Etymology

kanaka

K5A1N1A1K5A1

Today it means: A person of Hawaiian descent. Full definition →

Hawaiian kanaka ← Proto-Polynesian *taŋata
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Proto-Polynesian · derived from*taŋata
  2. Hawaiian · borrowed fromkanaka“person”
  3. English todaykanaka

1840. From Hawaiian kanaka (“person”), ultimately from Proto-Polynesian *taŋata.

Words from the same roots

Hawaiiankanaka all →

Kanak

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.