and lyrics

Tōku reo, tōku ohooho means “my language is my precious gift” in Te Aka Māori Dictionary’s translation, and “my language is my awakening” in another common one, because ohooho is both: Te Aka gives it as to be awake, alert, of great value and as a treasure of immense value. The full saying, as Te Aka quotes it, is Ko tōku reo, tōku ohooho, tōku māpihi maurea, tōku whakakai marihi ‘My language is my precious gift, my object of affection and my prized ornament’. The Aotearoa Songbook names it a whakatauākī, a proverb with a known author, of Sir Tīmoti Kāretu, the first Māori Language Commissioner. In 1987 Te Tāwhiro Maxwell and Okeroa Huriwaka of Te Whakatōhea built a waiata on it, also sung as Nei Rā Te Kaupapa. This guide takes the saying apart word by word, sets the translations side by side, and explains the song line by line.

Updated 23 October 2026 · 9 min read

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The saying at a glance

	Tōku reo, tōku ohooho
The saying (Te Aka)	Ko tōku reo, tōku ohooho, tōku māpihi maurea, tōku whakakai marihi
Te Aka’s translation	My language is my precious gift, my object of affection and my prized ornament.
Other translations	“My language is my awakening” (Lynn Rupe, 2013; the Burnett Foundation’s waiata sheet); “My language, my inspiration, a treasured jewel” (West Spreydon School’s song sheet)
Kind of saying	whakatauākī: a proverb whose author is known
Attributed to	Sir Tīmoti Kāretu (Aotearoa Songbook)
Dates	In use by 1987, when the waiata quoting it was composed; Te Aka’s quotation is dated 1990
The waiata	Tōku Reo Tōku Ohooho, also called Nei Rā Te Kaupapa, words and tune by Te Tāwhiro Maxwell and Okeroa Huriwaka (Te Whakatōhea), 1987

Tōku reo, tōku ohooho, word by word

The saying is three statements of the same shape, each beginning “my language” and naming something precious. In Te Aka’s wording ko opens the sentence and tōku reo is said once; in the Aotearoa Songbook’s it is repeated before each of the three. Every gloss below is Te Aka Māori Dictionary’s.

Māori	Te Aka’s meaning	Notes
ko	marks what the sentence is about	In a sentence of the shape ko X, Y, it says X is Y: “my language is my…”
tōku	my (one thing)	The o form of “my”, used for things you do not control, such as your language, your parents and your body. The difference is explained in Māori possessives.
reo	language, voice	As in te reo Māori, the Māori language
ohooho	1. to be awake, alert, of great value, needing care; 2. alert, awake; 3. a treasure of immense value	Te Aka illustrates the third sense with this very saying. Said o-ho-o-ho: the two o’s in the middle are two short vowels, not one long one.
māpihi maurea	object of affection, treasure	A fixed pair: Te Aka lists it as one entry. On its own, maurea is the tiger shell, a sedge, and a helix.
whakakai	earring, ear ornament, neck ornament; as a verb, to use as an ornament	A treasure worn on the body
marihi	precious, prized, valuable	The Aotearoa Songbook spells it mārihi, with a long first vowel; Te Aka has no macron

The three images climb from a value to an ornament. Te Aka’s own example of māpihi maurea, from a 1926 source, pairs it with a feather for the head: hei piki kōtuku ki ō rātau māhunga, hei māpihi maurea ki ō rātau taringa ‘as a plume for their heads and as a treasure for their ears’. The saying ends the same way, with something worn on the body: a whakakai is an ear or neck ornament.

Māpihi maurea, not mauria. Every published wording found has maurea. Mauria is a different word, the passive of mau ‘to carry, take’, so māpihi mauria is a misspelling.

Awakening or treasure? The translations

English has no single word that is both “awake” and “a priceless thing”, so each translation picks one side of ohooho. Te Aka takes the treasure sense. West Spreydon School’s song sheet sits in between, with “my language, my inspiration”. Lynn Rupe’s 2013 article for the Educational Leadership Project, and the Burnett Foundation’s waiata sheet, take the waking sense: “my language is my awakening”.

The waking sense is close to the surface. Add the causative prefix whaka- and whakaohooho is, in Te Aka, to rouse, awaken, inspire, motivate. The Aotearoa Songbook uses exactly that word for the song’s purpose, he whakaohooho i te iwi ‘a rousing of the people’, so that Māori is spoken more. A translation that keeps both halves might be “my language is what wakes me, and what I treasure”, but none of the published ones does.

Where the accounts differ

Detail	Account	Source
Wording	Ko tōku reo, tōku ohooho, tōku māpihi maurea, tōku whakakai marihi	Te Aka Māori Dictionary, quoting a 1990 source
	Tōku reo tōku ohooho, tōku reo tōku māpihi maurea, tōku reo tōku whakakai mārihi	Aotearoa Songbook
Translation of the first line	My language is my precious gift	Te Aka Māori Dictionary
	My language is my awakening	Lynn Rupe (2013); Burnett Foundation
	My language, my inspiration	West Spreydon School
Who said it	A whakatauākī of Sir Tīmoti Kāretu	Aotearoa Songbook
	No author named	Te Aka Māori Dictionary
	Described as “ancient wisdom”	Lynn Rupe (2013)

Who said it: Sir Tīmoti Kāretu

The Aotearoa Songbook, in its notes on the waiata, says its composers took up “the whakatauākī of Tā Tīmoti Kāretu” to state the heart of the song. A whakatauākī, Te Aka explains, is a proverb or significant saying, and its entry notes that most were laid down by a person of mana; the whakataukī guide sets out how it differs from a whakataukī, whose author is not remembered, and gives 24 more proverbs.

