I will be immigrating to either of these countries next year and was just reading about their history & culture, and found this weird.
The Europeans arrived in NZ just about 300 years after the Māori, yet majority of the cities/towns/hamlets you see in NZ are named after Māori names, Māori culture has been well integrated with the European culture and are very well recognized/respected, for example the Haka dance done on multiple occasions by the national rugby union team, the Māori name of NZ on the passport (Aotearoa), the Māori traditions and symbols etc.
But, you don’t see the same level of cognizance for Aboriginal Australians in Australia, even though they are said be 65000 years. There are hardly any cities named after Aboriginal names, no sign of Aboriginal culture integrated into the Australian lingo or cultural practices?
So, why does this incongruity exist between both the nations?
**EDIT**: Thank you so much for the detailed answers, everyone! I appreciate it dearly. Learnt a lot of new things today 🙂
In: Other
Hundreds of places in Australia named with aboriginal names; Mandurah, Dardanup, Worongary, Nowra, Ballarat, etc.
Integration of Maori concepts into New Zealand is aided by; smaller size, the Maori language has minor differences depending on location but is fairly uniform compared with 300+ languages many of which have limited to no compatability with other languages. It’s also worth noting, a lot of the Maori adoption is geared towards the North Island Maori, e.g. Aotearoa is actually the name of the North Island not the entire country, there’s been a lot of South Island Maori who have criticised that decision, in the same way the dedicated Maori Parliament seats are mostly in the North, with one seat representing everyone from Wellington and the entire South Island, while Northern regions get individual representatives.
Latest Answers