#40379
09/01/2001 2:04 AM
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#40380
09/01/2001 9:34 AM
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Japanese is another. Any vowel combination can occur and each takes two morae (beats): kao, ue, nai, ie, au, etc.; and each takes as long as a long vowel, so Oosaka and Tookyoo and Yokohama and Aomori are all four beats.
In Japanese you have to be careful not to make a semi-consonant glide between vowels: pairs like ia and iya can both occur and are quite distinct.
Swahili is like Japanese and the Polynesian languages in that groups like ai, au are disyllables, like any other vowel combination. Presumably then this is widespread in the Bantu family.
Some other languages don't have vowel combinations because they do always use glides. Philippine languages typically only have groups such as uwa, iya, a'a (with glottal stop).
Australian languages are (typically) similar but tend not to have glottal stops: so the two-vowel combination aa is a long vowel but otherwise they have glide-separated groups like awu, uwu, iyi, ayi.
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#40381
09/01/2001 10:14 AM
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#40382
09/01/2001 1:50 PM
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old hand
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Dipthong? Isn't that a woman's swimming suit even skimpier than a bikini?
How about Hawaiian?
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#40383
09/01/2001 4:06 PM
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Long post on basic Hawaiian language pronunciation, skip if not interested.General info in later half
Hawaiian has five vowels - a, e, i, o, u, and eight consonants h,k,l,m,n,p,w and '(an okina)
The okina, a glottal stop is a *real consonant sound like all the others. It should be written as leaving it out is like omiting a k or a p or any other letter and the word will be misspelled. In English this sound occurs as a break between the two "O"s as in "Oh-Oh, here comes the boss!"
All vowels have a long and short form. The sound does not change; only the length is different. The length mark, which goes above the vowel aeiou is callled a kahako (long o) or a mekona (macron.) Sorry I do not have the capability to make the macron over the aeiou cited.
It should be enunciated or written whenever it occurs because omitting it changes the pronunciation and often the meaning of the word.
Two other sounds occur in Hawaiian that do not change the meaning of the word. These sounds ae the "w" and the "y" glides that are automaticcally produced between certain vowel combinations.
Hawaiian has only two kinds of syllables V (Vowel) or CV (consonant+vowel) and combinations of these two syllables.
Hawaiian words never have two consonants together and they never end with a consonant.
The ' okina is a consonant so it can never go next to another consonant or at the end of a word.
With words of fewer than four syllables, the stress is on the second to last (penultimate) syllable.
I could go on and on .... the above is from "Ka Lei Ha'aheo" (beginning Hawaiian) by Alberta Pualani Hopkins. Pub. University of Hawai'i Press Copyright 1992
A teacher's Guide and Answer Key to the "Ka Lei Ha'aheo" is part of the "set" by same publisher.
For further information about pronunciation see Pukui and Elbert Hawaiian Dictionary" (1986, pp xvii-xviii and Sylvia Kamana The Hawaiian Language, Its Spelling and Pronunciation."
General info
My Hawaiian friends noted that in spoken Hawaiian every syllable is pronounced.
Further the Hawaiian friends -- mostly native speakers (Hawaiian as a first language)-- tell me that the Boston accent "... is the kindest to the Hawaiian language."
This may be attributed to the fact that the Hawaiian language was first written down by American missionary folk ... all of the early one came from the Boston area and so heard the spoken language with a "Boston ear!"
At least that is the theory.
Before the missionary contingent wrote down the Hawaiian language there was no written language.
Once the language was written the King said everyone should learn to write the language and, according to scholars, the entire population was 95 percent literate in the written language within a year.
Note : The real okina ' looks like the single quote when properly written. My computer does not have it but when I wrote for the Hawaiian newspaper "Ka Wai Ola O OHA" (The living Waters of OHA) the computer had the proper okina available. However the macron we had to put in, very carefully - with an extra sharp felt tip pen - in galleys before the pages went to the printer. (a tricky manuever!) I understand that since my time at the Office of Hawaiian Affairs the macron has been made part of the program.
So, the name of the Hawaiian Island on which Honolulu is located (O'ahu) is properly pronounced O-ah-hoo and, please, note that Honolulu is Honolulu not the usually heard Hon-uh-lulu. Thank you.
