[Ads-l] "hafu"

Jim Parish jparish at SIUE.EDU
Sat May 30 19:40:47 UTC 2015


Benjamin Barrett wrote:
> Both the Oxford Dictionary site and Wiktionary also have the
> near-equivalent "hapa," which comes from English through HCE. Wikipedia
> (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hapa) says it has a dual meaning, one
> being of mixed ethnic heritage, the other of part Asian or Pacific
> Islander heritage.

If I recall correctly, when I lived in Hawaii (mid-'60s), as often as 
not the phrase was "hapa haole" - "half white", with the implication 
that the other half was Asian or Pacific Islander.

Jim Parish

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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