'Ka pai': Maori language back from brink

WELLINGTON - Beneath the carved timber roof of a traditional "marae" meeting house at Wellington High School, dozens of students watch entranced as a play performed entirely in the Maori language unfolds.

Many only understand a smattering of the indigenous language, but pick up emotional cues from the performers. Some audience members are close to tears as the production in the New Zealand capital ends.

It is a scene that actor Eds Eramiha says would have been difficult to imagine as recently as two decades ago, when te reo Maori was widely regarded as a dying language not worth teaching.