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cpatch
Ahonui
USA
2187 Posts |
 Posted - 02/03/2003 : 4:17:12 PM
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Which is correct: Maunaloa or Mauna Loa? (If it makes a difference, this is for tunings?)
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Craig
My goal is to be able to play as well as people think I can. |
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Admin
Pupule
USA
4551 Posts |
Posted - 02/03/2003 : 9:42:55 PM
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| While we're at it, kanikapila or kani ka pila? Perhaps someone could give a little language lesson. What are the rules when it comes to combining words in the Hawaiian language? |
Andy |
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oaklandslacker
Aloha
China
47 Posts |
Posted - 02/04/2003 : 01:40:03 AM
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| Right on. Send him those guitar strings! :) |
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cmdrpiffle
`Olu`olu
USA
553 Posts |
Posted - 02/04/2003 : 02:02:44 AM
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Andy,
I concur, send INDY those guitar strings.
Nice to have a new voice. |
my Poodle is smarter than your honor student |
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Admin
Pupule
USA
4551 Posts |
Posted - 02/04/2003 : 09:56:53 AM
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| The judges have spoken. We have our first winner - Indy! |
Andy |
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Russell Letson
`Olu`olu
USA
504 Posts |
Posted - 02/04/2003 : 1:03:32 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by indy
Many british singers lose their accent when they sing, right? Why is that?
It seems to be neurological: singing doesn't originate in the same part of the brain as normal speech. Some people with brain damage that affects speech are still able to sing.
Or to look at it another way, if you want to get a language's "accent" right, think of it as music. I know that when I had to stumble along in Italian or Danish (in which I never had the kind of formal training I did for French), I could sound better than I really was because I could get many of the sounds right, even though my grammar and vocabulary were primitive.
Since those experiences, I've seen language learning as a two-part process: left-brainish acquisition of rules and vocabulary and right-brainish acquisition of the music (vowel and consonant values and arrangements of pitch, stress, and juncture, to put it in left-brain linguistic terms).
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Edited by - Russell Letson on 02/04/2003 1:04:50 PM |
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cpatch
Ahonui
USA
2187 Posts |
Posted - 02/04/2003 : 2:47:43 PM
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And while we're at it, is it 'TUH MAY TOE' or 'TUH MAH TOE'?
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Craig
My goal is to be able to play as well as people think I can. |
Edited by - cpatch on 02/04/2003 2:51:01 PM |
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Sarah
`Olu`olu
571 Posts |
Posted - 02/04/2003 : 2:59:08 PM
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Aloha käkou, eia ku'u wahi mana'o...
I think the tuning is spelled Mauna Loa.
I don't recall much mention of rules about joining words, but I've notice that they usually aren't, in "modern" orthography, whereas they often were, in older Hawaiian writings. There is, however, one current rule I do recall, where "ma mua" and "mamua" (and ma hope/mahope, ma uke/mauka, etc.) are used differently, and of course, I forget which is used when :-) Like Indy said, people will know what you mean, anyway. As he mentioned, back when the language was oral, it (word separation) wasn't an issue. In speaking we can give many clues as to what we mean, and furthermore, since the listener is right there, chances are he knows the larger context of what you're talking about. Once it gets gets to be a written language, minus expression and local context (people far away read it), it seems people like to have other conventions of writing, so the stuff that would otherwise get lost is conveyed.
There were a lot of Hawaiian language newspapers in the last century. The spelling conventions have been updated since then, however, including the more consistent use of 'okina and kahakö. Old writings didn't use them much at all, and even threw in apostrophes when two like vowels were elided (indicating one was dropped), as in nä'lii, which is nä ali'i said fast.
For a long time, 'o ia was spelled as one word, 'oia. But, in current writing, it is separated. Same with a i 'ole (used to appear ai'ole). Also, the passivizing particle 'ia. That used to be connected to the end of the word in question, but is now printed as a separate word. There are quite a few other examples.
However, I still see variations. Kind of like when in English you see "all right" and "alright" -- the former being correct but the latter being accepted and understood.
