Ake Nicholas
Contact
Location(s):
Auckland, NZ
Rarotonga & Mā’uke, Cook Islands
Information
Senior Lecturer, Māori Studies | University of Auckland
Visiting Lecturer | University of South Pacific
Areas of expertise:
Linguistics & computational linguistics
Language revitalisation, teaching & learning
Māori language
Realm issues
Natural language processing
Languages:
English, Māori (Cook Islands), Māori (Aotearoa)
Available for:
Masters & PhD supervision | Media enquiries | Collaborative projects | Panelist & speakerships | Translation work
“Languages differ essentially in what they must convey, and not in what they may convey.”
Ake likes this quote for the reminder it provides to everyone that it is fundamentally possible to talk about anything you can imagine in your language.
About
Ake, who hails from the island of Mā’uke, is a linguist specialising in the structure, sound systems, vocabulary, orthography, teaching and revitalisation of Māori and Māori Aotearoa. She has a research interest in machine learning and natural language processing, and their application to language revitalisation and linguistic enquiry. Ake also has an interest in decolonisation studies, especially as they relate to the Realms of New Zealand. She is a strong advocate and a passionate Ma‘ukean, championing for the revitalisation of te reo Māori o ngā Kūki ‘Āirani and te reo Māori Aotearoa.
Academic Qualifications
2017 | Doctor of Philosophy - Māori and Linguistics, University of Auckland
2010 | Masters of Arts in Māori Studies, University of Auckland
Professional Memberships & Affiliations
New Zealand Linguistic Society
Recent Publications
Nicholas, S., (2018) “Language Contexts: Te Reo Māori o te Pae Tonga o te Kuki Airani also known as Southern Cook Islands Māori”, Language Documentation and Description 15, 36-64. doi: https://doi.org/10.25894/ldd138