ʻĀina
/ʔaːi̯.na/noun
A Hawaiian word meaning land, earth, homeland, or the natural environment.
Did you know?The Hawaiian expression mālama ʻāina—“to care for the land”—reflects a relationship in which land is treated as a source of life and kinship, not merely real estate.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Austronesian
PAN
*qaina
“Land or cultivated ground; a reconstructed ancestral form”
Proto-Polynesian
PPN
*ʔaina
“Land, cultivated land, or place of settlement”
Old Hawaiian
Hawaiian
ʻāina
“Land, country, homeland, or cultivated region”
18th–19th Century
Hawaiian
ʻāina
“Land and the environment understood as the source of sustenance”
Modern English
English
ʻāina
“A Hawaiian cultural term for land, homeland, and the living environment”