The state fish of Hawaii is the humuhumunukunukuapua'a. I love this fact firstly because it is such a wonderful name for a fish, especially when you consider that there are only 12 letters in the traditional Hawaiian alphabet. Humuhumunukunukuapua'a has 7 distinct letters in it and 21 letters altogether, which means that this is a word which has almost double the amount of letters as the alphabet and in which over 50% of the alphabet is represented.
Secondly, Leon Redbone recorded a song with Ringo Starr in 1994 called "My Little Grass Shack in Kealakekua, Hawaii" which mentions the little fish with the long name. Kealakekua also happens to be where Lyla and I will be staying in preparation for Ramona's arrival. So while she may be born in Waimea further north, arguably Kealakekua will be Ramona's first home. Oh, and it's also noteworthy for this.
The song was written in 1933 for Kona's annual 4th of July canoe races, which explains the video version above. I recommend the Leon Redbone version myself, but there's a certain je ne sais quois about the video. Enjoy.
It is fascinating that there was only 12 letters in the original Hawaiian alphabet, and even more that 7 of these letters are in this word. Also congrats on your baby hope you have a great time in Kealakekua. I enjoyed the video but it's definitely not my type of music, although in a beach at Hawaii I would enjoy it greatly.
ReplyDeleteI think that's so cool to have one of the starting points in your life be in Hawaii. I hope Jack Johnson will be on the radio, so it can be a part of Ramona's first dreams and memories :)
ReplyDeletethat is the weirdest name I have ever heard! I didn't know that about the Hawaiian alphabet. In fact, I don't know anything about Hawaii!!
ReplyDeleteThe word took me thirty seconds to say out loud. However we shouldn't judge there is probably some Hawain out there talking about how weird supercalefragelisticespialadoshus is.
ReplyDeleteI don't know too much about hawaii except the fact that they speak english
ReplyDeleteI think it would be difficult to learn Hawaiian English if you've already learnt the standard English. I want to research if there is any reason why there are only 12 letters in Hawaiian alphabet.
ReplyDeleteYeah, Gio, but supercalafragelisticexpialadocious isn't a word people use.
ReplyDeleteWow this is interesting, but like Ha Nuel said it must be hard to learn hawaiian English if you already know normal English. By the way Ha Nuel were you able to find why they only have 12 letters in their alphabets?
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