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| flickr.com BULA NA'-TA SPAM! |
BULA : plenty, abundant, many, full
Bula salape'-mo. You have a lot of money.
Bula na lepblo ha fåhan. She bought a lot of books.
Bulala. Replete.
Bula somnak. Much sunshine.
Bulan tåse. High tide.
Na' bula. To fill.
Binila. Fullness.
Bula seems to have originally meant full, while meggai referred to many. For example, bumula means "to become filled up." Or, the Hail Mary in Chamorro, "Si Yu'us un gineggue Maria, bula hao grasia..." "full of grace."
An anecdote
I once traveled with a fellow priest to visit the seminary in Fiji. All over Fiji, this priest saw the word BULA written on signs at every turn. In Fijian, bula means " hello." But, in the Fijian alphabet, "b" has the sound of "mb." In Fijian, bula would be pronounced EM-BU-LA. But this priest kept going around Fiji saying "Bula! Bula!" He thought it was funny that he was greeting everyone in Fiji with the same word he knew in Chamorro meant "A lot! A lot!"
It was only on the day we left Fiji that he began to realize that the Fijians weren't saying "bula" but "em-bu-la." Ai adei.
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