The Unpronounceable: Difference between revisions
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In the mildest version, the character's name is simply [[Overly Long Name|unusually long]], set up with a phonetic maze like a tongue twister, or merely linguistically bizarre even given where it originates; [[Doctor Who|Romanadvoratrelundar]], [[The Simpsons|Nahasapeemapetilon]], [[Crossing Jordan|Vijayaraghavensatyanaryanamurthy]], [[Godzilla|Tatopoulos]], [[Alan Dean Foster|Abalamahalamatandra]], [[Transformers|Witwicky]]. Pronouncing names like these correctly is a sign of linguistic skill. Mispronouncing them is [[Hilarity Ensues|allegedly funny]].
In practice, most languages contain at least one sound, or sound combination, not allowed in English. Names containing such sounds will always be unpronounceable, though spelling may obscure this. Naturally, this works both ways. English has more sounds than most other major languages, and its speakers pile up consonants in ways which the rest of the world wouldn't dream of, so it is rich in unpronounceable names. Some languages even have linguistic variables that don't affect meaning at all in
Characters who are [[Starfish Aliens|seriously alien]], and/or members of [[The Legions of Hell]], get names genuinely unpronounceable in English. Mostly, they get names intended to be unpronounceable by a human mouth ''at all'', but guaranteeing that requires some familiarity with other languages than English.
Curiously, these same unpronounceable names can almost always still be ''written'' in the Latin alphabet: [[H.P. Lovecraft|Cthulhu]], [[Superman|Mxyzptlk]], [[Discworld|WxrtHltl-jwlpklz]]. They are more commonly seen [[Novels|in print]] than on screen, since most actors are not stunt linguists. When they do appear on TV, if the character is friendly they'll get called something [[Some Call Me... Tim|easier to say]]. Giving someone who is ''supposed'' to be awe-inspiring and mysterious a shortened and silly nickname is also a way of humanizing
At the more extreme end of the unpronounceable scale are names which aren't even recognizable as "words". You can't say them ''or'' write them down. These tend to appear either in [[Mohs Scale of Science Fiction Hardness|hard SF]], or as parody. The serious variants are often described as animal or other
Beyond even that are the names which aren't sounds at all -- [[Starfish Language|a flash of green light and the smell of roses]], [[Sliding Scale of Robot Intelligence|binary code]], [[Telepathy]], and so on.
When it's even possible, correctly pronouncing the most extreme names is often actually
Names which aren't even ''comprehensible'' are usually reserved for particularly [[Eldritch Abomination
See also [[Punctuation Shaker]] and [[Word Puree Title]]. Compare [[Some Call Me... Tim]] and [[My Name Is ???]].
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*** It makes sense - Vulcans' real names are impossible for humans to pronounce, so it would follow something similar would go for Romulans, as well.
* [[H.P. Lovecraft|H.P. Lovecraft's]] [[Eldritch Abomination|elder gods]] have such names. For example, "Cthulhu" is only an approximation of the correct pronunciation, leading to several variant spellings (although "Cthulhu" is the most widespread).
** In fact, one of the fictional books mentioned in the Lovecraft Mythos is Unaussprechlichen Kulten, which is translated by its creator as Nameless Cults. The phrase translates more literally as Unspeakable (in the sense of
* Fred the white hole's real name, which he's still not finished pronouncing when someone cuts him off after a full line of text in Diane Duane's ''[[Young Wizards|So You Want to Be a Wizard]]''. This joke is done again with Ed the Master Shark in the sequel, ''Deep Wizardry''.
** To be fair, Ed'Karashtekaresket isn't that hard, but in-universe it's meant to sound like the gnashing of teeth.
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** Ironically, Andalites communicate through telepathy.
** Beaked Hork-Bajir and leech-mouthed Taxxons have similarly unpronounceable names; averted with the juvenile Hork-Bajir named Toby, after the human (sorta) Tobias.
* The eponymous character in [[Daniel Pinkwater]]'s children's book ''Borgel'' has a driver's license in the name of Borgel
** Another character gives his name as Pak Nfbnm* ("* ?" "Exactly."), but asks [[Some Call Me... Tim|to be called Freddie]].
