Mele Kalikimaka: Why You Can't Say "Christmas" in Hawaiian
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- Опубліковано 11 лип 2013
- tomscott.com - @tomscott - It's not that Hawaiian has a completely different word for Christmas -- it's just that Kalikimaka is the closest that Hawaiian can possibly get to the word Christmas.
Videos linked:
Mele Kalikimaka by Bing Crosby: • Bing Crosby - Mele Kal...
Skwerl [note: strong language]: • How English sounds to ...
I genuinely believed I was going insane at the end of the video, because it sounded like English but I couldn't understand it.
i understood that last word but manly through context
Yoshiman__ I thought I was having a stroke
It sounded like hearing a weird dialect of English, or hearing somebody speak with a heavy accent. Tbh reminds me of Scots.
If it sounds like English but you can't understand it, it's probably Welsh or Frisian.
@@ChristianStout Welsh sounds nothing like english nor would it. They're totally unrelated languages.
Krt prd skrz drn, zprv zhlt hrst zrn.
That is, ladies and gentlemen, a complete czech sentence.
Because who needs vowels, right?
+ToastedToast Damn syllabic r!
Ao äia õe uue oaõieaia õeaua ööau.
A complete sentence in Estonian, who needs consonants anyway?
What does it mean?
New language goal: learning Estonian and Czech respectively.
After I'm done with Finnish, Russian, Japanese, Spanish and German.
This is how we text in Indonesia
hy, km lg ap? yk mkn pizza tnpa tlg brg aq.
That means "Hey, what are you doing? C'mon, let's eat boneless pizza with me"
As someone who has lived in Hawaii Their whole life, I never knew this fact. Thank you, random English dude who is cool.
Hi. You posted 3 years ago
Hi. You posted 2 months ago
Hi. You posted 2 Weeks ago
Hi. You posted 1 day ago
@@linkjmc5683 Hi. You posted 3 weeks ago
The last two sentences sounded as if Tom suddenly switched to Welsh and signed off in Dutch...
Im dutch soooo I disagree
No way on earth that was Dutch.
@@pepi453 I agree... especially since I'm dutch
That was English but with phonotactics changed so as to sound how non-native speakers "hear" the language , without the irritation of understanding the words.
@@elkevm2584 You didn't understand them. They meant that the last word Tom said sounded Dutch.
It's all done in Adobe After Effects!
Tom needs more likes on this comment guys help him out.
Chicken wing
well done on the state fish!
k
ur comment is flopping tom
One take? Goddamn.
Jonah Safern Humuhumunukunukuapua'a
Humuhukuhunumunukupua'a
Oh come on, we've all seen High School Musical 2 lmao
@@Samisnotbritish I haven't....
Man, linguistics is fascinating and confusing as hell.
Same thing happens in Japanese when transliterating foreign words into it. Japanese has far fewer consonants and vowels , and given a set of guidelines on how to transliterate certain words to certain Japanese sounds, it comes out as rather odd but still sort-of-recognizable.
For example: table becomes teeburu, checkout becomes chekkuauto, Martin becomes Maachin, camp becomes kyanpu, Holland becomes Oranda, and coffee becomes koohii.
But, I'll admit it, Hawaiian takes the cake in this regard.
In one anime song, "dream time" becomes "do-ri-i-mu-ta-i-mu", 2 syllables in English expand to 7 in Japanese!
Pongsathon Boonrod its because they are trying to be cute, keep in mind many Japanese people can say words in english easily.
I think they do that so it will fit in the melody, anyway. Many Japanese people I have seen (especially younger ones) can use English well enough to talk with foreigners (such as me).
Pongsathon Boonrod Generally the Japanese I talk to from Japan are fluent in english at age 18-24~
thany3 kurisumasu
Try moving to a French speaking place with the name Heather. The French do not pronounce an 'h' at the start of a word unless it is not there. They do not have a 'th' sound. They pronounce 'er' endings like 'eh' If someone sees my name written and tries to say it they often end up saying something like 'ayday'.
Heather Spoonheim You could tell them to pronounce it like 'edder' possibly?
Harrison Owen Well, if I say it, they can get close - the problem is places like the dentist's office when they come out to call my name off of a list.
Heather Spoonheim Oh, very true
Heather Spoonheim the sequence -ea- doesn't make any sense either. So I think you end up with something like [ɛtɛʁ]. -er can be pronounced /ɛʁ/ when it's not a verbal endings.