Kāretu was the inaugural Māori Language Commissioner, from 1987 to 1999, according to the citation for his knighthood for services to the Māori language in 2017: the commission is Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori. He was then executive director of the Kōhanga Reo National Trust until 2003, and a key instigator of Te Panekiretanga o te Reo, the Institute of Excellence in Māori Language, founded in 2003.

The saying was in circulation by 1987, when the song quoting it was written, and Te Aka’s quotation is dated 1990. Not every writer knows its author: Lynn Rupe’s article introduces it as “ancient wisdom”.

The waiata Tōku Reo Tōku Ohooho

The song was composed in 1987 by Te Tāwhiro Maxwell and Okeroa Huriwaka of Te Whakatōhea, who wrote both the words and the tune. The Aotearoa Songbook, which publishes it in its first volume with sheet music and a recording, gives their years as 1957–2001 and 1937–2018. Its notes, gathered by Rick Mītai, a descendant of Te Whakatōhea, say that through the 1990s only Te Whakatōhea sang it; it was then taken up by other iwi, and by mātāwaka ‘Māori of many tribes’ who renamed it after its first line, Nei Rā Te Kaupapa. That is why the same song turns up under two names.

The notes say the song’s purpose was to rouse the people to speak Māori more. The elders who spoke Māori understood how serious its fading was, and the pare kawakawa ‘mourning wreath’ in the song is the emblem: the thing that urges the people to come together and decide how the language will survive. 1987 was also the year of the Māori Language Act, which made Māori an official language and set up the commission Kāretu led; the story is in Te Wiki o te Reo Māori.

Tōku reo tōku ohooho lyrics, line by line

The words of the waiata are not printed in full here: they were written in 1987 by composers who died in 2001 and 2018, so they are still in copyright (see the note on copyright below). The full lyrics, sheet music and a recording are on the Aotearoa Songbook’s page for the song. What follows explains each part in English, quoting only a few words, with Te Aka’s meanings.

Part	What it says	Key words (Te Aka)
First verse	It opens Nei rā te kaupapa ‘here is the theme’: the theme is the Māori language, a treasure handed down from the ancestors. It calls the language a pare kawakawa, a wreath of kawakawa leaves, and something of great importance.	kaupapa topic, purpose, theme; taonga tuku iho heirloom, something handed down; tīpuna ancestors; pare kawakawa mourning wreath for the head, worn at tangihanga; hirahira great, important, significant
Refrain	The whakatauākī itself, sung in short lines: my language, my treasure and my awakening, my object of affection, my prized ornament.	ohooho, māpihi maurea, whakakai, marihi (sung mārihi), as in the table above
Second verse	An instruction: speak the language at all times, kia kore e rite ki te moa ‘so that it does not go the way of the moa’, the giant bird that is extinct. It ends on two kinds of mana: the people’s, and mana motuhake.	kōrero to speak (passive kōrerotia, be spoken); moa large extinct flightless birds; mana tangata human rights, the mana of people; mana motuhake autonomy, self-determination
Ending	The refrain again.

The mourning wreath is the darkest image in the song. Te Aka describes a pare kawakawa as a garland of greenery worn by women at a tangihanga, a funeral. The image suggests mourning for a language in decline, and the Songbook’s notes call it the song’s emblem and its spur to act. The moa line makes the same point the other way round: a language nobody speaks goes where the moa went. For more on the words of grief, see condolences in Māori.

How the saying and the song are used today

The saying stands for the whole idea that a language is worth keeping alive, and it is found wherever that argument is made. Lynn Rupe used it as the title of a 2013 article on te reo in early childhood centres, “Toku reo, toku ohooho: my language, my awakening”. The song is on school song sheets, such as West Spreydon School’s, and on the Burnett Foundation’s waiata sheet, and the Aotearoa Songbook chose it for its first volume. When a group learns one waiata about the language itself, during Māori Language Week or at any other time, this is one made for the purpose.

If you quote it, the safest form is the full three-part saying with its author: Tōku reo tōku ohooho, tōku reo tōku māpihi maurea, tōku reo tōku whakakai mārihi (Sir Tīmoti Kāretu), as the Aotearoa Songbook gives it, or Te Aka’s shorter wording beginning Ko tōku reo. Do not confuse it with Tōku Reo, the Whakaata Māori television course for absolute beginners designed by Professor John Moorfield, who also made Te Aka; the name is the same two words and nothing more.

The first words in the saying are among the first a learner meets: tōku and reo are both in the free te reo Māori course, which plays its examples in Papa Reo’s native te reo voice. For other famous songs, see Māori songs.

A note on copyright

Under New Zealand’s Copyright Act 1994, section 22, the words and music of a song stay in copyright until the end of the 50th year after the death of its author, and for a song written jointly, of the last of its authors to die. On the Aotearoa Songbook’s dates that is the end of 2068 for this waiata. That is why this page explains the song in English and quotes only a few words, and links to the Songbook for the lyrics. The saying itself is a single sentence, quoted here as Te Aka and the Songbook quote it, with its source named.