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Pupule
USA
4551 Posts |
 Posted - 07/09/2012 : 6:15:43 PM
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Some interesting content at www.traditionalhawaiian.com. There is comparative discussion of Hawaiian language in the speech of second language learners and native speakers. There is also an audio clip of native speaker Tūtū Annie Kealoha Kauhane.
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Russell Letson
`Olu`olu
USA
504 Posts |
Posted - 07/10/2012 : 06:25:21 AM
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This is an interesting issue, part linguistic and part cultural-political. I haven't had the time to follow up on the long article, but I wonder whether Keao NeSmith compares the development of Neo-Hawaiian to the resurrection and adoption of Hebrew as the official language of Israel. I suspect there are similar issues at play. For example, how closely does modern Israeli Hebrew follow the Hebrew of the Jewish scriptures? What was the range of scriptural/ritual Hebrew and how did it interact with the secular local languages of the Jewish populations that spread from the Middle East and North Africa through Europe from Spain to Russia?
How uniform was pre-Contact Hawaiian? It was distributed across a chain of islands, which would encourage a range of dialects. (When we stayed in Denmark thirty-some years ago, we heard stories of severe dialect differences just across the width of the Jutland peninsula. The Wikipedia article lists four groups of ten dialects of Danish across Jutland.) Which variety of pre-Contact Hawaiian was the basis of the modern version? What was the effect of writing on the language, particularly given the presence of phonetic/phonemic features that can't be easily represented in printed English? Then there are the problems that all languages face: how to absorb or adapt loan-words, how to name new objects and activities, how to react to internal and external forces that push changes in pronunciation, usage, and vocabulary. Because living languages don't sit still, and even the Academie Francaise can't stop le hamburger. |
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hwnmusiclives
`Olu`olu
USA
580 Posts |
Posted - 07/10/2012 : 09:26:44 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Russell Letson
What was the effect of writing on the language, particularly given the presence of phonetic/phonemic features that can't be easily represented in printed English?
Just dealing with this issue alone, it has been well documented that the missionaries who first attempted to put the Hawaiian language into writing greatly simplified what had only been spoken previously. That is why there are only 13 letters in the Hawaiian alphabet (the 12 letters we recognize from the Latin alphabet plus the 'okina). The missionaries responsible for commiting this language to paper decided to make their lives easier by eliminating certain "functionally redundant interchangeable letters." Those who have studied linguistics can guess what these are. For all intents and purposes, a "V" and an "F" are formed the same way in the mouth, as are a "B" and a "P." (In both cases, one is aspirated and the other is not.) So it is easy to understand, perhaps, why "F" and "B" were ditched. But why keep "K" and eliminate "T?" Why keep "L" and lose "R?" In fact, they went so far as to represent both the "S" sound and the "T" sound with a "K" on paper.
This is why you still hear native speakers - and some singers - harken back to the old ways and pronounce words written on the paper with a "K" with one of the other sounds. "To ma'i ho'eu'eu" instead of "Ko ma'i ho'eu'eu". Or "Ha'ina ia mai ana sapuana." It also explains the inconsisency in pronouncing a "W" alternately as a "W" or a "V." Yes, they are being sassy. But they are also recapturing the language the way it may have been heard once upon a time.
Not sure if it still true today, but 25 years ago you could still hear the "T" being used in the dialect spoken on Ni'ihau - never the "K." Chucky Boy Chock wrote entire compositions - entire CDs - using this dialect.
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malihini
Aloha
36 Posts |
Posted - 07/10/2012 : 09:52:15 AM
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Mahalo Nui Loa for this link. What a treasure trove for those of us trying to learn the Hawaiian language and history! This will keep me very busy for some time. :)
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www.traditionalhawaiian.com
