Why is the Hawaiian word for "home" also "home"? (Captain Cook: condos, hotel)

[Jungjohann]

'Home' is a borrowed word from the English.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ylUBsC8KDs

Kind of like 'pia'

close enough.

[hawaiian by heart]

Originally Posted by McFrostyJ

Thanks Honolulu21!
I thought hale was just a building. But thanks to you I looked it up and it does say, "house, building".

ku'u hale= my home, house.

[OpenD]

Originally Posted by McFrostyJ

I believe the Hawaiian alphabet has 12 letters and an ʻokina.

While we're waiting for Jonah K's authoritative response , I'll take an amateur whack at this...

I've heard it different ways, but I choose to explain it this way... the written Hawaiian alphabet has 13 letters, 12 of which were adopted from the English alphabet, and one that was created for the purpose. This written system was created around 1820 by missionaries from Boston, in order to record the Hawaiian's spoken language, with the intention to then translate the Christian Bible into it for the purpose of converting the natives to Christianity. The okina is a letter, not a punctuation or accent. It's a consonant representing a glottal stop (catch in the throat) which has no corresponding sound in English. The okina glyph character is commonly represented by a a single open quote or apostrophe by non-native speakers... or just disregarded, as many do... but those fluent in the ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi language use the actual assigned typographic character which you may be able to observe in the red text I just included, just before the "O" and between the two "I"s.

The missionaries were not trained linguists, so unfortunately they made a bit of a hash out of the job. Several key sounds don't exactly fall precisely on the phonic map of English pronunciation, so compromises were made... well, OK, mistakes were made...

Take the R and L overlap. When the missionaries first sent mail back to Boston they wrote their location as Honoruru, which was as close as they could get to the sound they were hearing, which wasn't exactly an R and wasn't exactly an L, so they went with writing it as an R at first, but over time they settled on the L and dropped R from the alphabet altogether. And in the natural and inevitable language processes that followed, the Hono part of the name (rhymes with "oh no") eventually got rounded off and "sloppified" (that's a technical amateur linguistics term) into today's "hon uh" pronunciation. So the name of the city was originally spoken as ho no ru ru, or something close to it, while today it is commonly spoken as hon uh lu lu.

A similar overlap occurred on K and T, with the actual sound in ʻŌlelo falling somewhat between the two. The missionaries kept the K and discarded the T in the written alphabet, but inexplicably the staple food plant in Hawai'i, known as kalo to Hawaiians, is called taro by English speakers. A similar overlap between P and B leads English speakers to use tabu (taboo), while Hawaiians use kapu for the same concept of "Forbidden."

I honor the native Hawaiians by learning as much as I can about their culture and their language, but I have to admit that pronunciation is quite a challenge for me. But I keep working at it.

[hawaiian by heart]

Originally Posted by Jungjohann

'Home' is a borrowed word from the English.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ylUBsC8KDs

Kind of like 'pia'

close enough.

Maika`i pia jung?

Good beer?

[McFrostyJ]

Originally Posted by OpenD

I've heard it different ways, but I choose to explain it this way...

Great post!
Wish it would let me give you another Rep point.

[hotzcatz]

I would expect this is an example of widely differing world views. Basically, I'd say traditionally Hawaiians are very family oriented, not so much structure oriented.

Hale is "house" not necessarily "home". In common usage English, "home" denotes the place where you live and it is commonly a house, although not always. However in English, the word "home" is more about the structure than the relationships. Hawaiians are probably more likely to use the word "ohana" to mean "home" although it is more people based than structure based. I'm thinking "village" could also denote "home" since it's again a people based outlook.

But, Hawaiian is not a language I'm fluent in, so we need to wait for Jonah to chime in.

[Jungjohann]

It's from the english, period. A 'borrowed' word. Pronounced 'homeh'. Listen to the song. 'Ku'u home o 'Kahalu'u'. Translated, My Home Kahalu'u.' But then again, what would I know, I've only lived in Hawaii for a little over 2 months.

It's so friggin tropical

[MauiPartTimer]

If "hale" translate to "house", what's the ancient Hawaiian word for "condo"?

[hawaiian by heart]

Originally Posted by Jungjohann

It's from the english, period. A 'borrowed' word. Pronounced 'homeh'. Listen to the song. 'Ku'u home o 'Kahalu'u'. Translated, My Home Kahalu'u.' But then again, what would I know, I've only lived in Hawaii for a little over 2 months.

It's so friggin tropical

I agree with Jung, besides Jonah K, Jung knows more Olelo Hawai'ian them 99% of us.

[hawaiian by heart]

Originally Posted by MauiPartTimer

If "hale" translate to "house", what's the ancient Hawaiian word for "condo"?

Kauhale