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Eddie
Aloha
USA
29 Posts |
 Posted - 11/01/2006 : 11:50:44 AM
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I heard this song many years ago with vocals and chorus (choir?) It's a beautiful song rarely heard and found only one hit on mele.com but that's not the one. Anyone know of a recording with the vocals? Also, is it Tahitian or possibly Samoan? I don't think it's Hawaiian (no T in the Hawaiian alphabet ) I'd like to know the history of this song.
Please excuse if OT as it's not slack and it's not Hawaiian.
Thanks for any help
Eddie
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Reid
Ha`aha`a
Andorra
1526 Posts |
Posted - 11/02/2006 : 03:13:52 AM
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OK, this is not really an answer to your question, but a peripheral comment. There *is* a T in sung and spoken Hawaiian. Lots of songs use it (Sarah knows many), and, of course, on Ni`ihau, T is is used more often in speech than K. There doesn't seem to be any consistant rule about using the T in song, except when it sounds good. Ni`ihauan's use of T is pretty consistant (K is also used). We have a video from `Aha Punana Leo in which Tuti Kanahele speaks with a saddle maker on Ni`ihau and it is really cool to listen to it.
...Reid |
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thumbstruck
Ahonui
USA
2165 Posts |
Posted - 11/02/2006 : 05:46:59 AM
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| It's time for the world to recognize that the Hawaiian language deserves the use of "t", "s", and "v" and not be hampered by the well meaning but philologistically untrained missionaries that tried to transcribe the spoken language almost 200 years ago. |
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RWD
`Olu`olu
USA
850 Posts |
Posted - 11/02/2006 : 05:58:17 AM
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Thumbstruck made me crack open a dictionary  |
Bob |
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Reid
Ha`aha`a
Andorra
1526 Posts |
Posted - 11/02/2006 : 07:16:57 AM
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Actually, I am more upset about the loss of the R (actually, the sound was somewhere between R and L, much like some French dialects). However, this whole topic used to bother me more than it does now - after I read "The Voices of Eden" by Albert Schutz, UH Press, it impressed me that the missionaries really did try hard and did the best they could, after much argument, and they made some good decisions. It is exceedingly hard to represent sounds in a previously unwritten language using the Latin Alphabet; it can't even handle English well. English lost the "thorn", a symbol for one of the "th" sounds, among lots of others that you can think up, like "rough" vs. "though", various "soft" g sounds, or c variants, etc. I won't even mention all the various Southern dipthongs, y`all :-)
...Reid
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thumbstruck
Ahonui
USA
2165 Posts |
Posted - 11/03/2006 : 2:47:59 PM
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Language is fluid. Up here in the Great NW, we lack some of the vowells in Standard Americanese--
"caught" and "cot" come out the same. Blame it on the Canadians, eh. In my Mom's dialect of Swedish, the "r" was said so hard, lots of the soft "l" came out as "r". Change does happen. Halloween no longer has an apostophe between the "e"s and tomorrow is no longer hyphenated. "Thru" is becoming more common. Spell the Hawaiian words with a "t", "r", "s", "v" and get the ball rolling.
BTW,My opinion and $3 will get you a latte. |
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Eddie
Aloha
USA
29 Posts |
Posted - 11/04/2006 : 2:19:38 PM
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quote:
Spell the Hawaiian words with a "t", "r", "s", "v" and get the ball rolling.
BTW,My opinion and $3 will get you a latte.
"The Hawaiian language was an oral tradition. The Hawaiian alphabet (piapa), was written by 19th century missionaries. The alphabet contains 12 letters: 5 vowels (a, e, i, o, u) and 7 consonants (h, k, l, m, n, p, w)."
http://www.alternative-hawaii.com/alpha.htm
I see no "T" on this consonant list. I checked out many other websites re: this subject. None even mentioned the "T"
Eddie |
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thumbstruck
Ahonui
USA
2165 Posts |
Posted - 11/05/2006 : 06:27:49 AM
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| Dey can say'em but dey no can spell'em. |
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Reid
Ha`aha`a
Andorra
1526 Posts |
Posted - 11/05/2006 : 08:25:55 AM
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Gee, I wonder what we will do with that famous song, "Tewe Tewe", or all the people with a Tutu (or songs by that name by Queen Lili`uokalani and Dennis Kamakahi). And speaking of Lili`uokalani, do we ignore that troublesome `okina, which is, without a doubt, a consonant?
