tribal1209
Kava Enthusiast
Where did this stupid trend start? Is this a legitimate name? I've seen it for years
OK, I used to think this was a marketing ploy to make the word "kava" sound more like a stereotypical Pacific language, with characteristic repeated words, however... here is what I think is there real deal now:
The word kava come from an ancient proto-Polynesian word: "kawa". On various islands, where languages that are decendents of proto-Polynesian are spoken, kawa has morphed into similar sounding words. From Lebot's "Elixer":
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So on some islands in Polynesia, kava is actually called "ava ava" (Samoa) or "kava kava" (Marquasas Islands). "False kava" that grows in New Zealand is called "kawa kawa" by the Maori.
However those places are not the primary kava producing islands. The primary kava producing nation is Vanuatu, and that is probably the place where kava originated. There are many different native languages with different words for kava in Vanuatu. In some of them the word is kava (North Efate, Aniwa, Futuna and Anatom islands). In central Tanna it is nikava. Elsewhere, in Vanuatu it is called: nigui, malop, mele, sini, maloku, bir, malok, namonggomongg (my personal favorite), and many other various words. See Appendix C of Kava: The Pacific Elixer by Vincent Lebot for the complete list. I can't find the complete list online. I'm looking at my paper copy of the book. Anyway, none of the native languages of Vanuatu call it "kava kava".
So..."kava kava" is not wrong if you are in the Marquesas Islands, but if you are in the largest kava producing nations, Vanuatu, Tonga, Fiji, US (Hawaii), it is wrong. In some of those places, "kava" is wrong also, though.
"verticity: making simple things complicated since 2014"
Right. "False kava" is how I think of it. Of course historically the Maori did not explicitly remember that they had migrated from places where there was kava, and had no idea the NZ plant resembled some other plant until kava started being imported to NZ in the much more recent past.Great post @verticity . Just to clarify one tiny detail. Kawakawa is not seen as "false kava" here. Most people don't even know it's related to kava (and they look quite different), but some people who know about the connection call kawakawa the "Maori kava".
Cheers,
Interestingly, the word yaqona might actually be related to the word kava. Lebot, op cit:FYI, it's yaqona in the iTaukei (ethnic Fijian) language, but generally just called grog.
In Fiji, the term "grog" refers to a drink made by pounding sun-dried kava root into a fine powder and mixing it with cold water. Traditionally, grog is drunk from the shorn half-shell of a coconut, called a "bilo." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grog
Do you enjoy nature made chemically induced altered states of consciousness?...Where did this stupid trend start? Is this a legitimate name? I've seen it for years
Use it to wash down a nice Mahi fish dinner.Anyone wanna have a "beer beer"? See how redundant and stupid that sounds?
And in an lot of niVan languages, it's malogu. I'm not a linguist but I could see how "kavakava" became a word to distinguish from a separate "kava" word that means bitter. Reduplication is a common thing in Oceanic languages.FYI, it's yaqona in the iTaukei (ethnic Fijian) language, but generally just called grog.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grog
Yes, I was thinking that too. Not so much about the fact that Slovakians might confuse it with coffee, but that the word "kava" sounds a lot like "java". I have actually seen a brand of instant coffee called "Kava"In many European languages "kava" means "coffee", so maybe some companies preferred to use "kava kava" to avoid confusion