The tiny South Pacific island nation of Nauru had changed its name, and reclaimed its heritage in the process.
According to The Independent, President David Adeang addressed the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly, the world's largest gathering of leaders on behalf of his nation. He said Tuesday, September 22, at the UN General Assembly in New York, “I have travelled far.”
What was known to the world for many years as Nauru, Adeang said, was returning to the name and pronunciation of its past: Naoero.
“There are moments in the life of a nation when its people are called to remember who they have always been. This is such a moment for us,” he added.
Though the names are similar and, in essence, the same word, the shift in spelling and pronunciation represents the nation's effort to recast, rebrand, itself for its own people as much as for the outside world. He called it not a change but an effort to “affirm a truth.”
Adeang said, “For many years, the world has known our country as Nauru. Nauru is how our name sounded to those who found it hard to say, and the world kept it. But it is not the name our people used among themselves.”
The nation, an eight-square-mile island with about 12,000 people and the world’s third-smallest country, became independent in 1968 after longtime colonial rule under the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia and Germany.
It announced the renaming in August after signalling its intent in February.
The country’s international code is changing from NRU to NRO, and its people will be known as dei-Naoero instead of Nauruan. Commonly known abroad by the pronunciation of Now-roo, the new name is spoken as Now-ero.
