Talofa

Talofa is a salutation or greeting in the Samoan language of the Samoan Islands.[1]

For the United States Navy ship, see USS Talofa (SP-1016).

Talofa echoes in such phrases as ta'alofa in Tuvalu, aloha in Hawaiian and aro'a in Cook Islands Māori. Another Samoan salutation To life, live long! properly translated Ia ola! also echoes in places such as Aotearoa (New Zealand), where the formal greeting in Māori is Kia ora and in Tahiti (French Polynesia) where it is 'Ia orana.

Talofa is also the greeting of the island of Lifou (New Caledonia), and of the island state of Tuvalu. The word was brought to Lifou by the Samoan teachers of the London Missionary Society who converted the population from 1841.

Etymology

The Official Government Website of American Samoa says: "Talofa is short for 'Si o ta alofa atu,' -- which means, 'I am happy and delighted to give you my love.' When you respond, 'Talofa lava!' you are reciprocating with a full grant of your love and affection." [2]

gollark: 12GB or so.
gollark: ```cint main() { return 0;}/*[the letter A 100000000 times]*/```
gollark: I totally can.
gollark: So if I make my project use 100MB of source code somehow, but it compiles to 10kB of output, that's not bloated?
gollark: Does the source code size not matter for bloat?

References
  1. Duranti, Alessandro (2009). Linguistic anthropology. John Wiley and Sons. p. 217. ISBN 1-4051-2632-9. Retrieved 8 July 2010.
  2. American Samoa Official Web Site
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