Most New Zealanders won’t have a problem asking this, usually it’s to foreign drivers or lost tourists. However the ignominy of posing this question when you are the vacationer who can’t work out which train to take, or who crashed in to the Yoplait van whilst driving the wrong way on the Arc de Triomphe roundabout, is measured only by how big you want the hole in the ground to be when it swallows you.

As of right now 424 languages have died. Words used by people, families, and towns, totally gone and no longer represented on earth. UNESCO list Maori as vulnerable and while we appear to be at the start of a crusade to grow the language again, it’s a worry just to be on the dreaded list.

According to the New Zealand 2013 census, only 21% of Maori have some grasp of the language, a 4% drop since 2001. By my rudimentary math that equates to about 80,000 people in the world who can speak some level of Maori. That’s approximately 0.000001% of the earth’s 7.1 billion people. Small fish.