Mehemea koe na tuoho, meinga ki te maunga teitei. [If you should bow to greatness, let it be to a lofty mountain.]
Maori proverb

Small Hill Big Name

There is a small hill in New Zealand with a big name. Try pronouncing this:
Taumatawhakatangihangak
oauauotamateapokaiwhenu
akitanatahu

No joke – it lays claim to being the longest place name in the world. It translates into English as “the place where Tamatea, the man with the big knees, who slid, climbed and swallowed mountains, known as ‘landeater’, played his flute to his loved one.”

Maori Language

Kia ora. Originally Maori was a spoken language. Missionaries first wrote it down, using only 15 letters of the English alphabet, with all syllables ending in a vowel. It’s a fluid language and surprisingly easy to pronounce if you remember to say it phonetically and split each word into separate syllables. Note: ‘wh’ is pronounced like a soft ‘f’ while ‘ng’ is like the suffix ‘-ing’.

Greetings

Kia ora - Hi/Hello (informal greeting)
Haere Mai - Welcome

Haere ra - Goodbye (from a person staying)
E noho ra - Goodbye (from a person leaving)

Tena koe - formal greeting to one person
Tena korua - formal greeting to two people
Tena koutou - formal greeting to many people
Tena tatou katoa - formal inclusive greeting to everybody present, including oneself

Components of place names

Many of the towns, rivers, harbours, and geographic features of New Zealand have Maori names but just what do they mean? How did they get these names? You will be surprised how literal they are once they are translated – and how well they describe a place or a geographic feature. However, place names are often introduced from somewhere else or they represent someone’s name so don’t assume the direct translation is the correct one.

Au - current
Awa - river
Iti - small, little
Kai - food, to eat
Kato - to flow
Mania - plain
Manga - stream
Maunga - mountain
Moana - sea
Motu - island
Nui - big, plenty of
O - 'of', the place of so-and-so
One - sand, earth
Pae - ridge, range
Papa - flat
Pehu - to explode
Poto - short
Puke - hill
Rua - two, hole
Roa - long
Roto - lake, inside
Tai - coast, tide
Tara - peak
Wai - water
Whanga - harbour

As an example, the longest river in New Zealand is called the Waikato River. Wai means water and kato means flowing, hence Waikato is 'flowing water'.