Martin Gardner Indeed. Perhaps, until I move back to an English speaking region, I should change my name to Mele Kalikimaka. :D
Fun fact: My 8th grade English teacher's bathroom pass was a beautifully hand carved humahumanukanukaapua'a (given to her by a student who went to Hawaii) and you were only allowed to use it to go to the bathroom if you could pronounce its name.
The stuttering kid must've had numerous close calls with a UTI.
Or just peed on the floor in protest
Oh no, imagine if the student went to Wales instead of Hawaii...
A small point - it’s humuhumunukunukuapua’a… with “u” instead of the “a”; most of just call it a humu anyway… no biggie 😊🤙🏼
I loved the "(one take)" at the bottom and Tom's grin afterwards. Just amazing!
Congrats for pronouncing that in one take👏🏾
THE GODSENT MOVEMENT it’s not that hard
@@oliviaraquel3789 Not if you aren't Hawaiian
I’m not
Sinfully, I remember that term from High School Musical 2.
@@grrrlknight I didn’t realise it was an actual fish until this video - I guess I just thought it was a made up word in the movie, or some mythical beings
1:25 the face of "friggin nailed it."
And I thought クリスマス(kurisumasu) in Japanese was restricted. I always thought the ‘s’ sound was so natural that it would come to the mind of anyone developing a language. It's wonderful how many differences you can find in other cultures.
Yo5463 When I jokingly _said_ Christmas instead of kurisumasu to a Japanese friend, he looked at me rather weirdly. And of course, I proceeded with a proper Meri Kurisumasu.
I guess that's how big the difference is.
RusticKey
I had to read your response a few times before I understood the problem. You mean a Japanese friend you were talking to in Japanese?
If that was the case, I find it very interesting how people sometimes ignore the origins of words. Like how many English speakers ignore that the word typhoon derived from 台風. Or how some would look weirdly at me if I started talking about music and showed someone how to play an ut sharp in the piano.
Yo5463 Yeah, you got the point *blows party horn*
OT : It's just mesmerizing sometimes how different languages can be, even down to how they're spoken. If I speak my native language with a "native accent", and then insert a few English with a certain accent in between, it feels fine. Do it vice versa and my mouth feels like doing gymnastics. That's a thing I'm trying to figure out here.
On 台風, funny how in my language it's Taifun or something else. Guess to show how we borrow words from each other.
If you spell it as pronounced it would either be kurisimasu or k'rismas
Language isn't developed
kurisumasu
Kurisutiiiina!!
@@atlasi5872 "Tina" mo kinshi!
what
クリスマス
メレかれきまか
this is aesome , i am native hawaiian { kanaka maoli} watching this on "Christmas Eve' thank you for this video will be sharing with family and freinds ,ALOHA!
What did you think of his pronunciation of humuhumunukunukuapua'a?
U so lie u not knew native Hawaiian or one kanaka maoli u dumb haoli
@@jarrengonzalez-yap2008 says the one who still don't know how to spell "haole" correctly
What sound does a snake make in hawaiian?
@@MrZephy khhhhh?
This from a Scandinavian perspective would be; "Canute: Why You Can't Say 'Knut' in English."
I like scandinavia. Because dr. andonuts(from the equivalent in earthbound) made the sky runner, and the sky runner theme is best song ever. also because minecraft. yes, i'm american and play earthbound and minecraft. That's kinda rare, as far as i know.
@@neilisbored2177 "That's kinda rare, as far as i know."
Those are both incredibly influential titles, two of the most widely known video games there are (Minecraft moreso). Not trying to be rude here, but...
blarg2429
Bro that comment was made two years ago. Have some standards
@@bingbongjoel6581 I don't consider comments on a public forum to have an expiration date. If you had standards of your own you wouldn't impose them on others in such a manner.
@@blarg2429 Can't wait to comment on this video in 100 years!
Thanks very much! And yes: they're on their way soon...
It's the same kind of thing in Japanese, except you can get a little closer to the original sound than you can in Hawaiian. In Japanese Christmas is クリスマス (kurisumasu, but you don't really say the "u"s strongly). But in Chinese, it's 圣诞节 (shèng dàn jié), which doesn't sound like "Christmas" at all, but is more like a literal translation of the name, something like "holy birthday festival".
