Tasi means "sea"; Tasi means "noble"

[asakiyume]

I know the people at the post office; I'm there a lot. Back when Little Springtime first was in Japan (she's back there again--let's have no earthquake-tsunami-nuclear disasters this time, please, Seafather and Lady) I found out that one of the women who works there has a daughter who lives in Japan. That woman--Tasi--is Samoan.

The other day when I was there, I had Timor-Leste on the mind, and seeing Tasi reminded me that in Tetun, tasi means sea--so I told her so. She smiled, and said, "and in my language it means 'noble.' Aliitasi, 'noble one.'"

So Tasi is just a nickname. Aliitasi is the complete name. It sounded so beautiful when she said it--here, I found it online: Aliitasi.

"'Noble one.' So every time someone says your name, they're respecting you," I said.

"Suuure they are," she said, skeptically.

But I think, yes. Even though they don't know it, even if they're acting disrespectful. Noble One. Even here and now, names have power.

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

When she said it, it was like this **bloom** of beautiful, different sound. And I thought, how am I going to remember this, these exact sounds? But I was lucky, because it turned up when I searched--I heard it and thought, yes! This is what she said! And then, to be sure I wasn't fooling myself, I searched on the meaning, and was able to confirm that yeah, alii (ali'i) is a word that denotes high rank in Polynesian languages.