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Treaty translated into 30 different languages.

It's a document lost in translation over 150 years ago, now the Treaty of Waitangi has a new lease on life, translated into 30 different languages.

Stefan Grand-Meyer, coordinator of the Treaty Times Thirty project, says, “This will allow the Treaty to be more accessible to newly arrived migrants or the international community so they better understand the Treaty's context in New Zealand.”

The project was started by the NZ Society of Translators and Interpreters to celebrate its 30th anniversary.  It took over a year and more than 100 volunteer translators to complete.

Interpreter Alta Rall says, “Each language had to be translated by three different speakers and then afterwards the three translators worked together to combine and produce the best one.”

The 30 languages include Arabic, Romanian, Portuguese, Esperanto, Afrikaans and many more.

Grand-Meyer says, “Auckland is one of the most diverse cities in the world, with over 200 ethnicities and over 160 different languages, so it's really important for New Zealand to embrace diversity and to allow the new migrants to understand Te Tiriti and Treaty dynamics.”

The translations will be published in a book an presented to the Governor-General on the 17th of February and will be available to the public.

The Treaty of Waitangi has been translated into 30 languages as a gift to the people of Aotearoa. Over 100 volunteers have translated both the Te Reo Māori and English versions for The Treaty Times Thirty book. Listen to the Treaty read in one minute below in languages ranging from Arabic and Afrikaans to Romanian, Spanish and Hindi. (Please note: The original English and Te Reo Māori versions of the Treaty are provided as subtitles but do not always correspond to each other due to differences in the original texts).

Posted by Te Ao Māori News on Saturday, February 4, 2017