~:~
I am going to start calling Christmas the holy birthday festival. Thank you for this knowledge
this literal translation is not even accurate, it should be "saint birth day", and by adding some stuff to make it grammatical in English without changing the intended meaning, it becomes "the birthday of the saint(Jesus)"
@@cubing7276it’s is accurate, 聖 can mean both holy and saint ,saint in full is 聖人, and you can absolutely make it short to 聖, and I have no idea what holy in full is .(Chinese words are written in traditional that’s why it’s different)
@@have_a_cup_of_water_08 i would say it's inaccurate because it 圣人 should be analysed as an adjective and a noun combination, 圣 meaning holy and 人 meaning person. 圣 as an adjective also appears in other compounds, such as 圣剑 holy sword
the word for holy is 神圣 btw and words mostly come in at least 2 character
I’ve recently been into phonotactic rules for languages, specifically Japanese. It’s just so interesting how they change and add extra syllables to English words so they can pronounce it. Only today I have learned what that’s called, so thanks for that, Tom. I thought it was just Japanese pronunciation cuz of how their language is set up.
Though it is rare, some English words do contain word-initial /ʒ/, most notably "genre."
helps that it's a mostly french pronunciation
that's a word directly taken from french though...
@@anglicothemonkey3496 ah how unlike English to be full of French words
@@thesenamesaretaken why is this so agressive? I never said that English rarely features French words, did I?
Jeremy Corbyn phonotactic rules are about native words, not loan words.
in Maori it's Meri Kirihimete
Andre Pickering Interesting, in Tongan it's Meli Kelisimasi.
@@ermundgibbits2449 In bisaya, it would be pronounced as 'Miri Kirismas', but we have a native word for both so the exact translation would be 'Malipayong Pasko'
@@ermundgibbits2449 In bisaya, it would be pronounced as 'Miri Kirismas', but we have a native word for both so the exact translation would be 'Malipayong Pasko'
in Maori it's oh wait this language makes no sense
@@Orincaby You're very, very dumb.
In slovakian language you can have as many as 6 consonant in a row, maybe even more. Strbske Pleso, whic is a small town in High Tatras comes to mind.
+Author Cat Studios / toogletoggleOfTheCats That's true because vowels, well, say themselves between too many consonants :)
+Łukasz Piotrowski I love the way you put that: "vowels... say themselves between too many consonants."
+WeeWeeJumbo I couldn't find a better way to describe it. Consonants are what they are. "Con" in, of course, Latin, means "with" or "together", sonos, or sonus (I forgot which one) means sound, so together its a composite (another latin word...damn) sound, consisting of at least two, one always being a vowel. Tom will probably correct me, if I'm wrong somewhere, I used to study Latin a bit and only the part related to life sciences :P
+Author Cat Studios / toogletoggleOfTheCats As someone from Slovakia, I can confirm that you actually say all 6 consonants in a row in word Štrbské without any vowel sound between them.
Don't take it as an insult, but I am pretty sure I know my language better than a foreigner. You have never heard the language and you just assume what it might sound...
I’m fairly well versed in Tahitian, and their rules are very similar. For them, “Merry Christmas” is “oaoa i te noela,” “noela” being pronounced “no-eh-da” after the French “Nöel.”
Thank you so much. I'm from Hawaii and have learned the language and its history as well and wanted to say this too. The fact that many of the English words were forcibly changed to Hawaiian- I'm not sure exactly about Mele Kalikimaka however- but truth be told, you are correct, after missionaries arrived, the language changed drastically.
Whoops! Snuck in with an annotation and fixed that. It's the kind of thing that spell-checking lets me down on...
?
A classic English tale:
Her Majesty's Government conceded that English spelling has some room for improvement and has accepted a five-year phased plan for what will be known as “Euro English” (Euro for short).
In the first year, "s" will be used instead of the soft "c". Sertainly, sivil servants will resieve this news with joy. Also, the hard "c" will be replaced with "k." Not only will this klear up konfusion, but typewriters kan have one less letter.
There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced by "f". This will make words like "fotograf" 20 per sent shorter.
In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of silent "e"s in the languag is disgrasful, so silent “e” would be gon.
By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing"th" by "z" and "w" by "v". During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou", and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters. Al oza silent and unesesary letrs wuld be dropt az ve mov to fonetic “Euro” speling.
