magali
Hawaiian: nouns that starts with vowel Aloha ! I'm learning my very first words of hawaiian, and I have some difficulties with the plural of nouns. Ke aupuni : the kingdom --> Nā aupuni ?? : the kingdoms? I think there's too many '-a', but Nā 'upuni looks weird, doesn't it ? I don't know what to do... What is the plural of ke ali'i : the chief ke akua : the god And something else. I've learnt the rule, that I should say 'ke' in front of words starting with k,e,a,o. But what about words starting with ē, ā, ō ? My guess is I should say ke as ē = ee, ā = aa ... And what about words starting with 'e, 'a, 'o ? My guess is I should say ka as okina is a consonnant Am I right ? Mahalo for helping me ! :)
Mar 21, 2014 10:19 AM
Answers · 2
Thank you very much Terry ! I will remember to be uncomfortable with vowels ^^ I had read somewhere about elision in Hawaiian and that had made me confused. Thanks for reminding me of that google trick, I use it quite often for Chinese, but it didn't occurred to me that I could use it for this question. And that you very much for for the Trussel dictionnary, I have the feeling I will use it a lot ! :D I have order online a textbook for Hawaiian called Ka Lei Ha'Aheo and should receive by the end of the week. Would you mind helping me from time to time if I have questions ?
April 3, 2014
The plural of ali'i is still nā ali'i. (Google it; you'll find many examples. Googling for a word in the target language is an old translator's trick to judge the acceptability of a word, or the relative popularity of one word over another. It's not foolproof but it can help.) In English vowels make us uncomfortable -- in Hawaiian it's not a problem. That phrase will sound like nāli'i when spoken, not nā'ali'i. No glottal stop added or needed between the nā and the noun. Do you know about this online dictionary? You can probably find a lot of information through looking at examples there: http://www.trussel2.com/haw/haw-a.htm If you have an device that can display Kindle files, you can also get this dictionary in electronic format: http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Hawaiian-Dictionary-Kahikahealani-Wight-ebook/dp/B004WP4UUK/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1396456457&sr=1-3&keywords=hawaiian+dictionary I've found the examples in this one to be very useful.
April 2, 2014
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