When football fanatics land in New Zealand this month forward of the Women’s World Cup, they will in finding themselves welcomed to not Auckland or Wellington, however to “Tāmaki Makaurau” (“Tah-mah-key Ma-kow-row”) or “Te Whanganui-a-Tara” (“Tay Fung-a-noo-ee a Tah-rah”).
Those names — what the towns are referred to as within the nation’s Indigenous language, te reo Māori — are mirrored within the authentic paperwork for this yr’s Women’s World Cup, which has positioned Indigenous languages and imagery unapologetically at the leading edge.
Every town that can host a fit is indexed with its English and Indigenous names, and FIFA introduced this month that it might fly First Nations and Māori flags in each and every stadium. The effort got here after football and govt officers within the host international locations driven for a extra inclusive way, and it “will mean so much to so many,” the top of Australia’s football federation stated.
In New Zealand, the verdict displays an ongoing dialog in regards to the country’s identification. For many years, many New Zealanders robotically mangled and mispronounced the Māori names of the rustic’s towns and cities. Taupō (“Toe-paw”) was once pronounced “Towel-po.” Ōtāhuhu (Oh-tah-hu-hu) was once “Oter-hu.” And Paraparaumu (“para-para-oo-moo”) was once infrequently merely known as “Pram.”
More just lately lawmakers, broadcasters and far of most of the people have solid out the ones mispronunciations as a part of a concerted nationwide effort to mention the names accurately. At the similar time, many are opting for to make use of their towns’ unique Māori names over their English possible choices. Last yr, a proper petition to rename the rustic altogether and repair all Māori names was once signed by way of greater than 70,000 folks.
“Before, it felt like a choice to say the names right,” stated Julia de Bres, a linguist at Massey University in New Zealand. “And now it feels like a choice not to.”
Visitors must completely use the ones names, in addition to the average greeting “kia ora” (“key ow-rah”), stated Hemi Dale, the director of Māori medium training on the University of Auckland.
“Once you grasp the vowels, you can get your tongue around most of the words — long sounds, short sounds, the macron,” the horizontal line above a vowel that signifies a stressed out syllable, he stated.
(A notice: New Zealanders out of the country — of any descent — will ceaselessly allow themselves an inner wince at how foreigners say the phrase “Māori.” The proper pronunciation is closest to “Mao-ree,” and not “May-or-i. The plural is simply “Māori,” without an “s,” which does not appear in the language.)
The championing of Māori place names is visible throughout New Zealand life: Increasingly, New Zealanders call their homeland Aotearoa, the Māori name that is often translated as “land of the lengthy white cloud” and that has been used by Māori to refer to the country for decades, if not centuries. Māori and English names are used by the country’s weather forecasting service, on newly released official maps and on signs on the nation’s roads.
The changes are an effect of a decades-long movement to revitalize a language that risked being extinct by colonialism, said Rawinia Higgins, the country’s Māori language commissioner.
As English-speaking settlers became the dominant population, Māori and their language were sidelined and suppressed. As late as the 1980s, Māori children were beaten at school for speaking the language, and many adults chose not to pass it on to their families.
Starting in the 1970s, the Māori language revival movement has led to te reo’s being adopted as one of the country’s two official languages, alongside sign language, and the establishment of nearly 500 early childhood schools in which Māori is spoken exclusively.
Many non-Māori New Zealanders have embraced the change, and there are long waiting lists for Māori language courses. The government aims to have one million New Zealanders — roughly one-fifth of the population — speaking basic Māori by 2040.
But for a small but vocal minority, a bicultural society is viewed as divisive rather than inclusive.
Last year, after the chocolatier Whittakers temporarily changed the packaging on its milk chocolate bars to read Miraka Kirīmi (Creamy Milk), some in New Zealand called for a boycott of the brand. The question of bilingual road signs has taken on outsize importance ahead of this year’s general election, where questions of racial politics have become a feature of the centre-right’s rhetoric.
Place names, as some of the more visible examples of the shift, have become caught in the fray. Lost in that debate is the reality that the country’s colonial names often had little to do with the places they related to.
Christchurch, for instance, was named to recall a college at the University of Oxford, while the name Auckland was bestowed as a thank you to George Eden, the Earl of Auckland. Eden was the boss of a former governor of New Zealand, William Hobson, who chose the name. Eden never set foot in the city.
By contrast, Māori place names reflect location-specific information, including important stories or where food might be found, said Hana Skerett-White, a Māori teacher, advocate and translator who has worked with artists such as the singer Lorde.
“The Māori names let us know tales,” she stated. “They speak of our history, of important events, and they actually act as pockets of knowledge, which is how we transmit information from generation to generation.
“When those names are taken away, so too are our knowledge systems disrupted in the process.”
English translations for Tāmaki Makaurau, as Auckland is known in Māori, vary. One version indicates that the city, with its palm-fringed harbors and volcanoes, is a place desired by many. Another tells the story of Tāmaki, a beautiful princess, and her many admirers.
From a Māori perspective, each understanding is equally valid, and individual tribes, or iwi, may approach it differently, said Pāora Puru, a Māori language advocate and a co-founder of the Māori social enterprise Te Manu Taupua.
“People have their very own interpretations, their very own which means,” he said. “I liken it to an invisible umbilical cord that connects you to that place, and to your ancestors’ traditional connection, association, occupation or use of that particular area.”