The latest Google Doodle competition that recently announced the finalists provoked an old thought regarding the Google Aotearoa logo for the Visit Google’s Site in “Your Local Domain” page where Aotearoa is not shown in the listings.
The Google Wiki tool for Google Aotearoa is also in English much to my surprise. But I am glad that the original term Google Māori was changed to Google Aotearoa. This better reflects the bi lingual country we live in.
Regarding the Google “Your Local Domain” pages which has every country and its Google homepage with a link and its representative flag. Aotearoa is not in the list. But if it were in the list which flag would be used ?. The Tino Rangatiratanga flag has been strongly suggested as the default Māori flag to commemorate Waitangi issues such as being flown on the Auckland Harbour Bridge. But it is not the national Māori flag and with many tribal groups having their own flag such as Tuhoe, Tuwharetoa and Ngāi Tahu.
Perhaps in this time of globalisation and multilingualism/localisation, Aotearoa/New Zealand should consider a new flag that can represent Aotearoa ?. After all, Māori does have the “mi” language code assigned to it and is quickly becoming an international language on the Internet.
While i am writing about Google Aotearoa, if you are able please sign up to a Google account and help the public translation process complete the Google site.
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