Shaka sign
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The shaka sign, sometimes known as "hang loose" or "right on", is a gesture with friendly intent often associated with
Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...
and
surf culture Surf culture includes the people, language, fashion, and lifestyle surrounding the sport of surfing. The history of surfing began with the ancient Polynesians. That initial culture directly influenced modern surfing, which began to flourish ...
. It consists of extending the thumb and smallest finger while holding the three middle fingers curled, and gesturing in salutation while presenting the front or back of the hand; the wrist may be rotated back and forth for emphasis. The shaka sign should not be confused with the
sign of the horns The sign of the horns is a hand gesture with a variety of meanings and uses in various cultures. It is formed by extending the index and little fingers while holding the middle and ring fingers down with the thumb. Religious and supersti ...
, where the index and pinky finger is extended and the thumb holds down the middle two fingers.


Origins

According to the ''
Honolulu Star-Bulletin The ''Honolulu Star-Bulletin'' was a daily newspaper based in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States. At the time publication ceased on June 6, 2010, it was the second largest daily newspaper in the state of Hawaii (after the ''Honolulu Advertiser''). ...
'', prevailing local lore credits the gesture to Hamana Kalili of
Laie Laie ( haw, Lāie, ) is a census-designated place (CDP) located in the Koolauloa District on the island of Oahu () in Honolulu County, Hawaii, United States. In Hawaiian, means " leaf" ( is a climbing screwpine: ''Freycinetia arborea''). The p ...
, who lost the three middle fingers of his right hand while working at the
Kahuku Kahuku () is a census-designated place (CDP) in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States. In the Hawaiian language, ''ka huku'' means "the projection", presumably a reference to Kahuku Point nearby, the northernmost point of land on the island of Oahu. As ...
Sugar Mill. Kalili was then shifted to guarding the sugar train, and his all-clear wave of thumb and pinkie is said to have evolved into the shaka as children imitated the gesture. Another theory relates the origin of the shaka to the Spanish immigrants, who folded their middle fingers and took their thumbs to their lips as a friendly gesture to represent sharing a drink with the natives they met in Hawaii. The late Lippy Espinda, a used car salesman and
Oahu Oahu () (Hawaiian language, Hawaiian: ''Oʻahu'' ()), also known as "The Gathering place#Island of Oʻahu as The Gathering Place, Gathering Place", is the third-largest of the Hawaiian Islands. It is home to roughly one million people—over t ...
-based entertainer, has also been named as a possible creator of the shaka. Espinda, who frequently appeared as an extra in ''
Hawaii Five-O Hawaii Five-O or Hawaii Five-0 may refer to: * ''Hawaii Five-0'' (2010 TV series), an American action police procedural television series * ''Hawaii Five-O'' (1968 TV series), an American police procedural drama series produced by CBS Productio ...
'' as well as ''
The Brady Bunch ''The Brady Bunch'' is an American sitcom created by Sherwood Schwartz that aired from September 26, 1969, to March 8, 1974, on ABC. The series revolves around a large blended family with six children. The show aired for five seasons and, after ...
'' episodes shot in Hawaii, used the term and the sign during his television ads in the '60s. Though the claim that he is the originator of the shaka sign is debatable, he is credited with increasing its popularity and that of
Hawaiian Pidgin Hawaiian Pidgin (alternately, Hawaiʻi Creole English or HCE, known locally as Pidgin) is an English-based creole language spoken in Hawaiʻi. An estimated 600,000 residents of Hawaii speak Hawaiian Pidgin natively and 400,000 speak it as a seco ...
as well. The shaka has achieved great popularity in
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
, primarily among teenagers on social media sites such as
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and
Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...
. The word ''shaka'' is also used as an
interjection An interjection is a word or expression that occurs as an utterance on its own and expresses a spontaneous feeling or reaction. It is a diverse category, encompassing many different parts of speech, such as exclamations ''(ouch!'', ''wow!''), curse ...
expressing approval, which may predate its use for the shaka sign. According to ''
The Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a com ...
'' the origin of the word is uncertain, but it may come from Japanese, where it is a
byname An epithet (, ), also byname, is a descriptive term (word or phrase) known for accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, di ...
for the
Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a śramaṇa, wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist tradition, he was ...
.


