Researchers and staff at Victoria University’s Law Faculty have recently completed two major works in the Legal Māori Project, just in time for Māori Language Week.

The Legal Māori Corpus and the Legal Māori Lexicon form an unprecedented collection of Māori texts and legal terms which will be available for researchers to use.

Project co-leader and Faculty lecturer Māmari Stephens was delighted with the finished product.

“When we started the project two years ago we had no idea the final size of our corpus would be so great, and to our knowledge, it is the largest structured corpus of Māori language texts ever compiled.”

The Lexicon will be further developed into a final dictionary, due for completion in 2012.

Stephens hopes that the end result of the Legal Māori Project will be used by a wide variety of people.

“It is our hope, as we celebrate another Māori Language Week, that within a few short years any person or group will be able to use te reo Māori to engage fully in the New Zealand legal system. The Corpus and the Lexicon are important tools to help us move in that direction.”

Both works can currently be accessed through the New Zealand Electronic Text Centre, and from the projects page of the Law website.