Standards Committees very often produce compromises that ignore Reality, and Reality, in turn, ignores Standards Committees.
Betamax, 7-bit ASCII, EBCDIC, anyone?
...Reid |
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Eddie
Aloha
USA
29 Posts |
Posted - 11/05/2006 : 12:39:16 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Reid
Gee, I wonder what we will do with that famous song, "Tewe Tewe", or all the people with a Tutu (or songs by that name by Queen Lili`uokalani and Dennis Kamakahi). And speaking of Lili`uokalani, do we ignore that troublesome `okina, which is, without a doubt, a consonant?
Could it be possible that they are foreign words? The "W" for example does not exist in the Spanish language, but yet there are Spanish words with the "W" in them. However they are foreign words.
Languages tend to borrow foreign words. "Merci" means thank you in Farsi, yet it is clearly a French word.
But I've been known to occasionally be wrong, lol.
Eddie
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Reid
Ha`aha`a
Andorra
1526 Posts |
Posted - 11/05/2006 : 1:14:59 PM
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The words I mentioned foreign words; the `okina a foreign consonant, Eddie? Not a chance. There *are* lots of foreign loan words (actually it was fashionable to use English words accurately, too, in songs in one era, as "kiss", "dewdrop", "goodbye", "never mind") as in any language, but not these.
...Reid
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Sarah
`Olu`olu
571 Posts |
Posted - 11/06/2006 : 07:24:05 AM
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Aloha e Eddie,
You can check out this page for a brief explanation of the T sound in Hawaiian:
http://home.unilang.org/wiki3/index.php/Hawaiian_alphabet_and_pronunciation
And you can check out the authoritative text "Hawaiian Grammar" by Samuel Elbert (same Elbert of the Elbert & Pukui Dictionary).
Hawaiian is a very old language with a number of regional differences. What made it into the missionaries' encapsulation of the sounds, the current alphabet, was a compromise to incorporate the most widespread usages. At a minimum, the T, R and G sounds still exist in chants handed down through the centuries, as well as the very established use of T in some dialects.
It has been explained that since the T and K sounds were "indistinguishable" to the Hawaiian ear, they used them interchangeably. In other words, for instance, to their ear the words "kau" and "tau" meant the same thing. As they are not indistinguishable to the ear brought up with western languages, western orthographers wrestled with how to settle on which letter to use, to make teaching of reading and writing easier. This did not stop the sounds from being uttered, just from them being officially written. You can read something about this at Wikipedia.
There is also a story that when Prince Liholiho was asked how he would spell his name, he said "R-I-H-O-R-I-H-O." And it is written that way on an old portrait of him.
And in modern Hawaiian, the 'okina is definitely a letter, a consonant, and the last letter in the alphabet. The modern Hawaiian dictionary, "Mamaka Kaiao," has entries alphabetically according to the Hawaiian alphabet, so all the words starting with A come first, and those starting with an 'okina come at the end of the book.
Hawaiian also underwent "standardization" in the modern era. Older examples of Hawaiian writing (newspapers of the 19th century, for example) will not show 'okina or kahako, but will show the use of B and S as well. In the second half of the 20th century, however, an effort at collection and standardization was made, and new official orthography was decided upon. That is what is now taught, and has been taught, in schools ever since. Interestingly, one can find writers now who are deliberately reverting to the older way of writing, perhaps feeling it is more authentic, or maybe because it is easier to do on a keyboard lacking special characters.
aloha,
Sarah |
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