New NZ citizen Iwan Jones won fans on TikTok this week after his wife Katie shared a video of the Welsh-born aircraft engineer reading his affirmation in te reo.
Photo: Teresa Rehmann
Iwan, who maintains aircraft for the RNZAF and is also a volunteer firefighter, moved to Aotearoa with Katie back in 2017.
He finds the beauty of Marlborough "underrated" and Aotearoa like "a big Wales" in its friendliness, and he also knows the importance of keeping marginalised languages like te reo Māori alive.
"Welsh has been repressed for a number of years and we're definitely seeing quite a big resurgence now in the language itself, hopefully similar to te reo," he tells Jesse Mulligan.
When given the option of reading out his citizenship affirmation in either te reo Māori or English, he chose te reo.
"Being from a background with a minority language as well, I just feel that connection and its important to recognise and use the native languages of a country.
"As a native Welsh speaker… there's a couple of similarities [with te reo Māori] in the way things are pronounced and I had a really good teacher at the local marae.
"It's given me a bit of a push to learn some more te reo."
Watch the video below:
@kindakiwiish My partner did his citizenship ceremony in Te Reo! I feel like he did excellent 😃 being Welsh, he is hesitant to swear allegiance to a king.. so he decided since we have to do it, he'd do it in the true language of New Zealand. his first language is also a minority language under the crown (cymraeg) #tereomaori #tereo #cymraeg #iawncont #whanau ♬ original sound - Katie