Meaning and use

Residents of
Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...
use the shaka to convey the "
Aloha ''Aloha'' ( , ) is the Hawaiian language, Hawaiian word for love, affection, peace, compassion and mercy, that is commonly used as a simple greeting but has a deeper cultural and spiritual significance to native Hawaiians, for whom the term is u ...
Spirit", a concept of friendship, understanding, compassion, and solidarity among the various ethnic cultures that reside in
Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...
, lacking a direct semantic to literal translation. Drivers will often use it on the road to communicate distant greetings along with gratitude. In California, the shaka sign may be referred to as "hang loose" or "
hang ten "hang ten" is a nickname for any of several maneuvers used in sports, especially surfing, wherein all ten toes or fingers are used to accomplish the maneuver. * surfing: the surfer stands and hangs all their toes over the nose of the board. Usu ...
", both associated with surfer culture. In coastal
Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
, the shaka sign, known as the "hang loose" (also derived from an eponymous clothing brand, which uses the shaka as a logo), is a common gesture;
Ronaldinho Ronaldo de Assis Moreira (born 21 March 1980), commonly known as Ronaldinho Gaúcho () or simply Ronaldinho, is a Brazilian retired professional footballer who played mostly as an attacking midfielder, but was also deployed as a winger. Wide ...
usually celebrated the goals he scored by giving the crowd a double shaka. It is also associated with the
Brazilian jiu jitsu Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ; pt, jiu-jitsu brasileiro ) is a self-defence martial art and combat sport based on grappling, ground fighting (ne-waza) and submission holds. BJJ focuses on the skill of taking an opponent to the ground, control ...
community internationally. There are several
emoticon An emoticon (, , rarely , ), short for "emotion icon", also known simply as an emote, is a pictorial representation of a facial expression using Character (symbol), characters—usually punctuation marks, numbers, and letters—to express a ...
representations of the shaka sign, including \,,,/, \m/, and \,,,_. The earliest known use of the first two, with three commas or a lower case "m" corresponding to a hand's three middle fingers, is from 2006. The last, similar to the first except that it represents the thumb extended horizontally (as if perpendicular to the wrist) is reported, together with the first form, from
Brigham Young University Brigham Young University (BYU, sometimes referred to colloquially as The Y) is a private research university in Provo, Utah. It was founded in 1875 by religious leader Brigham Young and is sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day ...
in 2016.


Similar gestures


Chinese number gestures

The sign has some similarities to the Chinese number gesture for "six".


Beverages

The sign can also be used to indicate the imbibing of a bottled drink, either alcoholic or non-alcoholic, as attested to below, by placing the thumb to the mouth and motioning the little finger upward as if tipping up a bottle's bottom end. A similar meaning can be achieved by pressing the thumb up against the tip of the nose with the little finger raised upwards parallel to the bridge of the nose. It is referred to as "schooies" in Australia (Australian slang for a
schooner A schooner () is a type of sailing vessel defined by its rig: fore-and-aft rigged on all of two or more masts and, in the case of a two-masted schooner, the foremast generally being shorter than the mainmast. A common variant, the topsail schoon ...
)


Telecommunications

With the thumb held near the ear and the little finger pointed at the mouth, the gesture is commonly understood to mean "call me", as it resembles the
handset A handset is a component of a telephone that a user holds to the ear and mouth to receive audio through the receiver and speak to the remote party using the built-in transmitter. In earlier telephones, the transmitter was mounted directly on ...
of a traditional
landline A landline (land line, land-line, main line, home phone, fixed-line, and wireline) is a telephone connection that uses metal wires or optical fiber telephone line for transmission, as distinguished from a mobile cellular network, which uses ...
telephone. The Unicode 9.0
emoji An emoji ( ; plural emoji or emojis) is a pictogram, logogram, ideogram or smiley embedded in text and used in electronic messages and web pages. The primary function of emoji is to fill in emotional cues otherwise missing from typed conversat ...
🤙 "Call me hand" can be interpreted as the shaka sign. In 2021 it was being reported that the gesture was declining among younger Americans, who favored placing a hand flat against their face, in a manner resembling a
smart phone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, which ...
.


