Oceanian words

It has been claimed that some 1500 different languages are spoken around the Pacific. These fall into two main groups: Papuan, which has had little influence on English, and Austronesian or Malayo-Polynesian, found from Madagascar off the east coast of Africa across the many atolls of the Pacific Ocean to Hawaii and Easter Island (Rapanui) and south to New Zealand. Atoll itself belongs to this group, although it comes from the language of the Maldives in the Indian Ocean. It is first recorded in English surprisingly early, in 1625. While many borrowed words apply to specific aspects of the various cultures, others are in everyday use.

 Malay has contributed most words, some so familiar that we would hardly recognize them as imports. The dinner gong [c.1600] was originally used by Malays to signal troops. The tea caddy [L18th] comes from a Malay weight, the catty [L16th]; sago [M16], a dish hated by generations of British children, comes from the Malay sagu tree, while another tree gives us kapok [M18]. The agar or agar-agar [M18] used in petri dishes and as a food thickener is a Malaysian invention. The paddy field of the East gets its name from the Malay for ‘unhusked rice’. Animal names taken from Malay include the aquatic mammal the dugong [L18], the gecko [E18th] from its cry, that comic but fierce bird the cassowary [E17th], the orangutan from the Malay for ‘person of the woods’, and the pangolin [L18th] from the Malay for ‘roller’ from its hedgehog-like defence mechanism. The Dayak people of the region (from the Malay for ‘up country’) had a reputation for fierceness. They might run amok [E16th], from Malay amok ‘engaging furiously in battle, frenzy’, in which case they might wield a kris [L16], the distinctive wavy-edged dagger of the region.

 Thanks to the importance of tourism, Hawaiian has a much friendlier set of influences. Aloha [E19th] is both ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’. At a luau [M19th] ‘party or feast’ you might watch a hula [E19th] ‘dance’, wearing a lei [M19th] or garland and possibly a muumuu [L19th], the brightly coloured, loose-fitting dress introduced by missionaries. Perhaps the most used word nowadays adopted from this region is wiki [L20]. Hawaiian wikiwiki means ‘very quick’, and was the name given to the shuttle bus running between terminals of Honolulu Airport. In 1995, punning on the World Wide Web, the first collaborative site, the WikiWikiWeb was founded. Wikipedia came in 2001, and wiki was soon widely used.

 The Maori equivalent of aloha is kia ora ‘good health’, first recorded in the late 19th century but gaining worldwide use as a brand name of fruit drinks originally made in Australia from 1903. The national bird of New Zealand is the kiwi [1835], the Maori name for the bird, a name that was transferred to New Zealand soldiers in World War I and now a general nickname for New Zealanders. The kiwi fruit, developed in the country from the Chinese gooseberry, was introduced in 1966. The honey made from the manuka tree [E19th] is now nearly as famous. The beliefs of the Maori have also been influential. Tiki [L18th], found throughout Polynesia, is the name of their creator god, who has mana ‘authority, influence, supernatural power’. The word noa [M19th] is the opposite of taboo or tabu, a word recorded in 1777 by Captain Cook in Tonga, but again widely used. The haka [E19th], a Maori ceremonial dance, has become familiar from its use by the New Zealand rugby team.

 Javanese has given us batik [L19th] cloth from their word for ‘painted’; the music of the gamelan orchestra [E19th], and the junk [M16] for the distinctive trading ships of the region. Tagalog, a language of the Philippines, has given us the boondocks, shortened to boonies, picked up by American soldiers in the Second World War from the word for ‘mountain’, and the perfume ylang-ylang [L19]. Last but not least, Tahitian has given us the mai tai cocktail [M20th] from the word for ‘good, nice’. See also tattoo, yo-yo.