* [[Roger Zelazny]]'s fantasy novel ''The Changing Land'' features a demon named Melbrinionsadsazzersteldregandishfeltselior. The long name is necessary for the invocation ritual, and if the sorcerer attempting it were to get as much as one syllable wrong, the demon would kill him. Understandably, wizards are reluctant to attempt it. Subverted inasmuch as one of the antagonists is a wizard named Baran, whose native tongue is a horribly complicated agglutinative language, so he has no problem pronouncing the name and using the demon for errands.
* On the [[Discworld]], demons are given names that look like they were selected by headbutting a keyboard; when the demon WxrtHltl-jwlpklz introduces himself in ''[[Discworld/Wyrd Sisters|Wyrd Sisters]]'', Nanny Ogg quips, "Where were you when the vowels were handed out, behind the door?" Her co-witch, Granny Weatherwax, pronounces it without raising a sweat. While there are hideous beasts from the dungeon dimensions a la Cthulhu, more description is given to their forms than names (they're usually described as what might be the offspring of an octopus and a bicycle).
* "Sir" in ''[[A Series of Unfortunate Events]]'' has a name that's "very long and complicated" when written down, and which is apparently so illegible that attempts at pronunciation seem entirely random -- "Mr. Bek-", "Mr. Sho-".
* An ancient [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien]] in Phillip Reeve's [[Steampunk]] [[Space Opera]] ''[[Larklight]]'' has a real name in a musical-sounding languages which the narrator says he can't possibly transcribe. And that's not even getting into names such as Ph'Ahrpuu'xxtpllsprngg, and the truly epic example from the third book that takes up almost five lines.
* From [[Roger Zelazny]]'s ''[[Book of Amber]]'' series, Strygalldwyrr. Or however you spell that. (That's Welsh, but still.)
* In [[Spider Robinson]]'s ''Time Travelers Strictly Cash'' from the ''[[Callahan's Crosstime Saloon|Callahans Crosstime Saloon]]'' series, he reveals the alien Mickey Finn's real name to be "Txffu Mpwfs" as far as the narrator can tell.
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* In Anne McCaffrey's "Talent" series, an alien race called the Mrdini, whose names do not contain vowels, like "Prtglm".
* The demon from ''[[Artemis Fowl]]'': N* 1, which is apparently supposed to be pronounced 'Number one', but is still a pain to read aloud.
* [[Timothy Zahn]] loves unpronounceable names, both in his own original works and his [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]] series. In the latter, at one point during [[The Thrawn Trilogy]] Han Solo mentions the Imperials have attacked three planets -- "Bpfassh, and two unpronounceable ones"
* One of Italo Calvino's recurring characters is Qfwfq, an immortal entity who remembers everything he has ever done in every last of of his incarnations since before the beginning of the universe. The other entities he interacts with have names like this as well, such as his Granny Bb'b and his sister G'd(w)^n.
* The island of Qwghlm in Neal Stephenson's ''Cryptonomicon'' and ''The Baroque Cycle''. The Qwghlmian language has ''no'' vowels, and is basically a parody of everything English speakers find difficult about Welsh and Gaelic (although it's not a Celtic language, or related to any known languages at all).
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* In the ''[[Into the Looking Glass]]'' series, it's more likely than not for a member of any species with minimal or hostile contact with another to mispronounce the other's species name, let alone the names of its individuals. The Mreeee (basically a cat yowl) are almost pronounceable for humans, and the N!t!ch! (! is a tongue-click) might be manageable for members of certain African tribes, but the "Fivverockpit," as one human attempts to pronounce, aren't even given a fully romanized spelling for their proper name, with an @ symbol standing in for what one assumes must be [[Black Speech]].
* In Gordon Korman's ''Nose Pickers from Outer Space'', we are introduced to Stanley Mflxnys, an alien from Pan (a so-called "Pant", pl. "Pants"). He looks just like a person, but he eats paper, and has a computer inside his head where a person's brain would be (his real brains are behind his knees).
* In Jeff VanderMeer's ''[[Ambergris]]'' books, the Graycaps have a language consisting largely of clicks and whistles, and is so complicated that for longest time people were arguing if they really had a language at all. In ''[[Ambergris|Finch]]'' it's mentioned that their name for themselves is
* ''[[The Riddle Master of Hed|The Riddle-Master of Hed]]'' trilogy by [[Patricia A. McKillip|Patricia McKillip]] has a famous wizard referred to only as "Iff of the Unpronounceable Name" (it is later revealed that his name needed to be ''sung'', and even then it took a while to figure out the tune).
