On July 30, 2026, New Zealand's Parliament added English to its list of official languages — a language already spoken by nineteen in twenty citizens, already dominant in every institution, already in no danger of fading. The English Language Bill changed nothing in practice, yet it changed something in the air: a nation that had granted official status to Te reo Māori and New Zealand Sign Language precisely because they were vulnerable now extended the same recognition to a language that has never known vulnerability. In doing so, it raised an old and uncomfortable question — whether symbolic