After ze fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil b no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech ozer. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.
If zis mad yu smil, zen pas it on to oza pepl.
In other languages ng at the beginning of a word is fine. You just have to listen carefully and articulate it the same way as it would be at the end of a word. For instance, in Thai ngarn means work and ngern means money (or silver - same thing back then), which implies that you'd better learn it right because if you have no ngarn you'll have no ngern, and that's a real problem.
itsMEE1111 I've seen this before and the gag (that I saw) was:
At the end of this program, we will all be speaking German!
I expected it to be hard, was disappointed.
Luk M, yu usd sevral silnt e's yurself! And yu also usd a 'th' insted of a 'z.' For sham!
@misterfunnybones *I zank yu so much for giving me a grat lauf (truly mad my da a lot briter)!!*
Btw typwriters wil stil hav ze c for words like _'ech' , 'chanjes' etc_
similar in Korean: Christmas is "keu-ri-seu-ma-seu"
그리스마스?
nah, just remove patchim and call it:
그릿맛 - keu ris mas
k ㄱ
ŭ ㅡ
r ㄹ
i ㅣ
s ㅅ
m ㅁ
a ㅏ
s ㅅ
@@lewakar that not only wouldn't work well, it's not what anyone actually says. They way korean pronounces its batchim, some syllables, like ㅅ, are pronounced like an unreleased "t" if theres no vowel that follows it. So that example would be said like "keu-rit-mat"
Why are you trying to correct her on an established fact, anyway?
@@lewakar that is not how Korean works..
In those last 10 seconds I thought I was having a literal stroke
1:03
The whole part where two consonants do not go together, that's the same for Japanese. The only exception is the "n" sound.
Also, "Karisimas" sounds Japanese in itself
+VIDCAs17 The Japanese tend to use "u" as an additional wovel, and use "r" as that r/l-sound, so the word becomes "Kurisumasu". Well, the u's are almost silent, which brings the pronunciation back close to English.
That's actually a bit of a misconception. The character ん -- often romanized as "n" -- doesn't necessarily make the "n" sound by itself. The symbol represents, as best I can describe it, a nasal vibration. (To try this, try saying "nnnnnnnn", opening your mouth halfway through.) Because of this, depending on how your mouth is positioned in order to say the next syllable. For example, the word せんぱい(romanized senpai) sounds a lot more like "sempai", because your lips become pursed during the "n" in preparation for the "pa" sound. Another example is "せんえん"(romanized sen'en). In this word, the ん in the middle doesn't sound like "n" at all. Because you don't close your mouth until the final ん, it comes out more like "se(nasal buzzing 'y')en". I've just now realized this information in pretty useless unless you happen to be studying Japanese, but I'll post it anyway.
+TehFailur ※Because of this, depending on how your mouth is positioned in order to say the next syllable, the sound of ん changes.
+TehFailur "unless you happen to be studying Japanese" ... hmmm yes
Its interesting to note that you can sometimes tell what animals, things, or concepts are native or introduced after the foreigners came to Hawai'i by looking at which words are "Hawaiianized" like how "mele kalikimaka" is.
For example "poloka" is the Hawaiian word for frog and can be broken down to "foroga" and then to "frog". By this logic you can assume that frogs were never native to Hawai'i to begin with.
However not all non-native things follow this word rule and I guess it kinda depends
But idk it just something I figured out on my own (so don't attack me if I'm wrong)
auto-generated captions at the end: "it's clapping anchor test and Lea reset misheard"
I figured this out for myself some years ago, but I couldn't find any literature to confirm it. It's a relief to finally find someone to validate my conclusion!
Anyone who's ever watched High School Musical 2 can perfectly say humuhumunukunukuapua'a, and follow it with makihiki malihini hu.
well i watched the movie but i still cant say that word :D
Hawana, waka waka waka niki pu pu pu!
It's almost as if Disney subliminally taught a generation some Hawaiian words and influence through a few of their movies... and I love it. Aloha.
I almost did it, but I did humuhumunukunukua *k* ua'a
Or you know, anyone who's ever lived in Hawaii can say humuhumunukunukuapua'a...