* [[Alastair Reynolds]] tends to name his transhuman characters in this fashion. Many Conjoiners in his ''Revelation Space'' universe have names consisting of "a string of interiorised qualia" only comprehensible within Conjoiner [[Hive Mind|collective consciousness]]. Those who have to interact with baseline humans tend to use one-word
** And the Slashers in the standalone novel ''Century Rain'' have full names which include strange, musical trilling noises, thanks to their modified larynxes.
* J. H. Brennan, of [[Grail Quest]] fame, also wrote a series of gamebooks starring a barbarian named Fire*Wolf.
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* In Vernor Vinge's story "Conquest by Default", the humanoid aliens have the ability to close their nostrils, and their language accordingly has nostril consonants. The author hoped they could be printed as 'p̃' [p tilde] and 'ṽ' [v tilde]; his editor said "Sure, if you want to pay for special type." Even today they are printed as % and #.
* Inquisitor Ligeia, from the first ''[[Grey Knights]]'' novel, spends much of her time babbling incomprehensibly when she was being interrogated for helping the rogue Inquisitor, Valinov escape. As it turns out, she helped Valinov escape as part of a [[Xanatos Roulette]] so that they could actually find the demon they were looking for, Ghargatuloth, and her babbling as she was being interrogated was Ghargatuloth's [[True Name]].
* In the short novel ''Realty Check'', (yes, ''realty'', not ''reality'') the female protagnoist briefly encounters a female alien whose name is written out in random
* The [[Land of Oz|Oz book]] ''The Magic of Oz'' centers around a formula for instant shapeshifting. You must pronounce correctly the word ''Pyrzqxgl''. Takes amazingly few tries for the characters.
* ''[[The Wheel of Time]]'' has an interesting variation in the case of the names of the wolves, as first described by Elyas Machera in ''The Eye Of The World'' for the wolf referred to as Dapple:
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* In one episode of ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series|Star Trek the Original Series]]'', Spock claimed that his family name was unpronounceable by humans; in a different episode, his human mother said she could do so, but only "after a fashion, and after many years of practice". (The actress who played his mother, however, [[Word of God|once told conventioneers]] that "Spock" was his surname. His real first name? Harold. OK, he's half-human.)
** Story editor D.C. Fontana wrote a letter to a Trek fanzine saying that an English approximation of Spock's family name was "Xtmprsqzntwlfb", and much early fanfic ran with it.
** In ''[[Star Trek: The Motion Picture|Star Trek the Motion Picture]]'', the Vulcan
** In the ''[[Star Trek]]'' New Frontier books, the main character changes his name from M'k'n'zy to Mackenzie to make it easier to pronounce. His brother keeps the name Dn'dai.
*** He doesn't change it, the guy at Starfleet Academy registration refused to learn how to pronounce and spell it properly. He arbitrarily assigned Mac the name of Mackenzie Calhoun (Calhoun was the name of his tribe, "M'k'n'zy of Calhoun") to avoid having to figure out the real name.
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* [[Lynyrd Skynyrd]]'s first album was titled ''(Pronounced 'Lĕh-'nérd 'Skin-'nérd)'' as an aid to pronunciation.
* Aphex Twin has a song whose title is a complicated calculus equation. Technically not unpronounceable but you'd need to have a decent background in math to read it out correctly. Most fans simply call it "equation"
** [[The Other Wiki]] gives that track's name as ([[Δ Mī]]
** His album ''Selected Ambient Works Volume II'' has the song "Blue Calx" and 24 other songs that use photographs as their titles.
* Autechre's later albums have a few songs that fit the bill: "Cep puiqMX", "P.:NTIL" and "O=0", for example.
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{{quote|'''Ftatateeta''': Who pronounces the name of Ftatateeta, the Queen's chief nurse?
