Deriv.: Haw., lae, be light, clear, shining; lai, shining as the surface of the sea, calm, still; laelae and lailai, intens. Sam., lelei, something very good; lala, to shine; lalangi, to broil. Fiji., rai, to see, appear; rai-rai, a seer, a prophet. Teor., la, sun. Aru Islands, lara, id.; rarie, bright, shining. Amblaw., laei, sun, day.
Irish, la, lae, day.
Laghmani (Cabul), la'e, day.
Sanskr., laj, lanj, to appear, shine; râj, to shine. Ved., to govern; s. a king. If, as Benfey intimates, the Sanskrit verb bhrâj, to shine, to beam, is 'probably abhi-râj', an already Vedic contraction, then the Polynesian root-word al and lae will reappear in several of the West Aryan dialects. Lat., flagrare, flamma, flamen. Greek, φλεγω, φλοξ. A.-Sax., blac, blæcan, &c.
Probably the universal Polynesian lani, langi, rangi, ra'i, lanits (Malg.) designating the upper air, sky, heaven, and an epithet of chiefs, refers itself to the same original la, lai, lanj, referred to above, to which also be referred:
Welsh, glan, clean pure, bright, holy. Sax. clæne, clean, pure. Swed., ren, clean. pure; grann (?), fine, elegant.
It may be noted in connection with this word, either as a coincidence or as an instance of ancient connection, that in the old Chaldean the name of the sun and of the Supreme Deity was Ra, and that in Egypt the sun was also named Ra.
LA², s. Haw., Sam., Tong., ra. N. Zeal., the sail of a canoe; abbreviated from, or itself an older form of, the Fiji. laca, a sail, also the mats from which the sails were made. Sunda., Mal., layar, sail. Malg., laï, sail, tent, flag.
Sanskr., lâta (Pictet), a cloth; latâ (Benfey), a creeper, a plant; lak-taka, a rag. As mats and clothing in primitive times were made of bark or flexible plants, the connection between the Sanskrit latâ and Polynesian laca, la, becomes intelligible.
Armen., lôtig, a mantle. Lat., lodix, a blanket. Irish, lothar, clothing." (Fornander)