Groszki i róże

If yesterday was an edge case, this one’s completely off the edge — when I was compiling the week’s words, I failed to notice this one is not Polynesian but Micronesian, and while the two groups do make up the Eastern branch of Oceanic languages, it’s still off topic. My bad. Especially as the history is too interesting to give up:


bikini (buh-KEE-nee) - n., a close-fitting, two-piece women’s bathing suit that does not cover the midriff.


The history is easier to explain in chronological order. One of the northernmost of the Marshall Islands is a coral atoll called Pikinni (stress on the first syllable) in Marshallese, from pikin, flat land +‎ ni, coconut, so (is)land where coconuts grow. When the Marshall Islands were part of the colony of German New Guinea, the German adaptation was Bikini (still stressed on the first syllable), it became known by that in English (stressed first syllable) and French (stress typically on the second syllable, following that language’s norms). Japan took over the Marshall Islands in 1914 at the start of WWI, and the USA took it over following WWII, and from 1946-1958 they test-fired 23 nuclear weapons on Bikini Atoll. [Sidebar: They relocated the ~150 inhabitants first, and since in traditional Marshallese culture wealth is based on how much land your clan controls, this impoverished them.] Four days after the first test-fire on Bikini in July 1946, French designer Louis Réard introduced a new midriff-baring two-piece swimsuit, which he named bikini (stressed second syllable) after it, the idea being that it was just as much a sensation. Um. Yeah. [Sidebar²: Thanks to the swimsuit, the atoll now is just as likely to be pronounced with stress on the second syllable. Second round of Um. Yeah.]

---L.