'''Caesar''': Nobody can pronounce it, Tota, except yourself. }}
* In ''Misalliance'', also by Shaw, there's a running joke of no one being able to pronounce (or spell) Lena Szczepalowska's last
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* The Tau from ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'' are said to have names effectively unpronounceable in Imperial Gothic, the humans' lingua franca of the setting. This is somewhat ironic as far as the symbolism is concerned, considering that the Tau are the idealists of the setting and are mostly immune to its [[Cosmic Horror]] menaces.
** Tau lanquage however isn't nearly as hard to prnounce as some other examples. It is however quite different from the human lanquage, consisting of long flowing series of syllables. An example of a Tau name would be Shas'O Vior'La O'Kais Mont'Yr O'Shovah (meaning Commander Farsight, the skilled and the bloodied, of the sept Vior'La).
** Also in 40K, there are several examples of Daemon names in the style of
*** It should be known that if you happen to roll correctly on the generator table, you might get a Knornate daemon named [[Fail O'Suckyname|"Deathdeath the Deathbringer"]]
** The chaos god Tzeentch has at least three pronounciations to his name none of which Games Workshop claims is right.
* ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]''
* There is a horselike race in ''[[Fading Suns]]'', whose members' names can look like "Aluuuraloooraaaa" or "[long, fading whistle]". The creators cared enough to avert [[Rubber Forehead Aliens]] and point out several races (this one as well as bird- and bugpeople) have their voice apparatus working differently than that of primates.
* Yu-Gi-Oh Card Game: The Earthbound Immortals all have weird names. ''Ccapac Apu'' and ''Ccarayhua'' deserves a mention.
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* ''[[Runescape]]'' has the [[Eyes Do Not Belong There|Stalkers]]. [[Hilarity Ensues]] from attempts to pronounce names like Lakhrahnaz, Khighorahk, Ihlakhizan and Haasghenahk. At least the last one, Shukarhazh, is a bit more pronouncable, but mostly limited to people who speak languages that are pronounced exactly as they are spelled (Finnish, Latin etc.). Much amusement can also be had with the inevitable [[Black Speech|guttural sounds]] involved in such K-heavy names.
* One of the game's in Capcom's 1940's series of shoot em ups is called "19XX". So, is that "Nineteen Hundreds", "Nineteen ekks ekks", "19 variable variable", "Sometime in the 1900's"...?
* Nrvnqsr Chaos from ''[[Tsukihime]]''. Someone needed to buy that vampire some vowels.
* ''[[Final Fantasy XII]]'' has the Viera Mjrn (pronounced in-game as something like "me-ern"), Krjn, Ktjn, and Jote (pronounced "yo-tay").
* The La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo in the [[Metal Gear Solid]] series is a Japanese attempt at this, as the lack of an L sound in Japanese (the source of the infamous "Ls replaced with Rs" stereotype of Asians) makes their name essentially unpronounceable in Japanese. Unfortunately, the English dub obviously has no difficulty with it and it just sounds [[Narm|dumb]].
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* In ''[[The Order of the Stick|Order of the Stick]]'', several characters are unable to pronounce "Xykon" correctly. He can hear it when people say "Zykon" instead, and gets angry about it.
*** Actually it was more like a "spelling" problem than a "pronunciation" one. (the joke being that Xykon can "hear" the wrong spelling).
** Also from Start of Darkness there is a lizard man who Xykon calls "Scaly", who informs Xykon that his name is Ekdysdioksosiirwo, Viridian lord
* [[Planet B]]: "Hexaditidom". [http://djtrousdale.com/planetb/pb0141/ Everybody] [http://djtrousdale.com/planetb/pb0137/ gets it] [http://djtrousdale.com/planetb/refurbishments-05/ wrong]. Well, [http://djtrousdale.com/planetb/zanko-for-playing-03/ almost everybody].
* ''[[Niklas And Friends]]'' has a character named Martin Czrnczinsky, although the issue of the pronounceability of his surname is never brought up in the comic itself. When asked about the correct pronunciation, [[Word of God|the author]] replied to "pronounce it any way you like".
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* Lizardwoman "Hissy" in ''[[Tales of MU]]'' has a real name that's a combination of hisses and rattles. The nymphs in the same series are identified by sensory impressions of sun and wind; the pair who elect to go to college name themselves after their fields, becoming Amaranth and Barley.
