If am not mistaken, people in Tacloban or Leyte, they call Cebuanos as “kana” for women and “kano” for men. I had the privileged of staying there for almost two months when i joined the first time student “canvassing” – canvassing of books or in simpler terms, selling books. We sold books printed by the Philippine Publishing House. Anyway, going back to the terms – they call us folks from Mindanao as kano or kana. We did not know that when they asked that they were referring to us. Because for us from Mindanao we refer to American woman for “kana” and American man for “kano”. Kana/kano from the word AMERICAN or AMERIKAN. So if we use that term here in our area, we are sure that you are referring to a person who is native AMERICAN.

Now we were wondering why us from Mindanao were called kano and kana. The first time we heard it we tried explaining that we are not “kano” or “kana” but we are Bisaya from Bukidnon. So there was sort of confusion later that they gave us the following explanation and it is somewhat funny.

KANA in cebuano is “that.” When we point at something or sharing the information of direction to someone, we use ther term “kana” in which am sure that term is not used by any waray.

KA/NO? or kano is an affirmative ending of a question like this — bisaya ka no? (are you bisaya?) which a bisaya will answer ” oo” or yes. Or like the following questions:
1. gigutom ka no? (are you hungry?)

2. katulugon ka no? (are you sleepy?)
3. Waray ka no? (are you waray?)

Well, i think i just heard someone outside askign someone a question with a NO at the end — so i thought about this.

Pleasant evening to all. Connection here is not that cooperative.