Etymology

Kiribati

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Today it means: A country consisting mostly of the Gilbert Islands archipelago, located in Micronesia in Oceania. Official name: Republic of Kiribati. Capital and largest city: South Tarawa. Full definition →

Gilbertese Kiribati ← English Gilberts
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The story

  1. English · derived fromGilberts
  2. Gilbertese · borrowed fromKiribati
  3. English todayKiribati

From Gilbertese Kiribati, from English Gilberts adapted to Gilbertese phonotactics, a shortening of Gilbert Islands. First entry in the Dictionnaire gilbertin-français of Ernest Sabatier (1954). "Kiribati" was chosen as the republic's name by Chief Minister Sir Ieremia Tabai and his cabinet to represent his country's modernisation and extent beyond the Gilbert Islands, which are natively known as Tungaru.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.