You've got absolutely brilliant videos, mate! I wish I had "discovered" you before!
you are my favorite youtuber, i learn so much from you in a fun way! tnx for doing vids :D
The funny thing is that in Hebrew we have a group of people whos' job is to make sure the old rules of Hebrew are preserved and to invent new words. So in schools, everyone has to learn the phonological rules of Hebrew, it is both easy and hard because Hebrew is a new language in that it was revived a few decades ago and it is also over 3 thousand years old so it is in a way magical to see how the rules nearly 99% of the time apply. and really bad because the rules has to apply to a 3 thousand year old language so in many cases the rules are crazy and no one use them as they speak
Japanese: Meri Kurisumasu
Or shorthanded; Meri Kuri That sounds like a scientist name who found X-Ray.
Marie Curie you say?
Oh my gosh, forgot to say a big 'Thank You Tom' (& Matt & rest of the team) for your wonderfully entertaining videos :D
I love you, Tom Scott. I'm like so glad that you exist) I love what you're doing very much.
Thank you 💞
You can't just pull something like that at the end haha
This reminds me of when I took a weekend course in sami (my mother-language is swedish).
The two languages are unrelated, aside from the fact that they share many loan words due to cultural exchange.
Like cow for instance, in improper swedish that's kossa. In sami it's guoss(a/e) something.
Funny thing is that most sami loan words in swedish (atleast the ones I know of) have little to no respect for those tactics you spoke of. But that might be because I'm from a backwater where linguistics and grammar are touchy subjects.
This is a great series of videos, love it!
Awesome videos, Tom! keep it up, its helping me out in my studies, mate
0:43 Actually Tom, there is one word that starts with ng...
NGAHHH!!
I think you'll find it's spelt: ŋahhh
*ghoti intensifies*
Ngerulmud
And in Japanese it is メリークリスマス (Merii Kurisumasu). They follow similar rules to Hawaiian but have more consonants. Not sure about Korean but I believe it is 메리 크리스마스 (Meri Keuriseumaseu). Both languages also have r and l being practially the same letter as well. I think that a video on numerical systems would be interesting, personally.
Thank you for your outstanding series! I really look forward to seeing more. As for the possible topics, the only thing that comes to my mind is the "language/dialect" traditional in popular linguistics.
I love this video. I could watch Tom convert English to Hawaiian all day
What happens when a word that violates the phonotactics makes its into a language?
It is twisted until fits the phonetics fits the rules.
I was born in Hawaii on christmas eve, so I always feel like the song has some sort of special meaning for me or something.
Man I love this channel
Is he talking about the Vietnamese surname Nguyen?
+George Corkery Vietnamese
I have a friend named Quoc Hung Nguyen, and I think I've gotten really good at pronouncing his name!
2:12 when the ADD kicks in
I love Hawaiian phonology and pester everyone with your video around this time of year ^_^
Thanks for explaining Tom. I've been listening to Geoff Castellucci ( ft The American Sirens) version of Mele Kalikimaka these past couple of days and had been wondering why Hawaii had a different Christmas greeting. This is very interesting.
Hawaii was its own nation and kingdom before it was colonized, so of course it will have its own language and rules.
1:25 until now I thought high school musical made up a word!
+Harry Sargeant you actually watched that crap?. Ha!
Memoires of the song is.. the secodn movie right? Humumukablah blah blah...
I'm going to miss these linguistics videos but just in case no one's brought it up yet and you didn't realize, it's "Nguyen" and is supposed to be /ŋwiən˧ʔ˥/ (in Northern Vietnamese), which I would approximate in English as "wɪən" perhaps, but I suppose not even that sounds English... And yes the "e" after "y" or "i" stands for a schwa.
I'm sure you are going to be a great linguist in the future.
Why are you going to miss these videos?
Watch it
based ipa I get sad when people try to fumble together some english letters and dashes in an attempt to annotate stuffs
It was funny on Star Trek Discovery when the crew was attacked by the raider Nguyen... Oh, wait, the captions just say Wen...
That smile after the "One take" flex is pure bliss, I swear.
UA-cam has been desperately recommending this video to me for about a week now, so I guess I’ll watch young Tom Scott.
1:29 "it only has 8 consonants"
*proceeds to show 7 consonants*
70% Japanese engrisk joke: メリー ｡ クリスマス
25% Vietnamese explained about 阮 or Nguyễn
5% just watch this video.
1:25 I’m laughing so hard 8 years late at his caption “one take” 💀
I'm really glad you did this since I speak some Hawaiian. Thank you!
