Okina and Kahako: Why I Don’t Use Them
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 ก.ย. 2024
- Aloha hou mai! This week, I'm back with a hot topic: the use of okina and kahako in written Hawaiian. In this video, I touch upon the reasons why I don’t use them when I write, and why I choose not to use them when teaching my students.
There are many symbols for English that represent sounds made in that language. I encourage you to look into the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) to learn more. Even though this writing system exists, most native speakers of English don’t use it and probably don’t even know of its existence.
Olelo Hawaii is full of rich sounds and nuances that can be heard among native speakers from Hawaii to Niihau. The okina (glottal stop) and kahako (macron-long vowel) are just two symbols that are currently used in modern written Hawaiian to represent sounds in the language. This is an incomplete system. Far more symbols should be proposed to accurately represent spoken Hawaiian among native speakers.
In the video, I give an example of the place name, Waimea. Currently, there is no symbol to denote that the “ai” sound is not pronounced like “y” in English. Similarly, the “ai” in the word laila (there) is pronounced like the “ei” or “i” sound in Hawaiian among most native speakers. Again, no symbols exist to represent these nuanced sounds.
The other option, the better option in my opinion is to use the original orthography of the Hawaiian language. That means, not okina or kahako. That’s how my kupuna wrote and I have made a conscious decision to follow them.
If you want to learn good, proper pronunciation, you must LISTEN to native speakers. No amount of reading with or without the okina and kahako will get you there. Let’s remember that Hawaiian is an oral tradition, the spoken word must be prioritized.
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That last point about it being faster to write and text, I totally feel that lmao. I kaʻu kakau ana, aohe kahako a okina, no ka mea, loihi ke kakau lima. Moloa au. Aka, ina e ao aku, loaa ke kahako me okina.
The only times where apostrophe are absolutely necessary are with the possessive 'my' and 'I/me' words. Otherwise, no need.
Mahalo nui loa iaoe nau hana maikai!
Aia keia ia oe. Ke au ao aku i kekahi haumana, puana au i kela me keia hua olelo. Pela oia e maopopo ai ia ia ka puana ana. Pela no hoi au i ao ai. Hoolohe aku la i ka poe na lakou ka olelo ma o ka lola (recording). Clinton Kanahele Collection, Ka Leo Hawaii, me ka Oral History Collection.
The original orthography made use of the apostrophe (') and a dash (-) for different reasons but not consistently. Often times that ka'u/kau (mine) wasn't distinguished. pretty interesting to read those newspaper.
mahalo nui ia oe no keia hui walaau ana o kaua🤙
Mahalo for this! I think you could make an argument for using diacritics on street signs and maps too. Would help folks with pronunciation when they aren't familiar with a place, and help preserve the integrity of our inoa aina. They could also be used stylistically in things like poetry to emphasize certain aspects of pronunciation.
One small thing, the ipa was designed to describe all the sounds in all the world's languages, not just english!
I know. I was just only comparing it to English because most students of the language come from English.
Like I said with Waimea, there are no symbols that exist to help with its pronunciation. Even in a common word like “kakou,” speaker of the language fail to pronounce the ‘u’ or the ‘ou’ sound comes out as ‘ow’ sound as in “cow.”
Those are just 2 common ones that I hear mispronounced, not only by beginners, but speakers of Hawaiian as well.
Omitting those 2 letters is no big deal for manaleo, when the rest catch up they can do the same. Going further the use of the English alphabet standardizing the Polynesian languages is a kerfuffle with wh = f/ nga = g/ w = ua. Uahine, Wahine, Vahine. Spell it according to how you speak it. If I want to say Ka Uai/Ka Wai over Ka Vai then spell it accordingly for the benefit of the reader, I'm making a mountain out of a mole hill
😆mole hill. Hawaiians wanted a written form of the language. Consequently, we have one of, if not the largest depositories of written material in Polynesian. So that's a success in and of itself. I just think, we should keep that original orthography. If a better one is proposed in the future we can have that conversation.
Manaleo is not a correct term for a native speaker it should be poʻe kuakahi
@@pirateofthepacific9687 you'll have to take that up with Larry & Pila
I always struggled with using okina and kahako when writing olelo Hawaii growing up. Now I am making the conscious effort not to use them because my ohana is from Niihau, and the Niihau dialect has never used okina or kahako. My dad made the decision when he started studying olelo Hawaii again, and he inspired me to do the same.
Now my dad and I text each other in Hawaiian sometimes like this... occasionally if I text others they'll point out a "missing" okina or kahako, but usually they don't mind. If they _do_ find fault with it, it gives me a really wonderful opportunity to share more about the dialect my kupuna have used, and the difference between native speakers and "university" speakers.
This video makes clear sense to you then. Mentors of mine that had tutu around know this exact experience you've shared. It's a unique one, unfortunately, nowadays. Mahalo.
It seems like you have a very level headed approach when the topic comes up. That's admirable. I'm on that side of being open to conversations. I have many disagreements with people and can still have relationships with them. It's not the end of the world.
Mahalo no kou manao Palala.
Mahalo no hoi ia oe
Kakoo! moloa wau e kakau ia mau mea😂
😆He kumu no kela e kakau ole ai
Another great video! Really appreciated the part about other sounds such as “ma leila/lila” and the reduction of the ‘a’ in Waimea. I’ve been trying to get accustomed to these types of pronunciations through listening to resources like the Clinton Kanahele tapes. I also noticed others like maika’i often becoming ‘meike’i’ and wau almost becoming 'wou.' I’d love a video going deeper into some of these patterns and where/when they commonly occur.
Mahalo! Well I give you props for putting in the time to listen to that collection. Only 20 recording, but packed full of knowledge. Keep doing that!
