Nauru, the world\u2019s smallest republic, may soon make a big change: renaming itself \u201cNaoero\u201d.<\/p>\n
The switch would \u201cmore faithfully honour our nation\u2019s heritage, our language, and our identity\u201d, said the president of the Pacific microstate, David Adeang, in a speech<\/a> to parliament in January.<\/p>\n After Nauru\u2019s parliament passed the proposal unopposed, the island \u2013 with an estimated population of 13,000 \u2013 will vote in a referendum on whether to make the change official.<\/p>\n \u201cNaoero\u201d \u2013 pronounced Now-ero \u2013 is the term Nauruans use in their own language. \u201cNauru\u201d \u2013 commonly pronounced Now-roo \u2013 became the island\u2019s official name because its Indigenous name \u201ccould not be properly pronounced by foreign tongues\u201d, the government said<\/a>, adding it was \u201cchanged not by our choice, but for convenience\u201d.<\/p>\n The remote island country \u2013 located about 3,000km north-east of Australia, and similar in size to London\u2019s Westminster, at 21 sq km \u2013 has a history of name changes.<\/p>\n In 1798 it was christened \u201cPleasant Island\u201d<\/a> when sighted by a British seafarer, who was struck by its beauty and the generosity of its people. After Germany annexed the island in 1888, the name \u201cNauru\u201d entered official records, though variants \u201cNawodo\u201d and \u201cNavoda Onawero\u201d<\/a> were also used.<\/p>\n Map showing Nauru location in the Pacific.<\/a><\/p>\n When Australia took over primary administration of the island in 1919 under a League of Nations mandate, it maintained the \u201cNauru\u201d spelling, which persisted after independence in 1968. In 2001, Australia began to use the island as an offshore detention centre<\/a>.<\/p>\n For scholars of Indigenous placenames, such changes are never just a matter of spelling. Zolt\u00e1n Grossman, a professor of geography and Native American studies at Evergreen State College in the US, says changing names has long been part of exercising colonial power.<\/p>\n \u201cChanging placenames has been an integral part of colonialism to erase the presence of the original peoples,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s not just about the names themselves, it\u2019s about who has the power to change the names.\u201d<\/p>\n In arguing for Naoero, the Nauruan government has pointed to other countries that have changed their official names to better reflect local language, including T\u00fcrkiye (formerly Turkey) and Eswatini (Swaziland). It also cited the nearby Micronesian state Chuuk, which until 1990 was widely known as Truk \u2013 another foreign rendering of an Indigenous name.<\/p>\n This \u201cre-Indigenisation\u201d of placenames to reflect local pronunciations is how formerly colonised peoples assert their sovereignty, Grossman says. The breakup of the Soviet Union led to the de-russification of eastern European countries: Byelorussia became Belarus and Moldavia changed to Moldova. India has de-anglicised many city and state names since independence.<\/p>\n Jordan Engel, founder of the Decolonial Atlas<\/a>, a project to map and document Indigenous placenames, says there is a \u201cgrowing momentum\u201d to use them for landmarks and places.<\/p>\n \u201cAt its core, decolonisation is about self-determination, and one of the most basic expressions of self-determination is being able to speak your language and use your ancestral placenames,\u201d Engel says.<\/p>\n The entire country of Nauru, surrounded by a coral reef and the Pacific Ocean. Photograph: mtcurado\/Getty Images\/iStockphoto<\/p>\n But changing a place\u2019s name is not always straightforward. A petition to change New Zealand to the M\u0101ori name of Aotearoa gathered more than 70,000 signatures<\/a>, but its official use has sparked rows in parliament<\/a>. Cook Islands has long wrestled with whether to drop the name of the British explorer James Cook.<\/p>\n Nauru\u2019s government declined to comment on the potential name change when approached by the Guardian.<\/p>\n Nauruan Arcmen Willis, a wrestler who has represented Nauru internationally, supports the change; he hopes non-Nauruans people will make the effort to pronounce the new name correctly.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to tell people now how to pronounce it, so it goes around and people would pronounce it right,\u201d Willis says. \u201cIt\u2019s good to keep our identity,\u201d he says, \u201cbecause once it\u2019s gone, there will be no more Nauru or Naoero.\u201d<\/p>\n Arcmen Willis, a wrestler from the southern Nauruan district of Meneng, hopes people \u2018pronounce it right\u2019 if the name of his country changes from Nauru to Naoero. Photograph: Arcmen Willis<\/p>\n Unesco officially classifies Nauru\u2019s language \u2013 Nauruan or dorerin Naoero \u2013 as \u201cseverely endangered\u201d. While Nauruans like Willis speak it among friends and family, it is not taught in schools.<\/p>\n Engel says a name change to Naoero can help protect the language for future generations. \u201cChanges like this can play an important role in language revitalisation and cultural continuity.\u201d<\/p>\n