kanaka

• Kanaka

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

kanaka (plural kanakas)

1. A person of Hawaiian descent.
   • 2010, Mike Farris, Kanaka Blues, Savant Books and Publications, page 21,

     "Who was the call from?"

     "I don't know. Sound like a kanaka though.” When Erin frowned, he added, “A Hawaiian, like me.”

2. (historical) A South Pacific Islander, especially a labourer in Australia or Canada.
   • 1912, Arthur Berriedale Keith, Responsible Government in the Dominions, Volume II, page 1098,

     There remains one case to be considered, that of the deportation of the Kanakas who were introduced into Queensland for the purpose of work on the sugar plantations. […] It was, however, felt in the south that a white Australia was essential, and the Commonwealth passed in 1901 an Act (No. 16) which arranged for the deportation of all Kanakas within a few years.

   • 1921, W. Somerset Maugham, "Red", The Trembling of a Leaf: Little Stories of the South Sea Islands, 2011, The Floating Press, page 47,

     The Kanaka at the wheel gave him a glance, but did not speak.

   • 1933, Cambridge History of the British Empire, Part I, Volume VII, Cambridge University Press, Reissued 1988, Ernest Scott (editor), Australia, Volume 1, Cambridge University Press, page 313,

     So long as the Kanakas remained, white labour in Queensland went into the mills, from which the Kanakas were excluded, rather than into the cane brakes. Slowly, however, the change proceeded. […] The gentleman planter, owning broad estates worked by Kanaka gangs, crushing and refining his own sugar after a fashion in the plantation mill, was by that time obsolescent. Though the small farmers into whose hands the plantations were divided might employ a Kanaka or two, no Kanaka might own land.

• → French: canaque
  • → English: Kanak

• Canaque
• Canuck
• Kanak
• Kanake (German)

From Proto-Polynesian *taŋata

kanaka (irregular plural kānaka)

1. human being
2. subject, retainer
3. a Hawaiian

• → English: kanaka
  • → French: canaque
    • → English: Kanak

Probably from German Kanake (see other entries on this page for more).

kanaka

1. aborigine; native; tribesman

• bus kanaka/buskanaka

• tokples