The word is originally derived from the
Hawaiian word
kanaka meaning “person, human being” (from
Proto-Polynesian *
taŋata). Towards the end of the 19th century, the word
Kanaka was
used on the plantations of
British colonies in the Pacific, referring to the workers who
originated from various islands of Oceania. German borrowed the term as
Kanake, and assigned it a derogatory meaning referring to a broader array of populations. In the 1960s, the word was transferred with more ambiguous connotations to
Southern European immigrants and the working class, it is now used with a strong derogatory connotation against people with roots in the "
Orient" (including North Africa, the Middle East and
Afghanistan). The word has undergone some
reappropriation since the 1990s, see e.g.
Kanak Sprak. == See also ==