Sarah
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oaklandslacker
Aloha
China
47 Posts |
Posted - 02/04/2003 : 5:09:33 PM
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Two things that might be worth saying, I'm interested in languages (in a really nerdy kind of way)
1) Yeah, Honolulu is generally not pronounced in the Hawaiian way. The same way San Francisco usually isn't pronounced in the Spanish way - it was improperly adapted into English, when maybe non-locals weren't so interested in the local language. There's a bunch of other words like that - haole and poke are usually pronounced with an "ee" instead of an "eh" sound, the way they would be in proper Hawaiian.
2) There is no such thing as genuine Hawaiian spelling, because Hawaiian writing is an American invention. Since Hawaiian writing is a transliteration of a spoken language that maintains a steady rhythm per syllable, and where syllables don't (in theory) change pronunciation depending where they are in a word, spaces aren't necessary, but are there to make it more like English writing. So maunaloa and mauna loa are the same thing, just one's made easier for American eyes, and one isn't.
Maybe it's interesting, maybe not: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, & others, don't have spaces in their writing. They (especially Japanese & Korean) have a very similar working of their syllables, and don't need it.
So I hope this subject isn't *too* beat to death :) |
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marzullo
`Olu`olu
USA
923 Posts |
Posted - 02/04/2003 : 7:26:42 PM
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hi indy,
yep, there's lots of mispronounced japanese words - my favorite is how americans pronounce "bonsai" as "banzai" (tiny pine trees in suicide dives into coffee tables??) but, that's ignorant americans trying to speak japanese. italians trying to pronounce english words is even more fun (eg, "Colgate" comes out "cole-gah-tee" and "CIA" is "chee-ah").
it is sort of fun, though how hawaiians english up some place names. eg, "ka'anapali" comes out "kay-na-pali" all the time (i once put in the glottal stop when talking with a well-known hawaiian recording artist who knows the lahaina area well, and he said "you mean kay-na-pali?")
on the other hand, i was grumbling to a friend about how "makee", as in "hula o makee", is pronounced "mah-key" which i thought was weird (not "mah-kaay"?) and he pointed out that makee is a haole name.
i'm still trying to learn how to sing "ha'ina mai ana kapuana" without making it "ma'i", which i've been told is a nasty thing to say in a song.
keith
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Sarah
`Olu`olu
571 Posts |
Posted - 02/05/2003 : 09:24:56 AM
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Howzabout if we all make a pact to say "Honolulu", and "`ukulele", instead of Hanalulu and yewkoolaylee?
:-)
Sarah |
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Russell Letson
`Olu`olu
USA
504 Posts |
Posted - 02/05/2003 : 12:04:45 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by oaklandslacker
Since Hawaiian writing is a transliteration of a spoken language that maintains a steady rhythm per syllable, and where syllables don't (in theory) change pronunciation depending where they are in a word, spaces aren't necessary, but are there to make it more like English writing.
But aren't there signals in spoken Hawaiian that allow words to be distinguished from each other? In my ancient linguistics training, this would probably be "juncture," the variable pauses between syllables. In English and other European languages, "zero juncture" is the within-the-word, syllable-to-syllable juncture, and the word-from-word distinguisher is "normal juncture." Since Hawaiian seems to include compounding in its machineries, I would think that there are junctures (though perhaps with different time values) that allow words to be perceived as individual or part of a compound--or sentences to be separated.
Writing systems don't necessarily reproduce all the significant features of a spoken language--if you look at some ancient Latin documents, you'll also see no divisions between words. It's a scribal thing <g>.
As for Honolulu and `ukulele, it's probably a lost cause trying to get Americans to manage pure vowels in any language, between our tendency to turn them into diphthongs (glides) or to schwa them (push them toward the general-vowel-grunt "uh" sound) if they're in a syllable that would be unstressed in English. I get funny looks when I talk about "Djahngo" Reinhardt, even among Django (rhymes with "bang-o") fans.