If everything in Finnish went according to its natural phonotactics, "Merry Christmas" would be "Meri Kirismas" or "Meri Kurimas".
Otso cool
I just realised how similar Finnish and Hawaiian are
This happens a lot. Even in Asian languages like Japanese "meri kurisumasu" ”メリークリスマス”
@Fester Blats no, Finnish distinguishes vowel length, do only double for long vowels
As a native Hawaiian this was a joy to see!! Thank you ❤️ How about teaching how to correctly pronounce ukulele? So many get it sooooo wrong 💔
@@MattTacc ooh-kooh-leh-leh
@@MattTacc Nice to meet you! I am Hawaiian, kama ʻāina.
@@MattTacc Ohhh now don’t be offended, choose not to be offended. Help by showing the correct pronunciation. And focus on making friends. No one will learn if every Italian is unhappy!
2:11 the reason why this is the most replayed moment in the video is because of how many times people had to rewind it to make sure that their ears were functioning correctly
And those of us trying to understand what he's saying 😭😭😭
For the same reason, the country of Kiribati is pronounced 'Kiribas' and is a version of what Europeans called the atoll, which is the Gilberts. Christmas Island itself (which I think is one of theirs) is known as Kiritimati locally.
0:53 It's Nguyễn 阮
IPA is *wɪn* in English
or *ŋwiə̯n˧ˀ˥* in Northern VN dialect
or *ŋwiə̯ŋ˧˩˧* Southern VN dialect
*Ruan* in Mandarin
*Yuen* in Cantonese
*Gnieuh* or *Nyoe¹* /ɲɥø˩˧/ in Wu Chinese
*Nguang* in Hokchew.
In Japanese old Kanji 阮 called *Gen, Ken, En, Guen*
"Mere Kirihimete" in Māori. Which is interesting, as "Christ" is "Karaiti". The difference is most likely due to, as Tom pointed out, the "T" not being vocalised in "Christmas".
i would love to see you cover japanese phonetics like this!
YYYEEESSSS, you included my favorite Hawaiian word!
Even more confused, and I watched enough anime to get Japanese where each consonant has to have a vowel after it, except for N.
Vowels can stand alone, like the lovely Aoi Futoba! She can stand sit lay, and just about anything she might want to do I no mind.
Hawaiian seems to have a few phonotactic rules in common with Japanese. Except for the "ng"-sound they also always have a vowel follow a consonant and only one sound for our "r" and "l" (though I think it's more commonly transcribed as "r"). It turns "merry christmas" into "meri kurisumasu", although to be fair, the "u"s aren't pronounced all that clearly. God, I love linguistics! =D
that last sentence is what a stroke feels like
This is why the italian word for chewing gum is 'Chicca' (the ch sound remains the same), or where 'sciuscià' comes from, meaning shoeshine.
Would these phonotactic rules be the reason why you may recognize two sentences are spoken in different languages despite not understanding either? Like, I only speak English yet if one person says a sentence in French and another in German, I'm fairly confident I could discern which was which despite only speaking English.
Häid Jõule (In Estonian). Also we do can use two or even 3 consonants together (kõrgsurve).
+DjResR Also many vowels :). F.e "Jõeäärne õueaiamaa" - "Garden by the river"
Strč prst skrz krk. A complete Czech sentence and a good tongue twister.
Why not 'Meli Kalikimaka'?
Mele kalikimaka is my favourite Christmas song so I’m glad you didn’t completely ruin it for me. Respect ✊
Thanks for this very very interesting video! I must lay this on my Hawaiian friend and see if he knows this!
2:01 It's less "intuitive understanding" and more "not being able to pronounce sounds outside of these parameters due to lack of training"
Two consonants can't be placed together in Japanese either, hence 'Meri Kurisumasu'
Incorrect. You can have two consonants together, it's just replaced by a small tsu to indicated a double consonant. "Kekkon" meaning marriage has two consonants and is written as ke-(small tsu)-ko-n
But the term "Kekkon" (結婚) is derived from Chinese vocabulary. There aren't many native Japanese examples of words with two consonants placed together, are there?
