NOTE - THIS PROTO-PAGE IS STILL IN THE EARLY STAGES OF CONSTRUCTION!

This word is derived from from the Proto-Polynesian word root *fara (itself a reflex of Proto-Austronesian *Pandan), by doubling the root (to indicate that something is like, reminiscent of, or a special form of what the source word refers to). In Maori more words have been created by adding an additional element to the reduplicated root to further differentiate species. It is assumed that this process occurred in Proto-Polynesian times, so the source word has been reconstructed as *falafala. The process itself is something common to all Polynesian (and Austronesian) languages, and because the known cognates have so little in common with each other (that is, they refer to quite different plants in the various languages in which they have been recorded), I suspect that the reduplication of the root is what is common to these words, rather than the reduplicated form having referred to a particular plant whose name was then carried on to new locations.