Aotearoa

Significance

One does not know with the Juste the origin first word Aotearoa , but a probable translation would be “the country of the long white cloud” (of ao , “cloud”; tea , “white”; roa “long”). Indeed, according to the oral tradition, the girl of the explorer Kupe, when she saw the white of the horizon off New Zealand, would have exclaimed " He ao! He ao" (" a cloud! a cloud! "). The first territory visited by Kupe was consequently called Aotea (White Cloud), and is now known under the name of the Large Coral Barrier. When vaster spaces were beyond discovered of Aotea, one indicated them by name Aotea Roa (Long Aotea). Thus, Aotearoa is only the traditional name of the Ile of North of New Zealand, however it usually refers from now on to the country in its totality.

Clouds seen since the sea

A possible explanation of this name comes to us from the sailors. The first sign of a ground emerged for a boat is indeed often the mass of clouds present above the island. The assembly lines of New Zealand are wider and higher than anywhere in the Southern Pacific, and are thus particularly favourable with the formation of stationary cloudy faces. Long the lenticular Nuages which results from it is very different from usual the Cumulus which one can observe everywhere else in the area. The sight of these clouds through one or the other of the two principal islands of the country could then easily have led to this name.

Mountains at the snow-covered tops

One second plausible explanation is related to the snowing up of the mountainous tops of New Zealand, in particular on the level of the vast alpine range of the south ( Southern Alps ), which forms an edge along the Southern Island, but also of the Volcanic Plate of the Island of North. The Polynesian travellers, not accustomed to snow, could have compared these peaks covered with snow to a large white cloud.

Ground of twilight

A third explanation refers to the site New Zealand, in the Tropics. The Polynesian sailors would have been accustomed to the tropical sunsets, during which the sky passes very quickly from light of day to the darkness of the night, letting foresee only one very short twilight. New Zealand, with its southernmost latitudes, could then have astonished the travellers come from the tropics by its long twilights by evening and its interminable days of summer. It was suggested that this characteristic constitutes the true origin of the " term; Aotearoa" , including one better translation would be however " large sky éclairé". The presence of southern dawns and bright sunsets were provided as theories to explain the origin of part of the name of the island Stewart ( Rakiura ), " Rakiura" meaning " sky rougeoyant".

Use

In pre-colonial times, the Maori S did not use a name running to refer to the archipelago of New Zealand, although a small number of tribes employed the words " " Aotea" " or " " Aotearoa" to indicate only the Island of North. Te Ika has Māui (" the fish caught by Maui") was a name more largely employed for the Island of North. The Island of the South, wider but little populated, was named Te Wai Pounamu (" The Water of Nephritis ") or Te Wāhi Pounamu (" Solid mass Néphrite" Jade;). As an equivalent with Te Ika has Māui , the Island of the South is sometimes called Te Waka O Māui (the Dugout of Māui"), or Te Waka O Aoraki (the dugout of Aoraki), according to the bringings together between the tribes. The Island of the South was mainly occupied by the descendants of Aoraki, which gave its name to the more high summit of the country (according to the legend, it was transformed into mountain), but the septentrional end of the island was populated by various tribes of North which supported the version Māui.

When Abel Tasman reached New Zealand in 1642, it named it Statenland , believer to deal with part of the grounds that Jacob the Mayor had discovered in 1616 off the coasts of Argentina. This name appears on the first charts of New Zealand by Tasman, but it was changed into " Dutch province of Zélande" , then in Nova Zeelandia ( New Zealand ) by the Dutch cartographers, some time after Hendrik Brouwer proved in 1643 that these supposed grounds " amérindiennes" constituted in fact an island. The Latin term Nova Zeelandia" Nieuw Zeeland" gave; in Dutch. Thereafter, at the 18th century, the English explorer James Cook chooses to call them the islands New Zealand ( islands New Zealand ). It appears logical that Cook directly applied this English term to Dutch name, but it was also suggested a possible confusion of its share between Zeeland and the Danish island of Zealand. After the adoption of the name New Zealand ( New Zealand ) by Europeans, the first Maori qualification of the country as a whole was Niu Tireni , a transliteration of New Zealand . But this name is seldom used nowadays, Maoris preferring to employ neologisms resulting from their own language, rather than of the transcriptions of English.

Modern use

It is about certain that the use of the word Aotearoa to refer to all New Zealand goes up only at the time post-colonial, and it is often allowed that this use was initiated by the Pakeha (the " européens" , " non-maoris"). The historians (see Michael King) put forth the assumption that it finds its origins in errors inside the School Journal of February 1916, and that it was thus propagated in a way similar to the myths around the Moriori. However this use became increasingly popular at Maoris lately. The term Aotea sometimes also meets, but it is declining.

The name Aotearoa is used as alternative to New Zealand , at the same time by Maoris and the non-Maoris. He was not recognized officially like a legal auxiliary name for the country, but his growing popularity during the 25 last years, and its use in official names maoris, such that of the National library (Te Puna Mātauranga O Aotearoa), could make well evolve/move the situation. Since the Years 1990 already, the national anthem of New Zealand, God Defends New Zealand , is officially sung in a bilingual way, thus offering a greater echo to the use of the term Aotearoa .

Popular culture

In 1940, Douglas Lilburn composed one of its more famous works of orchestra, the opening Aotearoa , which quickly became one of its compositions more the appraisals, and was played by orchestras at the same time in New Zealand and Great Britain, contributing in fact to make known more largely the term Aotearoa .

This name met an audience even stronger in 1981 with the song of Split Enz, Six Months in has Leaky Boat , which contains the passage:

" Aotearoa, rugged individual, glistens like have pearl At the bottom off the world"

Aotearoa, wild individual, shining a such pearl with the foot of the world

In the nationalist mediums maoris, current jokes make say that Aotearoa means " country of the bad crowd blanche" , and that the correct pronunciation maori is " OUR-tea-roa".

Zh-min-nan: Aotearoa

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