Wednesday, April 22, 2009

What's In A Name?

Well, Kiwis must be scratching their heads over this one: New Zealand is made up of two islands- commonly known as the 'North Island' and the 'South Island' for obvious reasons. But now, someone's twigged to the fact that those names were never actually registered so now they've got to figure out what to call them- in English and Maori.

No word on the English possibilities- but in Maori, they're figuring:

Te Ika a Maui (the fish of Maui)- for the North Island
Te Wai Pounamu (the waters of greenstone) - for the South Island.

Why not just keep the names as they are? (I'd imagine this is what's going to happen anyway- I can't see people jumping aboard the notion of calling the North Island 'the fish of Maui.' But maybe that's just me.)

No comments:

Post a Comment