The South Island is bucking the trend when it comes to speaking the Tuvaluan language

By NZ Tuvalu Language Week | Posted: Thursday Oct 01, 2026

The proportion of Tuvalu people who speak te 'Gana Tuvalu has dropped in every region of New Zealand, except the southern region, which has seen a 20% increase between 2001 and 2023.

Learn more about how Pacific languages are spoken and learned across New Zealand in our Leo Moana O Aotearoa survey reports: https://bit.ly/3PXDJ8Y

NB: The results in this infographic are not official statistics. They have been created for research purposes from the Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI), managed by Stats NZ.