20、 Obama
Basic US 121 Folder Collection
After playing the video, you can click or select the word to look it up in the dictionary.
Loading...
Report Subtitle Errors
It's the U.S.'s 50th state and one of
the most popular tropical vacation destinations
in the world. But how do you say its name?
Almost all the local town and street names
are written in an alphabet of only - get this
- 13 letters. Most of them will be a cinch
for you: a e i o u h k l m n p w 'okina.
So that makes it easy: "havaii". Oh, but this
little swishy at the end is actually a letter,
the same sound that hides in the middle of
"uh-oh"! okay, so it's "havai'i". I'll
go try that out!
Turns out that wasn't quite right. As I'm
learning from these islands, this gets said
more like "uh-y", not so much "eye". Hhh,
should've known it was too easy the first
time. Here we go: "huhvuhy-ee".
When you say it that way, you at least get
the “hey, that's not too bad!” reaction.
Alright, practice time. So I've learned
that if you go snorkeling in "Havai'i" you
might spot a kihikihi. And if you bring your
underwater camera to this spot in Kailua-Kona
you can snap plenty of pics of the state fish,
the humuhumunukunukuapua'a. Oh, and this
breathtaking hike 10 miles east of Honolulu
will take you straight up an old railroad
track to the top of Koko head. And if we pan
over here a bit - there, there we go! - you
can catch a glimpse of the suburb below, which
gets called Hawai'i Kai. "Hawai'i"... wait,
wasn't that "Havai'i"? Hold it. Which
is it, [w] or [v]?
After checking back in on the local pronunciation,
it turns out that it's Ha[w]ai'i OR Ha[v]ai'i.
This kind of behavior once earned it the nickname
“The Vexing Hawaiian w”. It's a choice,
but you guys know about choices. Maybe the
tomeyto ~ tomahto situation comes to mind?
There's even a name for this: it's called
“free variation”. You say tomahto I say
tomeyto, he says Havai'i she says Hawai'i.
I guess it's just personal preference.
Not so fast! Back in 1958, in his paper “Social
influences on the choice of a linguistic variant”,
John Fischer tells us that “free variation”
is just a convenient term we use for a bunch
of under-the-radar influences on our pronunciation.
Influences like the way other females or other
males say something when we're learning a
language as children, which could be going
on here, too.
I noticed that, on the radio here when the
dj's speaking faster, Hawai'i gets cut even
shorter: "Hava'i", "Hawa'i".
But it's not all pau hana yet. The music
of the islands has one more on offer for us.
In a study on the different ways Hawaiian
gets pronounced when people speak it versus
when they sing it, Joseph Keola Donaghy of
UH-Hilo documents places where a famous musician
actually splits the word in two, singing "Háwa-í'i"
when belting a tune.
Have you been keeping track so far? You came
to me with Hawaii, and now I've found you
havai'i and hawai'i, hava'i and hawa'i
and even háwa.í'i.
Okay, things got a little out of hand here.
That's a lot of answers to what started
out as a simple question! But, whatever you
call this island chain, mahalo for taking
the time to learn with me.
    You must  Log in  to get the function.
Tip: Click on the article or the word in the subtitle to get translation quickly!

Loading…

Basic US

How do you say Hawai'i? - Eavesdropping Traveler #1

121 Folder Collection
Caurora published on March 1, 2019

Learning Words

loading

Comments

Loading…
More Recommended Videos

  1. 1. Search word

    Select word on the caption to look it up in the dictionary!

  2. 2. Repeat single sentence

    Repeat the same sentence to enhance listening ability

  3. 3. Shortcut

    Shortcut!

  4. 4. Close caption

    Close the English caption

  5. 5. Embed

    Embed the video to your blog

  6. 6. Unfold

    Hide right panel

  1. Listening Quiz

    Listening Quiz!

  1. Click to open your notebook

  1. UrbanDictionary 俚語字典整合查詢。一般字典查詢不到你滿意的解譯，不妨使用「俚語字典」，或許會讓你有滿意的答案喔