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#40384
09/01/2001 9:13 PM
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#40385
09/01/2001 10:08 PM
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re meaning of Honolulu ---
Pukui Elbert Hawaiian Dictionary ( the accepted authority) notes that Hono with big H means:
" nvi -Bay, gulch, valley (as part of a place name as in Honolulu)"
The word hono, small h, means
1."to stitch, sew, mend, patch, a joining as of mountains
2. n.- back of the neck, brow of a cliff.
3. n. Rite at the end of kapu loulu rituals during which chiefs sat without shifting positions while a kahuna prayed for as long as an hour.
lulu : "calm, peace, shelter,lee, protection, shield, shelter, cloak, to lie at anchor; to be calm, to shield
honolulu with small h is: to lie quietly in calm waters, as a ship in port; to be calm , to gather together,. etc"
In Hawai'i Honolulu is generally accepted among Native Hawaiians to mean (loosely translated into English) :
"The Gathering Place."
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#40386
09/01/2001 10:16 PM
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#40387
09/02/2001 4:22 PM
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old hand
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So are you guys implying that Maaori and Hawaiian are basically the same language just spelled slightly differently? Or are they just very similar, like Dutch and German? Can it be assumed that "native" Hawaiians came from the New Zealand neighborhood? And what exactly is this macron you're talking about? I know you talked about it before, but I fell asleep in class. 
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#40388
09/02/2001 4:39 PM
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Trustees from the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) made a trip to visit Maori and discovered they can understand each other pretty well when each speaking their own language. There is evidence that some early Hawaiians came from "The Land of the Long Cloud" (NZ) Imagine! Over that distance, in outrigger canoes with just stars and tides as a guide! The macron is a short line over a letter to elongate the sound. That's why Max Q uses Maaori - because we have no macron and seeing Maori doesn't lend itself to the long a pronunciation which a macron would make clear. Oh, dear! Am I being clear? (muddled thinking-e) Macron and okina explained, in depth, in earlier post. (huge west-of-Ireland sigh)
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#40389
09/02/2001 4:55 PM
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James Mitchner's book "Hawaii" is a good read and the opening tells of how the islands were formed by volcano eruptions from the ocean floor.
Another book, much regarded in Hawaii is Gavan Dawes book "Shoal of Time" sub titled "A History of the Hawaiian Islands". which begins with Captain Cook's "discovery" (ahem*) of the islands. Published by The University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 1968, still in print.
ISBN is 0-8248-0324-8. The paperback published by arrangement with The MacMillan Company.
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#40390
09/02/2001 7:17 PM
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#40391
09/02/2001 7:29 PM
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#40392
09/03/2001 1:02 AM
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Alert : Might not be the post for those with no interest in Hawaiians and MaoriAs an interesting aside, the Northern Cook Islands are almost exactly equidistant from Hawaii and Aotearoa.Ahhh, now that interest me. Perhaps they went there first and from there to Hawaii? I spent some time browsing through my Hawaiiana but didn't find anything off hand ...but a mid-point voyage then to Hawaii seems logical ?? Food for thought. Max : To save others from further maundering by me on this subject, I will Email you with anything I run across ... after I pay the bills, straighten the house after the long weekend, get to the bank, shop for groceries ... You get the idea (also known as : don't hold your breath.)  P.S. Geoff : you did ask...
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#40393
09/03/2001 1:29 AM
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Nicholas informs us that ...Oosaka and Tookyoo and Yokohama and Aomori are all four beats.
While the 'o' sounds may be long in Osaka and Tokyo, I would be hesitant to pronounce them as two separate letters as appears to be suggested. Tokyo is written in hiragana (the basic Japanese script) as to-o-kyo-o, but the individual 'o' adds length rather than a new sound. It should possibly take as long to pronounce as the others, but I query its 4-syllable pronounciation.
(I'm hoping I've interpreted the original post correctly and may well have no idea what I'm talking about. /disclaimer-e)
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#40394
09/03/2001 1:36 AM
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My understanding was that both early New Zealanders and early Hawaiians are descendant from a common ancestor (or group more likely). Archaeological evidence suggests that the Pacific Islands (such as the Cook Islands) were colonised well before both NZ and Hawaii.
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#40395
09/03/2001 1:55 AM
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#40396
09/03/2001 6:02 AM
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Wow, as one who has always appreciated your posts, may I hope that you and Max will keep this correspondence going on the public boards because I for one am finding it very interesting.
