Pages

Sunday, June 8

the kooky manakuke & other weird hawaiian words

Kapanaia. Keokea. Kohala. Kapa'au.

The people of Hawaii love their 'k' words. They also enjoy using w, h, m, p, and, of course, your basic, multipurpose a's and i's. From what I can tell, these seven letters, combined in various ways with glottal stops make up pretty much the entire Hawaiian language.

In fact, I believe there was probably one Original Word back at the beginning of time here on the Big Island. This Original Word was comprised of the Seven Kingly Letters and spent most of its time surfing and trying to catch geckos and organizing barbeques down on the beaches. But barbeques and surfing are lonely pastimes when you are but one Word, and thus the Original Word decided to beget another word to be its companion. It took its own letters and rearranged them and created a Whole New Word. And with the Whole New Word, the Original Word was able to create even more Additional Words. And thus was born the Hawaiian language.

Here's an example of a word I learned recently: Heiau. Temple. Here's another one: Manakuke. Mongoose. I have personally had seven mongoose sightings since we arrived. And also Mongoose is now the name of the Saturn I've been driving around the island.


Pu'ukohola Heiau, built around 1790.
Most of the group is staying at Halawa House. This is the backyard at Halawa House.
The Good Luck Gecko who lives at Halawa House
A cinder cone. And cows mobbing the field vehicles.
Barbeque at Kapanaia Beach

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Take a pic of a mongoose - I don't know what they look like!

Jenny said...

They look like blurs!