Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
Yeah, some of them are the etymologies of the English names, and others are origins of the name in the indigenous language.
The map often doesn't translate the names of the "tribes". Sweden is "land of the Svear", but "Svear" has its own etymology, which is something like "our people". So, the name means something like "land/realm/kingdom of our people".
Which is a pretty common sort of meaning for endonyms (also: the etymological roots of language names often mean something like "language" or "our speech").
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The Māori language is often referred to here as "te reo" (the language). "Māori" itself just means normal and as a reference to the people dates to the post-contact era, presumably in contrast to the weird looking folk who had started turning up on the shores.
"Aotearoa" has a disputed etymology, although "long white cloud" is the one that seems to stick. It didn't originally refer to the whole country though. A translation of "New Zealand" might just be "New Sea-Land".