YummYakitori
There are a fair few Japanese words with two consonants next to one another, but they are almost always doubled consonants. However, the placement of two consonants together as shinigami052 described above is an a function of the Romaji transcription system, and aren't truly two consonants. Words like Kekkon aren't said kek kon, but ke'kon. The other possibility is the use of ん, as in newspaper shinbun しんぶん.
A tip given to me by my japanese teacher:
A lot of japanese people know many nouns in english, but you have to be steteotypical. If you want orange(1 syllable) juice(1 syllable) you have to say "Or-en-ji jyu-su" 5 syllables all together.
And it works, Maku donaru is mcdonalds.
My name would be Kona Hiru.
Massachusetts
extravaganza
due
conference
Parallel is my favorite. Pah-rah-reh-ru
Actually orange and juice in japanese is O-ren-ji and jyu-su. Where as if you said A-pe-ru for apple, a lot of japanese people won't understand what you mean where as if you said ringo, they'd all understand.
I've really enjoyed watching you. Found you through the numberphile time zone video you did. Anyway, I'd appreciate less of an emphasis on distinguishing native from non-native speakers of languages. From my experience, a learned language becomes just as intuitive to use over time as a native one, with phonotactic rules and all that. Just a small nitpick, but anyway, thanks for these great videos!
This is really interesting. In my Italian diction class, we did learn that Italian words always end with a vowel, and I wouldn't be surprised if we had seen some phonotactic rules in other diction classes as well, but it never occured to me to look into those kind of rules further. I'm going to do that now.
Nice video, but why does it have to be "Mele Kalikimaka" and not, for example, "Meli kulikimaku" instead? Why were those particular vowels chosen?
Thank you!
It took some decades at the end of the 19th century before "Mele Kalikimaka" became the standard. There were a number of variations before that.
Along with @hebneh's explanation, I think that Tom just chose "Mele Kalikimaka" because that's what the song said.
wow thats really close to Japanese, except in Japanese it would be "Meri Kurisumasu"
Whilst difficult, I think I approximated the last stuff you said in the most Englishy way I could:
Clapiancu-test (replace with K for germanic?) and leary se'mas he'yuped, g'bilt!
I love this, I should use it
There’s… that’s the best possible way of introducing that video, actually
0:07 Wait, I don’t see Jimmy Buffett on this list.
1:45 where's the 8th consonant
I'm learning Tongan right now, and it's very similar to Hawaiian. Two consonants can never be side by side in a word, a word can never end in a consonant, and Apostrophes count as letters (the glottal stop, mentioned in the video). So "Merry Christmas" in Tongan is: "Kilisimasi Fiefia".
The is amazing and BLEW MY MIND. (American here.) I never knew this!
Last sentence is "It's hilarious(?) and really messes with your head"
1:25 I kinda just want to listen to this word on repeat for the next couple of hours to see if I can decipher it. Based on the fact that I don't speak Hawaiian, I couldn't possibly know if you actually pronounced it correctly, or if you just put a bunch of syllables together and said "that'll work", but I'm inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt and believe that you actually pulled that off.
Humuhumunukunukuapua'a
What was the thing he recommended at the end? I couldn’t make it out.
Fascinating!
I think /ʒ/ is a marginally possible onset, at least in North American English with words like . I'm not sure how the British say it, though.
I was about to say the same thing. I was trying to think of an English word starting with /ʒ/, and genre is it. I live in England and we pronounce it something like /ʒonɹə/ (I'm not great with IPA but you get the idea.) I'm not sure if there are other words we use in English that start with this sound.
Ryan Lidster in English you can start a word with /ʒ/, yes.
Yes but all the words that we start with zh are borrowed, foreign words (mainly from French) such as genre
Did you mean Nguyen (misspelled at 0:55)? 'Nu-win' is acceptable to say.
Slight edit, the first phoneme should be nyu, not nu. American English doesn't differentiate between the two, but British English does.
Sam Pearman Yes, that would be more correct. I can also state that the very proper pronunciation may be impossible to drop into an English language context without sounding completely out of place. The best way I can describe that is 'nung-wey?-ng'. As one syllable. And yes, with the question mark. In the middle.
N(y)u-win or N(y)u-yen are the lesser evils, haha.
Nguyễn :)))❤️
I'm really enjoying this series
You posted this 8 years ago
I love linguistics! Thanks for making these videos. They're fun! But then again, I'm one of those hopeless mutants that collects words and language genetics.
One second ago was the last time that I said, "ChrisTmas."