Māori loanwords in NZ English are less about meaning, more about identity

Ask the average Kiwi on the street about Māori words in New Zealand English, and most will tell you that more and more are being used in everyday language.
This increase in borrowing goes against observations in other language examples. Typically, most borrowing tends to happen from the dominant language to the minority or indigenous language. However, it is quite astounding to find a situation where the words of an endangered language (Māori) are productively adopted by a linguistic giant (English), and perhaps equally surprising to find the trend remains positively increasing more than two centuries after initial contact. More...