Local media reported Monday that the New Zealand Maori Party will rename the country as Aotearoa, making the indigenous language more evident in public life.
Under a proposal announced shortly before the October 17 parliamentary elections, Wellington would be changed to Te Wanganui A Tara and Christchurch would be renamed Utota.
It is unacceptable that only 3% of the country’s population speaks one of the official languages
Confirmed Ruery Wititi, Party politician.
In New Zealand, English and Maori are also official languages.
Jacinda Ardern The prime minister did not say whether he would support the renaming.
I’m hearing more and more that Aotearo is being said instead of New Zealand, which is a positive thing. Whether we amend it legally does not change the fact that New Zealand is increasingly referred to as Aotearoa
Ardern wrote in a statement carried by the New Zealand Herald.
Winston Peters However, the deputy prime minister criticized the proposal, saying that the Maori party simply expected more media attention, regardless of the damage to the country.
The first inhabitants of New Zealand, which is 1,500 miles east of the coast of Australia and consisting of two large islands and many small islands, were Maori from eastern Polynesia about a thousand years ago. The islands they call Aotearoa, the land of long white clouds, were the first Dutch islands to be called Abel Tasman The captain saw it in 1642.
Tasman, who had been mixed in a skirmish with the Maori, had symbolically taken hold of the Dutch Landtnak Staten Named area. The name New Zealand was used a few years later, in reference to the Dutch province of Zeeland.
Featured image: Getty Images