R. (also nerdily, even neurotically, interested in languages) |
Edited by - Russell Letson on 02/05/2003 12:07:45 PM |
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hapakid
Luna Ho`omalu
USA
1533 Posts |
Posted - 02/06/2003 : 12:50:33 AM
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What a cool discussion. It is obvious that there are a lot of people here who love `olelo Hawai`i, even if a lot of other howlees go to Hahnahloulou to sing carry-okee with yukuhlaylees.
me ke aloha pumehana,
Jesse |
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Sarah
`Olu`olu
571 Posts |
Posted - 02/06/2003 : 10:50:22 AM
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quote:
originally posted by Russell Letson
But aren't there signals in spoken Hawaiian that allow words to be distinguished from each other? In my ancient linguistics training, this would probably be "juncture," the variable pauses between syllables. In English and other European languages, "zero juncture" is the within-the-word, syllable-to-syllable juncture, and the word-from-word distinguisher is "normal juncture." Since Hawaiian seems to include compounding in its machineries, I would think that there are junctures (though perhaps with different time values) that allow words to be perceived as individual or part of a compound--or sentences to be separated.
Aloha e Russell,
You had a really interesting question there. It prompted me to look in Elbert and Pukui's "Hawaiian Grammar" and found something about that. That book is, as far as I know, pretty much the most complete and definitive book on the grammar and structure of the language. I haven't studied linguistics, but I find it a great resource; it's the only grammar text I've read cover-to-cover twice (with innumerable consultations inbetween!).
There are about 12 pages devoted to the topics of Consonants, Vowels, Word Stress, Junctures, Stress In Phrases and Sentences, Pitch Levels, and Natural Fast Speech.
Can't quote it all, but a few salient things might be of interest:
from Junctures: (4 types of juncture are identified: sentence, question, phrase, and stress group -- note no word juncture)
"The pause between stress groups (called a plus juncture) within words is...the least prominent [juncture]." (p.18)
from Stress In Phrases and Sentences:
"The stress patterns of words usually extend to the phrases in which they are used (a phrase is a base and its modifiers). Phrases are usually (but not always) separated by junctures of some kind." (p.18)
from Word Stress:
"In some long proper names, the breakup according to component words differs from the breakup according to stress groups" -- i.e., the discernable stress groups frequently include more than one word. (p.16)
from Natural Fast Speech:
"...in Hawaiian there are many changes of vowel values, losses of vowels, and stress changes." (p.22)
The way I read it, it seems that while something like a zero juncture (I'm not familiar with the term) exists, it is not consistently present between all words, and it is overpowered by stress patterns, which seem to be the key to understanding and separating the meaning of sequential content phrases. Given the use of particles which have grammatical significance but no independent meaning, it seems possible to me that the distinction between words might be less important to the listener than the distinction between phrases (a base and its modifiers), in that there is where the meaning lies.
The point is also made that older writings not using any indication of stress (the kahakö) and rarely using the 'okina are open to a raft of different translations, whether the words are written strung together or separated by spaces, because the stresses could go in any number of different places (p.11,15).
What I get from all this is that in both oral and written Hawaiian, stress is essential to understanding, while separation of words is not.
Any thoughts?
aloha,
Sarah |
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Russell Letson
`Olu`olu
USA
504 Posts |
Posted - 02/06/2003 : 11:34:26 AM
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Sarah--Thanks for the peek into Elbert & Pukui. I'd forgotten the term "plus juncture," but some of my coursework from 30+ years ago is dribbling back. The notation system I learned used the + to indicate the interword juncture, with "zero degree" juncture (that is, no discernable pause) between syllables of a word.
Actually, much of what you report from E&P applies to English or the other European languages I've studied--though it sounds like Hawaiian is more agglutinative than most European languages (sounds like a pudding, don't it?), which would reduce the importance of plus juncture relative to stress or other features.
The other thing that affects all this is setting--in English, there are situations (or local or social dialects) in which we run words and phrases together, and others (usually formal/public occasions) where we distinguish them more strongly. I wonder how much the enunciation of chanters (while chanting) differs from that of their conversational speech.
The nice thing about descriptive linguistics is that it's rooted in physiology--there are only so many things the vocal apparatus can do, but the ways we select and arrange the options are endless.
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