Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuaki

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu?

by thecodingmonk • 8 years ago

26 17 8 years ago

en.wikipedia.org

The name "Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu" translates roughly as "The summit where Tamatea, the man with the big knees, the slider, climber of mountains, the land-swallower who travelled about, played his nose flute to his loved one".

So this hill is more of a run-on sentence than a noun

olliej• 8 years ago

It's much like some of the long german words which are literally just a series of concatenated words.

I assume that 1000s of years ago german and maori students were struggling to get essays completed under some unreasonably tight word limit. This was their solution, and the subsequently buried the evidence.

aldoushuxley0013• 8 years ago

I think that's a reasonable assumption.

Doxin• 8 years ago

The word you're looking for is "compound words". English has a couple too -- i.e. bedtime, nowadays, etc -- but in english it's generally considered poor grammar to invent your own while in languages like dutch and german it's mandatory. That said the longer ones tend to be never used, in dutch "tafeltennistafelfabrikantenvereniging" is a popular example translating to "table tennis table manufacturers meeting", but you'll be hard pressed for a situation where that word is called for!

steve19• 8 years ago

Well this long word breaks HN for me on mobile.

throwaway413• 8 years ago

I was wondering wtf was happening...

tedunangst• 8 years ago

Needs more word-wrap: break-word.

kangnkodos• 8 years ago

That beats Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg by quite a bit.

romdev• 8 years ago

Interesting that it's spelled as a single word. There's another place in NZ with a long name that's fun to visit: Te Whakarewarewatanga O Te Ope Taua A Wahiao which shortens to Whakarewarewa.

The locals there live on an active volcano with steam vents they use for cooking. There are colorful acidic pools all around, and reckless children who will jump off a bridge for thrown coins. The guided tour is charming and fascinating. You'll eventually get used to the smell of brimstone.

deckar01• 8 years ago

There is a link in the explanation for one of the alternate names that when hovered shows a picture of a penis. I did not know wikipedia had this feature, and it is not very office friendly.

Koshkin• 8 years ago

For identifiers this long, I recommend using camelCase.

justboxing• 8 years ago

This should be in a spelling-bee tie-breaker question.

insickness• 8 years ago

How many years would you have to live in Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuaki to consider yourself a true Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakian? I've known Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakians who don't consider anyone who's lived in Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuaki less than ten years a Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakian, but I think that's ridiculous. Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuaki is a cool place but it doesn't take that long to become a Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakian.

qume• 8 years ago

I knew a maori guy years ago whos name was almost as long as this. He told me it was basically a very short story.

forgot-my-pw• 8 years ago

More bizarre place names: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_long_place_names

julianz• 8 years ago

...tanatahu. Not sure why the whole name isn't in the title but there's a bit more to it!

Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuaki

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