karanga means in Māori culture, an exchange of calls that forms part of the pōhiri. It carries an Arena rating of 1327, earned across 79 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, karanga ranks #2,008 of 17,130 for Most Beautiful Words, #4,192 of 17,127 for Most Vivid Words, #5,123 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words, #5,168 of 17,124 for Most Sublime Words.
Why “karanga” is a great word
KARANGA — [Noun] A ceremonial call or chant of welcome, performed by women to invite and acknowledge visitors onto a marae. From Māori karanga ("to call out, summon"). Unlike pōhiri (which denotes the entire welcome ceremony) or whaikōrero (which refers to the formal speeches that follow), the karanga is the opening vocal thread that initiates the crossing of a spiritual and physical threshold. It is the high, clear lament that cuts across the open ground, the woven acknowledgment of shared ancestry, and the sonic ligament that draws strangers forward—a testament that the most profound welcomes are sung into being.
Etymology
From Māori karanga.
noun
- In Māori culture, an exchange of calls that forms part of the pōhiri.e.g.“A karanga expert from within the manuhiri ope responds to the first karanga of the tangata whenua and indicates who they are.” — 2003, Hirini Moko Mead, Tikanga Māori: Living by Māori Values, page 122:
name
- A Maban language spoken in Chad.
- A dialect of the Shona language of Zimbabwe.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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