Aotearoa

''Aotearoa'' () is the Māori name for New Zealand. The name was originally used by Māori in reference only to the North Island, with the whole country being referred to as ''Aotearoa me Te Waipounamu'' – where ''Te Ika-a-Māui'' means North Island, and ''Te Waipounamu'' means South Island. In the pre-European era, Māori did not have a collective name for the two islands.

Several meanings for Aotearoa have been proposed; the most popular translation usually given is "land of the long white cloud", or variations thereof. This refers to the cloud formations which are believed to have helped early Polynesian navigators find the country in Māori oral tradition.

Beginning in the late 20th century, ''Aotearoa'' has become widespread in the bilingual naming of national organisations and institutions. Since the 1990s, it has been customary for particular parties to sing the New Zealand national anthem, " God Defend New Zealand" (or "Aotearoa"), in both Māori and English, which further exposed the name to a wider audience.

New Zealand English speakers pronounce the word with various degrees of approximation to the original Māori pronunciation, from at one end of the spectrum (nativist) to at the other. Pronunciations documented in dictionaries of English include , , and .

Origin

The original meaning of is not known. The word can be broken up as: ('cloud', 'dawn', 'daytime' or 'world'), ('white', 'clear' or 'bright') and ('long'). It can also be broken up as , the name of one of the migratory canoes that travelled to New Zealand, and ('long'). The most common literal translation is 'long white cloud', commonly lengthened to 'the land of the long white cloud'. Alternative translations include 'long bright world' or 'land of abiding day', possibly referring to New Zealand having longer summer days in comparison to those further north in the Pacific Ocean.

Mythology

In some traditional stories, ''Aotearoa'' was the name of the canoe () of the explorer Kupe, and he named the land after it. Kupe's wife Kūrāmarotini (in some versions, his daughter) was watching the horizon and called ('a cloud! a cloud!'). Other versions say the canoe was guided by a long white cloud in the course of the day and by a long bright cloud at night. On arrival, the sign of land to Kupe's crew was the long cloud hanging over it. The cloud caught Kupe's attention and he said "Surely is a point of land". Due to the cloud which greeted them, Kupe named the land ''Aotearoa''.

Usage

It is not known when Māori began incorporating the name into their oral lore. Beginning in 1845, George Grey, Governor of New Zealand, spent some years amassing information from Māori regarding their legends and histories. He translated it into English, and in 1855 published a book called ''Polynesian Mythology and Ancient Traditional History of the New Zealand Race''. In a reference to Māui, the culture hero, Grey's translation from the Māori reads as follows:

The use of ''Aotearoa'' to refer to the whole country is a post-colonial custom. Before the period of contact with Europeans, Māori did not have a commonly used name for the entire New Zealand archipelago. As late as the 1890s the name was used in reference to the North Island (''Te Ika-a-Māui'') only; an example of this usage appeared in the first issue of ''Huia Tangata Kotahi'', a Māori-language newspaper published on 8 February 1893. It contained the dedication on the front page, "''He perehi tenei mo nga iwi Maori, katoa, o Aotearoa, mete Waipounamu''", meaning "This is a publication for the Māori tribes of the North Island and the South Island".

After the adoption of the name New Zealand (anglicised from ''Nova Zeelandia'') by Europeans, one name used by Māori to denote the country as a whole was ''Niu Tireni'', a respelling of New Zealand derived from an approximate pronunciation.

The expanded meaning of ''Aotearoa'' among ''Pākehā'' became commonplace in the late 19th century. ''Aotearoa'' was used for the name of New Zealand in the 1878 translation of " God Defend New Zealand", by Judge Thomas Henry Smith of the Native Land Court—this translation is widely used today when the anthem is sung in Māori. Additionally, William Pember Reeves used ''Aotearoa'' to mean New Zealand in his history of the country published in 1898, ''The Long White Cloud Ao-tea-roa.''

Since the late 20th century ''Aotearoa'' is becoming widespread also in the bilingual names of national organisations, such as the National Library of New Zealand / Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa.

The New Zealand province of the Anglican Church is divided into three cultural streams or (Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia), with the ''Aotearoa'' tikanga covering Māori-speaking congregations within New Zealand.

In 2015, to celebrate Te Wiki o te Reo Māori (Māori Language Week), the Black Caps (the New Zealand national cricket team) played under the name ''Aotearoa'' for their first match against Zimbabwe.

Music

* '' Aotearoa'' is an overture composed in 1940 by Douglas Lilburn.
* ''The Land of the Long White Cloud'', subtitled ''Aotearoa'', is a piece composed in 1979 by Philip Sparke for brass band or wind band.
* "Aotearoa" is the Māori version of " God Defend New Zealand", a national anthem of New Zealand.
* Split Enz refers to Aotearoa in its 1982 song " Six Months in a Leaky Boat".

Petitions

A petition initiated by Danny Tahau Jobe for a referendum on whether the official name of New Zealand should change to include ''Aotearoa'', received 6,310 signatures.

In September 2021, Te Pāti Māori started a petition to change the name of New Zealand to Aotearoa. The petition reached 50,000 signatures in two days.

By early June 2022, Te Pāti Māori's petition to rename New Zealand "Aotearoa" had received over 70,000 signatures. On 2 June, the petition was submitted before Parliament's committee. Party co-leader Rawiri Waititi argued that the proposed name change would recognise New Zealand's indigenous heritage and strengthen its identity as a Pacific country. Waititi objected to the idea of a referendum, claiming it would entrench the "tyranny of the majority". National Party leader Christopher Luxon stated that renaming New Zealand was a constitutional issue that would require a referendum. Māori Development Minister Willie Jackson expressed concerns that a potential name change would create branding issues for the country's tourism industry.

Opinion polling

A ''1News''–Colmar Brunton poll in September 2021 found that 58% of respondents wanted to keep the name "New Zealand", 9% wanted to change the name to "Aotearoa", and 31% wanted the joint name of "Aotearoa New Zealand". A January 2023 ''Newshub''-Reid Research poll showed a slight increase in support for the name "Aotearoa", with 36.2% wanting 'Aotearoa New Zealand", 9.6% "Aotearoa" only, and 52% wanting to keep "New Zealand" only.

See also

* List of New Zealand place name etymologies
* New Zealand place names

Explanatory notes

References

External links

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{{New Zealand topics

Country name etymology
Māori words and phrases
Culture of New Zealand