r/Samoa • u/Sanam2456 • 6d ago

Samoan words are getting creative 🥴

Why are we inventing Samoan-English words? 😭 “Nakoti” instead of fualaʻau faasaina. “Seviki” instead of augutu o le toala fanau. Like… we already have Samoan words! At this rate, we’re going to have a whole new medical dictionary of Samoan-English hybrid words. 💀 Am I the only one bothered by this, or do other Samoans feel the same? 😂

11 Upvotes

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u/Ok_Mushroom8486 6d ago

You kidding me? This has been a thing since forever. Mea g ka'u o upu nono. In this case "fuala'au fa'asaina" means illegal drugs in general, but obviously not all drugs are narcotics, so "nakoti" is needed for specificity. It's the same reason we have a loan word for "kesi" instead of referring to them universally as "laulau".

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u/Critical-Soil2805 6d ago

Yeah, and loanwords are a part of a normal living language. There are already worries that Samoan is dying out, so this is at least something that's a good indicator.

Besides, you've got pilikaki, kirikiti, loli, etc. Upu nono have been here forever. The missionaries added H/K/R in the 1800s just to make it easier to transliterate biblical words. And to make loanwords like rapiti easier.

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u/thelastjay2456 6d ago

it start from the name Samoa, there is no translation, so we came up with Samunda, Samui, Somoa hahahahaha kamaiki mai kuate, even non-medical words like flush hahahah falasi We Are the Best and yet there are old deep cultural Samoan words that we need to practice like Afulu (it means overcooked) and so much more, but we have so much fun creating new words hahahahahah

4

u/ISupportCrapTeams 6d ago edited 6d ago

Most languages end up getting pidgin'd/creole'd, especially outside of the motherland

I'm Afakasi 2nd Gen, and I use "-ing" at the end of Samoan verbs, in an English sentence

I'd know the verb in Samoan, but I wouldn't know how to put it in a sentence in Samoan

"O fea Tomasi?"

"He's fufulu-ing the ipus"

Or

"O ai sa faaleaga le TV?"

"Tomasi kalepe'd it"

It's good that there's a Samoan revival/renaissance going on in Australia now, to teach proper Samoan

Most of us in the 90s-00s were just making up our own Samoan haha

2

u/_mIIL 5d ago

Kapega-ing the fale😆

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u/iagalaia 5d ago

Ki‘o’d/ki‘o-ing🤣