Max, I forget the details of Thor Heyerdahl's work (it was getting on for thirty years ago I read Kon Tiki (aka Kong tilde to Aenigma at least) but I thought his thesis was precisely that Easter Island had been settled by the island peoples crossing the Pacific before the Europeans reached it and that they were the ones who had raised the statues. What are you objecting to in that?
Bingley
Bingley
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#40397
09/03/2001 6:49 AM
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#40398
09/03/2001 8:29 AM
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While the 'o' sounds may be long in Osaka and Tokyo, I would be hesitant to pronounce them as two separate letters as appears to be suggested
No, I wasn't suggesting that: to clarify, Tookyoo is two syllables, Oosaka is three, and Aomori and Yokohama are four; but in Japanese the mora or beat is more important than the syllable. The first of a double consonant is also a beat: so Ni-p-po-n is four beats, same as Yokohama. (And it's three syllables because the final -n is a separately pronuncible syllable.)
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#40399
09/03/2001 8:48 AM
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The dispersal of the Polynesians is archaeologically fairly recent. One suggested starting point is Solomon Islands or northern New Guinea. Carbon dating shows the pattern of setlement of the islands - I have no details of dates or order to hand, but it was into the central Pacific first, and outlying lands like Aotearoa, Hawaii, and Tahiti later.
All Polynesian languages are very similar (note Fijian is linguistically Melanesian, not Polynesian). By applying the consonant shifts you can almost read them off as each other, it seems: certainly they have many many common words and grammatical constructions in common.
Some (like Maori, Hawaiian) have W and others (like Samoan, Tahitian) have V: wahine ~ vahine 'woman'. The Hawaiian W is actually more V-like before some vowels.
Some have H, others have S. The main island of Samoa is Savai'i, which is obviously the same name as Hawai'i and Hawaiki. Presumably S is the older form but I won't swear to it.
The original K of proto-Polynesian changed into the 'okina. Maori preserves the original three consonants K T P.
However this is complicated by the fact that in some languages T has changed to K. So Hawaiian now has K and ' but no T. This is true in normal Samoan speech too, though T is still used in writing. Samoa's head of state Malietoa Tanumafili is pronounced Maliekoa Kanumafili except in formal settings... according to my Teach Yourself Samoan. This indicates that the change happpened before Hawaiian was set down in writing, but after Samoan was.
The Polynesian family is part of a larger group called Austronesian (formerly called Malayo-Polynesian). This includes all the languages of Indonesia, the Philippines, Micronesia, and Melanesia (but not New Guinea) as well; and also Malagasy of Madagascar; and also the aboriginal (non-Chinese) languages of Taiwan.
Archaeological evidence is matched by linguistic evidence (common words for kinds of canoe, animal etc.) for the original homeland of Austronesian speakers as being in Taiwan. From there their spread down into the Philippines, into Indonesia, and across the Pacific (and in the case of Malagasy across the Indian Ocean) can be dated with somewhat more accuracy than old language movements usually can.
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#40400
09/03/2001 9:06 AM
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#40401
09/03/2001 4:17 PM
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I have remembered Hungarian also doesn't have diphthongs. The country names Ausztria and Francia, for example, have each of their vowels separate, as does the language name franciául 'French'.
--
I don't know ethnology. The island of Rotuma in the Fiji Islands has a Polynesian language.
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#40402
09/03/2001 4:26 PM
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Wow, and Max, I second bingley, this is a wonderful thread.. it is just what i like about language.. (it expands my breathe of knowledge, with out requiring me to really learn either Maaori or Hawaiian!)
I am not intereted in learn sanskit either, but love learning words, (like word!) that seem to go back eons, unchanged in meaning!
it is interesting how language and learning about it, helps us construct history.
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#40403
09/05/2001 4:32 AM
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Here's some more information about the Austronesian family with examples of some reconstructed word forms. http://www.indonesianheritage.com/Encyclopedia/Ancient_History/
Prehistory/Austronesian_Languages/austronesian_languages.html In the table near the bottom of the page, they give the forms in reconstructed Pan-austronesian, Rukai, Javanese, and Fijian. Max and wow, can we add Maaori and Hawaiian? PS. Sorry about the superwide post. If someone PMs me how to fix it, I'll gladly do so. Is that better? (Thanks wow)Bingley
Bingley
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#40404
09/05/2001 6:51 AM
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#40405
09/05/2001 11:11 AM
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huka
ah - a hobson-jobson phrase!
