All Columns in Alphabetical Order


Monday, March 26, 2012

A Lesson in Hawaiian from our friend Pam at Original Hawaiian Chocolate

Pam tells Peachy:

As from Wikipedia the word "Aloha" means:Aloha in the Hawaiian language meansaffectionpeacecompassion and mercy. Since the middle of the 19th century, it also has come to be used as an English greeting to say goodbye and hello. Currently, it is mostly used in the sense of hello.  A folk etymology claims that it derives from a compound of the Hawaiian words alo meaning "presence", "front", "face", or "share"; andha, meaning "breath of life" or "essence of life." Although alo does indeed mean "presence" etc., the word for breath is spelled with a macron or kahakoō over the a (hā) whereas the word aloha does not have a long a.

'Ohana means
For other uses, see Ohana (disambiguation).
Part of Hawaiian culture, ʻohana means family in an extended sense of the term, including blood-related, adoptive or intentional. It emphasizes that family are bound together and members must cooperate and remember one another. The term is cognate with (and its usage is similar to) the New Zealand Māori term whānau.

Back to TOP