Smoking

In Australia and Russia raising the thumb to the mouth while pointing the little finger to the air is seen as an invitation for one to smoke marijuana, the posture resembling the use of a pipe. Similarly in New Zealand, this gesture symbolises smoking a "P" (methamphetamine) pipe, as well as variations of the shaka sign being the recognised gang salute for the
Mongrel Mob The Mongrel Mob (sometimes self-labelled as the Mighty Mongrel Mob or colloquially known as the Mob) is an organised street gang and Prison gang based in New Zealand. With a network of more than thirty chapters throughout the country and additio ...
.


Notable incidents

Since 2015, fans of
Brigham Young University Brigham Young University (BYU, sometimes referred to colloquially as The Y) is a private research university in Provo, Utah. It was founded in 1875 by religious leader Brigham Young and is sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day ...
(which has a
satellite campus A satellite campus or branch campus or regional campus is a campus of a university or college that is physically at a distance from the original university or college area. This branch campus may be located in a different city, state, or countr ...
in Hawai'i and is also known colloquially as "the Y") have started using the gesture, in deference to newly hired
Kalani Sitake Kelaokalani Fifita "Kalani" Sitake (born October 10, 1975) is a Tongan–American football coach and former player. He has been the head football coach at Brigham Young University (BYU) since December 2015, and is the first Tongan to become a ...
, BYU's Polynesian head football coach, and because of its similarity with the letter Y in the
American manual alphabet The American Manual Alphabet (AMA) is a manual alphabet that augments the vocabulary of American Sign Language. Letters and digits The letters and digits are signed as follows. In informal contexts, the handshapes are not made as distinctly as the ...
in American Sign Language. It is also used as a nod of respect to Hamana Kalili, a native Hawaiian
Latter-day Saint Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, the principal branch of the Latter Day Saint movement started by Joseph Smith in upstate New York during the 1820s. After Smith's death in 1844, the movement split into several ...
who, according to locals, is the founder of the popular sign. Texas A&M - Corpus Christi in
Corpus Christi, Texas Corpus Christi (; Ecclesiastical Latin: "'' Body of Christ"'') is a coastal city in the South Texas region of the U.S. state of Texas and the county seat and largest city of Nueces County, it also extends into Aransas, Kleberg, and San Patrici ...
uses the shaka as a gesture for students and faculty there. "Shakas up!" is often spoken when giving the Shaka hand sign.


See also

*
ILY sign The ILY is a common sign in deaf culture meaning, "I Love You" (informal). The ILY is a sign from American Sign Language which, as a gesture, has moved into the mainstream. Seen primarily in the United States and other Americanized countries ...
*
List of gestures Gestures are a form of nonverbal communication in which visible bodily actions are used to communicate important messages, either in place of speech or together and in parallel with spoken words. Gestures include movement of the hands, face ...
*
List of mudras (yoga) This is a list of Yoga mudras. In yoga, mudrās are used in conjunction with pranayama (yogic breathing exercises), generally while seated in Padmasana, Ardhasiddhasana, Sukhasana or Vajrasana pose, to stimulate different parts of the body and ...
*
Manual communication Manual communication systems use articulation of the hands (hand signs, gestures, etc.) to mediate a message between persons. Being expressed manually, they are received visually and sometimes tactually. When it is the primary form of communic ...
*
Sign of the horns The sign of the horns is a hand gesture with a variety of meanings and uses in various cultures. It is formed by extending the index and little fingers while holding the middle and ring fingers down with the thumb. Religious and supersti ...
*
Thumb signal A thumb signal, usually described as a thumbs-up or thumbs-down, is a common hand gesture achieved by a closed fist held with the thumb extended upward or downward in approval or disapproval, respectively. These gestures have become metaphors ...


References


External links

* {{Surfing Greetings Hand gestures Hawaii culture Surf culture Symbols of Hawaii