You are 100% right with "meikei" and "wou." I mentioned this in another comment, but what you're experiencing with the spoken word allows you to hear my take on okina and kahako. You've heard the spoken word, and the written word doesn't accurately represent it. That's okay, but it's invaluable to know that distinction.
Really appreciate you sharing🤙
I think for native speakers or 2nd language speakers that have been around native speakers, they feel out of place because their olelo can seem to others as grammatically incorrect when thats how they heard and say it. So your manao is pono, new speakers need to speak and not be shame to olelo, because olelo is making a comeback and i appreciate kakou a pau even malihini taking time to learn and apply it to their ola. I was in the store the other day and this kepani wahine olelo mai, "E kala mai" and i had to do a double take 👀👀 had to make sure the olelo was coming from her 😂😂😂😂 but I mahalo her for speaking my olelo Kupuna. so e na kanaka me na poe olelo hawaii, E olelo MAU! MAU ana kakou 🤙🏽🤙🏽
I think we get side tracked with the over emphasis on written language. I don't know about other Hawaiians, I started learning because I wanted to SPEAK my kupuna's language. Writing was secondary in my mind.
I'm glad you said that part about encouraging people to speak. I want our people to learn and speak. Mahlihini can too and those who have know their place but I am completely supportive. Intentions are important though. Some people use olelo as a party trick yeah. I don't support that.
Top-notch production! I engage with mostly mainland ukulele people who say "you-ka-lay-lee" so I try to use the okina when possible to remind them that I intend the Hawaiian pronunciation. Otherwise, even at my low level olelo I tend to omit, if only to annoy the institution people! 🙂 FWIW, I get smashed sports announcer vibes from your vocal processing. Maybe less compressor/limiter next time? 🤙
You may be annoying people if you omit it, but I don't mind 😆. For the compressor/limiter, what part of the vid are you thinking of or is it the whole video?
@@kaalala The whole thing sounds pretty slammed to my ears. I always struggle with lavs, but happy to kokua if I can. Feel free to reach out.
@@kaalala Low priority. No one else probably notices, but something to maybe revisit if you're using a preset. I'm an anal sound type, kala mai
Ola mau ka olelo Kupuna ✊❤️
Do you teach online olelo classes?
Yes. Check out the link in the description. I do online tutorials too for people who prefer to meet and work one on one.
How will people learn from books when the last native Hawaiian speaker will have died? Of course best will be to learn from audio or video to train your ear, but what about people who learn by reading? I think youʻre very wrong about stripping the diacritics. Youʻre not helping people who want to learn how to pronounce Hawaiian words properly without the help of someone who would pronounce them. First off, itʻs not Waimea but "Vaimea". About Laila/Lila, same can be transposed in English, weʻll never have a teacher teach that itʻs Vetchtable and not Ve-ge-table. The Phonetics writing system does it. You can use phonetics to write Laila spoken as Lila. Take a 95-year-old Hawaiian speaker (if they still exist), and give him a sentence from one of those old newspapers without the context and heʻll be lost. Put the diacritics on and we get more meaning and more accurate pronunciation out of it. The ʻokina and kahakō is indeed an incomplete system to represent the oral language ; Yet it is far more precise than to not use them. Also, itʻs not because diacritics do not render the full picture of the Hawaiian oral language that we should stop using them. Donʻt think people will get closer to a "true" Hawaiian oral language by learning from the old newspapers just because they donʻt carry diacritics, or that the old people who donʻt use diacritics in the written language but still speak it as their first language should be an example for non-native speakers to learn the language better without diacritics. The good thing about these old newspapers is that they were written by fluent speakers, therefore carrying richness in terms, idioms, play on words, sayings, etc., but crucially fail to disambiguate words when taken out of context. Students will learn more vocabulary and more idioms for sure, but will lag in pronouncing terms properly. That is why UH embarked on the difficult task of placing diacritics on many of those old newspapers as sometimes "bare" words remain open to interpretation and may have received a diacritical mark or may have not. As to how Hawaiian words are pronounced, an accent evolves with time. The Hawaiian accent born from the Marquesas migrations was transformed over the centuries as people mixed. So, when youʻre telling people this is how a Hawaiian word should be pronounced, youʻre actually saying "this is how most people used to pronounce it before the language lost its steam". I think youʻre confusing your students by saying that learning without diacritics by going into the old papers will have them learn more about the language when in fact, itʻs the fluency and richness of the language that will make them learn more. And yes, they will learn even more if these old newspapers have been enhanced by the diacritics. Finally, diacritics make it easier for speakers of another "Polynesian" language to learn Hawaiian because they can trace it back to cognates that they know of, like ʻua/kua ; hōu/foʻou ; maikaʻi/maitaki etc). Just like tone markers in the Tongan language make it easier for people to learn the language, as opposed to not using them. Man, I like your videos very much, Iʻve seen many of them, you do a great job every time, but on this topic I think youʻre on the wrong path, e hoa. Me ke aloha pono iā ʻoe.
I'm trying to learn my ancestral language that survives only through writing. Unfortunately, it had undergone a similar fate to that which you mentioned. Due to inconsistent orthography, the true phonetics of the dialect continuum are forever lost, forcing its returning speakers to piece together a modern variety that abandons some of the original propriety thereof. That is a fate I do not wish on my Hawaiian brothers and sisters, God forbid.
What language is that?
Fortunately, we still have native speakers around of all ages. We also have hundreds if not thousands of hours of video and audio of native speakers. So although the orthography, old and new doesn’t represent the spoke. language, we have more than enough resources to learn and perpetuate the authentic Hawaiian voice.
Youʻre pronouncing ʻīʻa when it is iʻa.