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#40406
09/05/2001 1:10 PM
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huka
Or -- it's the way sugar sounds to a Polynesian ear!
In Hawaii, many of the "new" words
brought to the Islands by Westerners
were simply adopted and adapted by the Hawaiians.
As, for example - nupepa (long u) is newspaper in Hawaiian.
and car = ka'a
Kalikimaka - Christmas
New Orleans - Nu 'Olina
(skipping to the M page -)
Micronesian - Maikonekia
Messiah - Mekia
Mexico - Mekiko with long i. --
(sounds much like I heard Mexicans
in Mexico pronounce Mexico!)
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#40407
09/05/2001 8:04 PM
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Anyone know Latin? When I have sung songs in Latin in choirs, I seem to remember being admonished by the director(s) to remember that Latin has pure vowels, not dipthongs like English.
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#40408
09/06/2001 2:14 AM
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veteran
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Latin does have diphthongs. Right off the top of my head:
ae as in caetera, Caesar
au as in haud
oe as in coelum
ua as in suaviter, ue as in Suetonious, but the 'u' is more like 'w', and partakes of the nature of a consonant
ua, ue, ui, uo as in any word after 'q', but this maybe a special case
ia, ie, io, iu but another special case, as the 'i' = 'j' and is more a consonant than a vowel.
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#40409
09/06/2001 2:41 AM
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#40410
09/06/2001 5:07 AM
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And the Indonesian equivalents:
two - rua -- dua
four - wha -- empat
five - rima -- lima
six - ono -- enam
eye - mata, kanohi -- mata
ear - taringa -- telinga
road - huarahi -- jalan
stone - poohatu,koohatu or whatu -- batu
canoe - waka -- prahu
headlice -kutu -- kutu
Bingley
Bingley
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#40411
09/06/2001 9:43 AM
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that Latin has pure vowels, not dipthongs like English
What this meant is that the long E and O are pure vowels [e:] and [o:], not diphthongs [ei] and [ou] as they are in English.
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#40412
09/06/2001 8:54 PM
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old hand
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headlice -kutu -- kutu
My brother is in the room with me and when I said this word out loud he thought I mean cooties. Could they possibly be related?
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#40413
09/07/2001 2:34 AM
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Thank you MaxQ and Bingley for the Maaori
and the Indonesian equivalents.
I am adding another equivalent, (in blue). It is from the main dialect spoken in the mid-southern group of Philippine islands called the Visayas. I was born in one of these islands so it is my mother tongue.
two ---rua -- dua--duha
four - wha -- empat--apat
five - rima -- lima--lima
six - ono -- enam----anum
eye - mata, kanohi -- mata----mata
ear - taringa -- telinga----talinga
road - huarahi -- jalan----dalan
stone - poohatu,koohatu or whatu ----batu----batu
canoe - waka -- prahu----paraw
headlice -kutu -- kutu----kutu
pandanus-------------------pandan
sugarcane------------------tubo
Thank you, Bingley, for the website on Austronesian languages, among others.
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#40414
09/07/2001 5:00 AM
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Sorry, Jazzo, what are cooties?
Bingley
Bingley
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#40415
09/07/2001 5:10 AM
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Indonesian:
pandanus pandan
sugarcane tebu
Bingley
Bingley
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#40416
09/07/2001 12:59 PM
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cooties are american slang for head lice. there is(or was?) even a kids game called cooties.. as you went around the board, you "earned" or "lost" body parts. the winner of the game was the first to amass and assemble a red plastic cootie bug..
the ultimate slur in 2nd grade is "You have cootie bugs".
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#40417
09/07/2001 7:37 PM
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>cooties. Could they possibly be related?
My dictionary says perhaps.
TEd
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#40418
09/10/2001 11:43 AM
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there is(or was?) even a kids game called cooties.. as you went around the board, you "earned" or "lost" body parts. the winner of the game was the first to amass and assemble a red plastic cootie bug..
In UK there used to be "Beetle Drives" where one assembled (or more often drew) bettles from parts assigned by throwing a die. If I remember correctly, 6 for the body to start so you could stick the rest on, 1 for a leg etc. First to finish won and moved on round the various tables. Popular in parish functions and the like for a while. I think we may still have a set of the plastic beetle home version somewhere!
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