All Those Apostrophes: A Crash Course in Hawaiian
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| At the corner of Hoohu and Pee Photo by Flickr–Joe Schlabotnik |
Either it has happened to you, or it will: You’re driving somewhere in Hawai’i, and are either holding a map or your companion in the passenger seat is. “Where am I supposed to turn?” you want to know. The next words uttered by your navigator are unintelligible, and sound like he/she has a mouthful of macadamia nuts, and a few stuck in her throat.
Why?
Because your friend or loved one with the map just took his or her first stab at pronouncing a Hawaiian word. And by the time she figured out its pronunciation, and by the time you figured out that it matched the street sign you just passed, you missed your turn. Hey, `A`ole pilikia (no worry), bra, you can always turn around, or do some of the accidental sightseeing that’s ahead of you. Besides, you’re on an island. How lost can you get?
The Hawaiian alphabet uses only 12 Roman letters ( a, e, i, o, u, h, k, l, m, n, p, w). And those apostrophes are not really apostrophes; they’re what’s called an ‘okina, a diacritical mark that indicates a shortening, or sudden stopping of sound. (Called a glottal stop.) An ‘okina is a special character that Internet browsers don’t recognize, so an apostrophe is used in its place. Between the ‘okina and its cousin, the kahakô (a diacritical mark represented as a horizontal line over a vowel to signify elongation of its sound) those 12 letters become a beautiful language that flows like lava.
How?
Read longer words slowly, and you’ll notice that syllables are often repeated, sometimes with the glottal stop between them. Try sounding things out, and you’ll learn to lose yourself in the scenery instead of the print. Things are pronounced just as they look; there are no silent letters in Hawaiian. Try the state fish, for example:
humuhumunukunukuapua’a
Because we’ve practiced it, and broke down the word for her, my three year old can say it like a pro. So can you. Here’s how it goes:
Humu
humu
nuku
nuku
apu
a
a
And although English and Hawaiian are the official languages of Hawai’i, the only place where Hawaiian is spoken as an everyday language is on Ni’ihau, a private island that is inaccessible to just about everyone. So as long as you’re traveling with a healthy dose of aloha, and you’re willing to drive a little slower (a good thing!) all those “apostrophes” will pose no threat. (Confidentially, it’s the dipthongs you have to watch out for, but that’s another post.)
2 Comments
Judy;
First of all welcome to b5. I am also a resident of Hawaii (well at least for part of the year) when I’m not in Tokyo.
This post reminds me of all the tourists that call Likelike (lickey-lickey) highway (like-like) as in “I like you”. Or, how when a relative of ours decided that he really like Poke (po-ke) and said it like he wanted a poke in the eye. Good memories – thanks for making me chuckle!
[...] choice bits that you might recognize while you’re in the land of aloha. Check out some of the basic rules of Hawaiian pronunciation first, and remember: the Hawaiian language is not the same as [...]