Usage
When Māori began using the name Aotearoa is unknown. In pre-colonial times Maori were thought to not have a commonly-used name for the whole New Zealand archipelago, but in the 19th century, 'Aotearoa' was used to refer both to the whole country, and to the North Island only.
An early example of the former was the use of the word 'Aotearoa' to mean New Zealand in the 1878 translation of The National Anthem by Judge Thomas H Smith of the Native Land Court, the translation still used today. Also, William Pember Reeves used 'Aotearoa' to mean New Zealand in his history of New Zealand published in 1898, titled The Long White Cloud Ao-tea-roa .
An example of it being used solely to mean the North Island 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 Māori, katoa, o Aotearoa, mete Waipounamu", meaning "This is a publication for the Māori tribes of Aotearoa and the South Island.
A widely used name for the North Island is Te Ika a Māui (The fish of Māui). The South Island was called Te Wai Pounamu (The waters of greenstone) or Te Wāhi Pounamu (The place of greenstone). In early European maps of New Zealand, such as those of Captain James Cook, garbled versions of these names are used to refer to the two islands (often spelt Aheinomauwe and Tovypoenammoo). After the adoption of the name New Zealand by Europeans, the name used by Māori to denote the country as a whole was Niu Tireni, a transliteration of New Zealand. When Abel Tasman reached New Zealand in 1642, he named it Staten Landt, believing it to be part of the land Jacob Le Maire had discovered in 1616 off the coast of Argentina. Staten Landt appeared on Tasman's first maps of New Zealand, but this was changed by Dutch cartographers to Nova Zelandia, after the Dutch province of Zeeland, some time after Hendrik Brouwer proved the South American land to be an island in 1643. The Latin Nova Zelandia became Nieuw Zeeland in Dutch. Captain James Cook subsequently called the islands New Zealand. It seems logical that he simply applied English usage to the Dutch naming, but it has also been suggested he was possibly confusing Zeeland with the Danish island of Zealand.
From as early as the late 1880s, some versions of the Māori translation of the National Anthem have been incorrect. A typescript of the translation by Thomas Smith uses ‘Whakarangona’ as one word. ‘Whaka’ is a prefix and can’t stand alone, and ‘rangona’ and ‘rongona’ mean the same thing but Smith used the former. ‘Ihowā’ is the standard version of God (Jehovah) and was the one used by Smith. The incorrect form, ‘Ihoa’, has been used for so long as to seem correct but ‘Ihowa’ is the correct version.
Read more about this topic: Aotearoa
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