rantlust

Posted by anupcs on February 24th 2007 in Language
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The word seems almost impossible to pronounce at first glance, but it’s not as hard as it looks. The official state fish of Hawaii (English name: reef triggerfish) is not a big fish and it’s often said, half jokingly, that the fish is smaller than its Hawaiian name spelled out.

The Hawaiian language didn’t have alphabets until the missionaries landed on the islands. They studied the vernacular and decided that it can be represented by all the vowels (A, E, I, O, U) and only seven consonants (H, K, L, M, N, P, W). With the exception of W, the consonants are pronounced just like in English. W is pronounced like a V if it comes after an E or I. As for the vowels: A is pronounced as in Ah if stressed or above if not stressed; E is pronounced as in bay if stressed or gent if not stressed; I is pronounced as in bee; O is pronounced as in hose; and U is pronounced as in stew. Once you have the phonetics down pat, the language becomes much easier to pronounce.

The long Hawaiian words often have repeating patterns that make it easier to remember and pronounce once you break it down. Let’s try to do this with the fish name. Humu is pronounced twice as hoo-moo. Nuku is pronounced twice as noo-koo. A is pronounced once as ah. Pu is pronounced once as poo. A’a is pronounced as ah-ah (the apostrophe acts as a glottal stop or pause between syllables). Now say it out loud: hoo-moo hoo-moo noo-koo noo-koo ah poo ah ah. Not so hard now, is it?