tribal1209
Kava Enthusiast
Where did this stupid trend start? Is this a legitimate name? I've seen it for years
Kava Kava?
- Thread starter tribal1209
- Start date
verticity
I'm interested in things
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":
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"
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":
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"
verticity
I'm interested in things
Oh, I should also add: kava originated in Vanuatu, however the proto-Polynesian word kawa originated from the region of Tonga and Samoa. However this does not mean that the languages of Vanuatu that call kava "kava" derived the word from proto-Polynesion. It most likely was the other way around. Historically, people populated the Pacific Islands coming from west to east. 3400 years ago, people started sailing from the Solomon Islands to populate Melanesia (Vanuatu, Fiji), Micronesia, and parts of Polynesia (Tonga, Samoa), but they stopped moving west for 2000 years, before resuming migrating again from Tonga/Samoa to Hawaii, Tahiti and New Zealand. The proto-Polynesian language is the ancestor of languages of places people went to in that second wave of migration. But the proto-Polynesian word "kawa" probably itself derived from one of the languages of people who came from Vanuatu. That ancient native Vanuatu language would have been a common ancestor of both the modern ni-Van languages where kava is called "kava" and of the proto-Polynesian language. In that ancient native Vanuatu language, the word for kava might actually have been something slightly different from "kava". There is no way of knowing.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/02/science/south-pacific-islands-migration.html
http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/pacific-migrations
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/02/science/south-pacific-islands-migration.html
http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/pacific-migrations
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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,
kasa_balavu
Yaqona Dina
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
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
verticity
I'm interested in things
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.
verticity
I'm interested in things
Interestingly, the word yaqona might actually be related to the word kava. Lebot, op cit:
Spiritdog
Kava Curious
Do you enjoy nature made chemically induced altered states of consciousness?...
verticity
I'm interested in things
OK, and just one more comment about the modern languages of Vanuatu. In modern day Vanuatu, in addition to the numerous native languages, there are three official national languages: Bislama, English and French. In all three languages the word for kava is "kava" (not "kavakava"). So in fact the word "kava" is used by everyone in Vanuatu who speaks any of the national languages. And we have come full circle, in a way.
tribal1209
Kava Enthusiast
Anyone wanna have a "beer beer"? See how redundant and stupid that sounds?
verticity
I'm interested in things
Use it to wash down a nice Mahi fish dinner.
verticity
I'm interested in things
But seriously, in many Pacific languages, and some other languages, there is a phenomenon known as "reduplication" (repeated words) that does not sound stupid to the people who speak those languages. But like I said above, in the vast majority of those languages, they don't say "kava kava". Although it sounds weird in English, reduplication does occasionally happen in our language:
Exact reduplication: "bye bye", "doo doo"
Rhyming reduplication: "easy peasy"
"Shm-reduplicaion": "Fancy Schmancy" (from Yiddish)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduplication
Exact reduplication: "bye bye", "doo doo"
Rhyming reduplication: "easy peasy"
"Shm-reduplicaion": "Fancy Schmancy" (from Yiddish)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduplication
kastom_lif
Kava Lover
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.
But in modern global usage "kavakava" to me means it's a modern "botanical" product with a trendy island name.
In many European languages "kava" means "coffee", so maybe some companies preferred to use "kava kava" to avoid confusion
verticity
I'm interested in things
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"
kastom_lif
Kava Lover
If you speak Spanish, try some Loco Moco (Crazy Boogers). It's delici-ono!
nabanga
Kava Enthusiast
I've always thought of "kava-kava" as being a phrase belonging to the old US & Hawai'i tiki bar and tiki motel craze of the 60s and 70s, where just about everything was named in duplicate to make it sound more exotic and conjure up the 60's idea of island paradise. I got this 'history of US tiki culture" book recently and it is full of nouns with reduplication.
In some languages (e.g. Indonesian) one can repeat words to indicate their abundance. E.g. "barang" - a thing, "barang barang" lots of things. As you can see "lots of" isn't necessarily shorter than simply repeating the word barang. 
I think Indonesian/Malay is actually related to the Polynesian languages. I used to speak Indonesian (haven't spoken it for close to 10 years so I cannot remember almost anything) and often notice similarities between some of the most popular Polynesian words and their Indonesian or Malay equivalents. E.g. the word "fish"
-"ika" (Samoan/Tongan)
-"ikan" (Indonesia)
I think Indonesian/Malay is actually related to the Polynesian languages. I used to speak Indonesian (haven't spoken it for close to 10 years so I cannot remember almost anything) and often notice similarities between some of the most popular Polynesian words and their Indonesian or Malay equivalents. E.g. the word "fish"
-"ika" (Samoan/Tongan)
-"ikan" (Indonesia)
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