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- "Hello Kaʻiulani."
"Hello Kaʻiulani."
Translation:Aloha e Kaʻiulani.
36 Comments
The ' is a glottal stop! It's pronounced sort of like a quick pause, and it functions like any other consonant. It's not a distinct speech sound in English, but it's the pause between the vowels in "uh-oh", for example, and in certain British dialects, it can replace t's.
I'm stressing the 1st syllable, then the 3rd syllable a bit less. But only because that sounds most Hawai'ian to me. And the ' on Hawai'i I've heard native Hawai'ian speakers say it as a pause at beauty pageants.
If you grew up speaking Maori, I suspect you'd find learning Hawaiian to be easy. Polynesian languages are structured very, very differently from English. Learning your first Polynesian language entails unlearning a lot of assumptions you weren't even aware you were making, then constructing many new, unfamiliar categories.
Expect progress to be slow, but worth it. Languages are tightly intertwined with their cultures. You can't really learn a culture without learning the language.
Polynesian languages are a part of the greater austronesian language family, so thats probably why i can find the language structure of olelo hawai'i to be somewhat smooth flowing. (I speak Tagalog).
Without the voices, there aren't any other clues as to where the words should be stressed. I'm stressing the third syllable on Kaʻiulani if that's right…
the stressed syllables for Hawaiian are usually the next to last syllable and every other before that, but a kahakō can change that. Thus, the stressed syllables are ‘i and la .
Someone please explain the E in the beggining and the e in the middle
E olelo e kawika
Those small words with 1, 2, and 3 letters often have many meanings and uses. The two words e in that sentence have different uses and meanings. The first one that is capitalized preceded the verb and makes it a command - "Speak!" The second word e before the name shows that the person is talking directly to Kawika and is addressing Kawika by name. "Speak, Kawika!" These two words have no direct translation into English, but they are needed in those situations.
In some cases what is the E in the beggining and tje e n the middle
E olelo e kawika
Is this really used like that on the hawai'ian islands or is this just the more formal way? Like...do you say Aloha Ka'iulani or Aloha e Ka'iulani when you talk to native Hawai'ians?
You put it before the person's name to show that you are directly addressing them by name.