* Vilhjalmur Sigurbjornsson from ''[[Survival of the Fittest]]''. Given that the medium is written, it might be more apt to call him 'The Unspellable'. Also notable in that his author intentionally picked a name that would be as obnoxiously difficult to spell and pronounce as possible.
** I would like to point out that this is a common Icelandic name and I happen to know a
* ''[[SCP Foundation]]'' object [http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-913 SCP-913], a sentient tree named Rschcrtstsch.
** Also, [http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/drclef-member-page Dr. Clef], who "maintains that its true name is that of an A major chord played on a ukelele."
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== Other Examples ==
* As a general note for examples below: Slavic languages and languages from the Caucasus (Georgian, Chechyen, etc.) permit very long consonant clusters, which are often hard to pronounce for nonnative speakers, and are usually half-assed even by natives. Take, for example, the Russian word ''vzglyat''<ref>"look" or "glance", also "eyeglasses" in some dialects</ref> or Georgian ''gvprtskvni''.<ref>"you peel us"; as a metaphor it means "you're making us spend a lot of money".</ref>
** All of the are put to shame by Ubykh. It features a record high of 84 consonants without featuring click sounds. And as for how many vowels is has? A mere two. It is nothing but [[Shaped Like Itself|clusters of consonant clusters.]]
* Most Southeast Asian languages such as Thai, Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, Lao, and Khmer are very heavy on the vowels and do not feature consonant clusters at all, rendering all European languages more or less unpronounceable to them. To a Vietnamese, imagine the horror that is learning Russian.
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* The Hmong language, due to a weird transliteration system, has a lot of these, including the name of the language itself in Hmong, "Hmoob", pronounced "mung". Just read [http://forums.hmoob.com/showthread.php?t=47241 this thread]: there's someone on there named "Nkauj Xwb".
* Tibetan, in the Wylie transliteration, is pretty bad about this too: there is a Tibetan Buddhist sect named "Bka' brgyud", pronounced "Kagyu".
** That's a common problem in transcription, namely whether to follow the written or spoken language. Wylie preferred an accurate representation of Tibetan as written, there's another common transcription based on the usual pronunciation. See also Thai Prime Minister ''ABHISIT Vejjajiva''
* [[wikipedia:Wolfe
** Taking it apart and translating it, however, [http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/weblog/permalink/worlds_longest_surname/ makes it look like a hoax that got past the radar]. And anyway, wouldn't a name that cumbersome have been rejected by authorities?
* Even Irish people struggle to pronounce Bláthnaid Ní Chofaigh ("blaw-nid nee khuffigh")
** The Gaelic languages in general are a nightmare to sound out until you know something about the phonetics (which are weird and vaguely resemble Russian), and Scots Gaelic has a lot of unnecessary (i.e. no longer pronounced) letters that Irish got rid of in spelling reforms. Even then, the consonants aren't too bad, but the vowels can be... inscrutable (the only time a vowel is unambiguously itself is when it has an accent on it). Overall, Scots and Irish Gaelic spellings are a barely-comprehensible mishmosh of historical and phonetic spellings... and then you have Manx Gaelic, whose spelling is mercifully based on English phonetics... from four centuries ago. Old Irish spelling resembles modern spelling simplified, but is mercifully phonetic and nowhere near as tangled as its descendants. [[I Need a Freaking Drink|Still, it's best taken with a bottl o da fookin' wiskie.]]
* A train station in Wales is known by the name [[wikipedia:File:UK longest railway sign.jpg|Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerchwyrndrobwyllllantysiliogogogoch]].
** Welsh. Just Welsh.
* The volcanic glacier that has ruined air travel in Europe is named Eyjafjallajökull. Admittedly, not unpronounceable for someone from Iceland, but [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jq-sMZtSww for everyone else it's quite difficult]... For the record, it's approximately AY-a-fyat-la-yer-kuttle, with the T-sounds pronounced very lightly.
** When Seth Meyers reported on the disaster for [[Saturday Night Live|Weekend Update]], he [[Lampshaded]] and [[Subverted]] it by referring to it as "Iceland's -- I hope I'm saying this right: ''volcano''."
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* Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, [[wikipedia:Squamish people|a group of indigenous people]] from southwestern British Columbia. Also mercifully called Squamish, which according to Wikipedia is probably the closest to the pronunciation (which is roughly sk-HU-mesh, with the h being pronounced like a Spanish J).
** [[wikipedia:St'a7mes|St'a7mes]], a village/reserve of the indigenous Sḵwx̱wú7mesh. Also known as Stawamus.
** And [[wikipedia:
* Nuxálk (a Native American language up in the Pacific Northwest) has the word ''xłp̓x̣ʷłtłpłłskʷc̓''. Means "he had in his possession a bunchberry plant". Not only are there no vowels, there's nothing that could even function as a vowel. And yet, people can still say it.
* Prince, when his name consisted of nothing but a symbol.
* Dolphins are thought to have
** This theory was possibly alluded to in ''[[Splash]]'' (see entry under Film).
* When the Swedish diplomat Dag Hammarskjöld became Secretary-General of the UN he told reporters that it was OK for English-speakers who had problems pronouncing his name to use the direct translation of it and simply call him [[Awesome McCoolname|"Mr. Hammershield"]].
* Some drugs and medicines have chemical names that are ridiculously long and hard to pronounce. Of course, the formal names are for the benefit of doctors and technicians who need to know exactly what they're handling, but they can be quite unwieldy for laypeople.
* The host in a radio program about etymology: "This word goes back to a Proto-Indo-European root which cannot be written with our alphabet, and I also cannot pronounce it." Eh... But at least, [[Take Our Word for It|he knew what it was]].
** Although this is less
* The "Chef Boyardee" line of prepared Italian foods was named that by Ettore Boiardi, because he feared his name's real spelling would be subjected to this trope. Most rural Americans in the 1920s were unfamiliar with Italian names.
* Spend just a few minutes at a zoo's exhibit of native Mongolian wild horses, and you'll hear every conceiveable pronunciation of "Przewalski". Except, perhaps, the correct one ("sher-wall-ski").
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** Short Ö is like the E in "bet" with the lips rounded; long is close to the AI in "bait" with rounded lips. Short Ü is a rounded version of the I in "bit"; long like a rounded EE in "beet." And the "soft" (default— the hard counterpart only appears after A, O, U or AU without umlauts) CH is like the H in "huge" for those people who don't pronounce the word as "uge."
** A lot of native speakers do not make the soft ch sound as you describe. I've heard ich pronounced most frequently as eesh. However, there are people who insist that it's pronounced like ik. It's probably a dialect and accent thing.
* There's a ''reason'' our [[Aztec Mythology]] page is full of footnotes with pronunciation
** And if there's an "X" in an Aztec name, it's only there because the Spaniards couldn't pronounce the natives' version of "sh" and used "X" (pronounced rather like an "H" in Spanish) as a transcriptional approximation.
*** Not really. The /ʃ/ sound (the "sh" sound) did exist in Old Spanish and was written as "x". It is still written that way in other languages spoken in the Iberian peninsula - namely in Portuguese, Galician, Basque and Catalan. There was a shift in the Spanish sibilants that made /ʃ/ disappear and a later spelling reform so that the letter "x" represents a variety of ''other'' sounds in modern Spanish. So, in all, the name of Mexico was pronounced something like "me-''sheeh''-coh" in 16th century Spanish, "''me''-khi-coh" in modern Spanish... and "''me''-ksi-co" in English. Quite strange come to think of it.
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* Based on anatomical reconstructions done by archaeologists, it is believed that the Neanderthals were completely incapable of pronouncing the letter E. Basically, that means that most of our languages would have been completely unpronounceable to them.
* Kyrgyzstan.
* You can thank [[Aristophanes]] for [[wikipedia:Lopadotemachoselachogaleokranioleipsanodrimhypotrimmatosilphioparaomelitokatakechymenokichlepikossyphophattoperisteralektryonoptekephalliokigklopeleiolagoiosiraiobaphetraganopterygon|this one.]]
* When Mount Ruapehu ("roo-uh-pay-hoo"), an active volcano in New Zealand, started re-erupting in 1995, various news anchors in America were visibly linguistically challenged in the process.
* [[wikipedia:Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu|Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu]], the longest place name in the world according to the Guiness Book of Records, is located in the Hawkes Bay region of New Zealand. And that's just the short form.
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