Kamakawi Word of the Day

ka

• (part.) marks the past tense (as well as a switch in subject, if no other marker is present)

Ka liki ei i iko kau.
“I have laid claim to this.”

Notes: HAPPY CATURDAY!!!

Keli loves all boxes, of course, but she really likes boxes like this:

The iku above combines with other subject status iku like ae and e. As for function, today it marks the simple past tense, but it’s also developing into an anterior. There used to just be an imperfect/perfect distinction in Kamakawi (this being the perfect), but that developed into a tense distinction, as it often does.

kaino

• (n.) Hawaiian goose (nene)
• (nm.) a man’s given name

Ka ni’u ipe kaino!
“That goose bit me!”

Notes: And geese do bite. You be careful around geese! Those birds don’t mess around. If only I’d had a camera the day that goose tried to run me down… You think I’m joking, but it happened! My wife was there; she’ll attest to it!

The iku for kaino is one of my favorites, on account of how goose-ish it looks. It’s certainly a proud goose. I can see a language deriving the word from “pride” from the word for “goose”. Then you could make reference to a person’s goose-ishness.

For more information about the name Kaino, go here.

kupe

• (v.) to be young
• (adj.) young
• (n.) youth (young man or woman)

Nemei lia kupe ie aeko o ei!
“Young girl, get out of my mind!”

Notes: Man, talk about a creepy song! You can give it a listen here, or read the lyrics here.

So this iku is a bit of a mixed bag. It features part of the iku for ku, which gives the reader a clue how to pronounce it, but it also features the “ground” determinative. Here, though, that “ground” determinative is being used rather literally. The idea is that it will look like a flower springing out of the ground (recall that ku means “aloe”), and thereby stand for youthfulness. By definition, then, I believe this is an iku’ui, even though it looks like an ikuleyaka.

kakalaka

• (n.) interview

Kakalaka oye kaneko!
“Interview with the cat!”

Notes: Keli received some exciting news today: Her picture was in The New York Times! Check it out here (scroll down to see the picture).

The photographer is Monica Almeida, who’s a staff photographer for the Times. She’s an animal lover herself, so she was more than happy to take pictures of me and Keli. I didn’t think one would actually make it into the article. I was quite pleased to see it! It’s funny, she took a bunch, but I think she chose this one purpose because the contrast between my expression and Keli’s is pure hilarity. That’s just like my cat: Anxious to be the center of attention, and then once she has everyone’s attention, desperate to escape. What a cat she is!

Kamakawi also gets a brief mention in the article. A long while back someone added a Wikipedia page for Kamakawi, and it got deleted. Maybe if it ever gets re-added it’ll stick around.

And if it does, maybe then it’s time to add a Wikipedia page for Keli…

kamelaye

• (v.) to wander, to walk around aimlessly (slowly)
• (adj.) wandering
• (n.) wandering

Ka kamelaye lea ie falele.
“He wandered through the forest.”

Notes: From yesterday’s word, kamelaye is, in my mind, onomatopoeic. That was how I created it, and that was the intent. I’m not sure quite how to describe how it’s onomatopoeic, but to me it evokes an image of someone walking around through a forest—perhaps with their hands clasped behind their back. The image in my mind is quite clear, but realistically, I don’t think the sounds of the word lend themselves to the actual sounds of the endeavor at all. For some reason, it just sounds like the activity.

Anyway, but as kamelaye is to wander without aim, nekamelaye is to search without a specific end in mind—hence, to explore. That’s how yesterday’s word derives from today’s.

kapa

• (num.) one hundred
• (adj.) one hundredth

Kapa Ulili o Awape.
“One Hundred Years of Solitude.”

Notes: That’s the name of my favorite novel by Gabriel García Márquez. I realized there were still a couple crucial numbers missing from the Word of the Day posts, so I decided to get them out of the way. Today’s is the word for one hundred.

At this point, the iku for numbers stopped being lines connecting dots, and got a bit more abstract (after all, 100 dots would be pretty unreasonable). That’s why this one’s classified an ikunima’u (though it’s clearly based on the iku for mou, “ten”).

kapalele

• (adv./conj.) in this way, in this manner, and so, así, thus, thusly, like this
• (adv.) so (with stative predicates)

Ea. Olo ei kapalele.
“Yes. I sleep like this.”

Notes: HAPPY CATURDAY!!!

I was quite happy to come back home to see both Erin and Keli. And Keli was quite pleased to see me. After awhile we sat on the couch, and she came up behind my head, curled up, and went to sleep. Here she is:

I can’t for the life of me remember how this word works. I know I had a very, very specific reason for building it this way. I wanted a word that worked (basically) like así does in Spanish, and I spent a lot of time thinking of how exactly it would be derived in Kamakawi. This is what I came up with. And, as I said, I know I had a very good reason for deriving it, ultimately, from pale: I simply can’t remember what that reason is.

But anyway, it’s quite a useful word, so don’t let it’s dubious etymology deter you from dropping into everyday speech (even in English [especially in Dutch]). I know I had a good reason for making it the way I did; I just access that information at this time.

keiki

• (n.) dolphin
• (nm.) a woman’s given name

Hava ue i tainu uomoko!
“A takeke keiki i kaneko… Ai lavaka?”

Notes: Today’s word of the day comes in response to a comment on yesterday’s post, but today’s example sentence comes from the fact that I completely, totally and utterly forgot to do a Caturday post last Caturday—and I just realized it right now.

So you can imagine how I feel at this moment.

I’m not quite sure how I’m going make up for this egregious oversight. I know how it happened, of course: I was in Reno, far away from my kitty, and I forgot. (Which is odd because I missed her the whole time.) I can assure you all it won’t happen again, but I’ll need to do something special this Friday…

For more information about the name Keiki, go here.

katavaka

• (n.) height
• (adj.) high
• (v.) to be high
• (n.) altitude

A fule tava katavaka ti’i.
“I want the high banana.”

Notes: Not the one that’s easiest to grab, oh no: I want the high banana. You feelin’ me?

Well, it’s not quite a banana word, but it has tava in it—and the word tava in the example sentence!

You may recognize this word as being derived from katava, the word for “palm tree”. Katavaka is kind of like “palm tree-ness”, which is height (since that’s what they’re known for [well, among many other things]). I’ve extended that meaning to cover “altitude” as well. For some reason, I was imagining a weather station, far in advance of the current Kamakawi era, where scientists are studying volcanos, for some reason. And they needed a word for “altitude”, and, well, katavaka seems to fit the bill.

kuka

• (v.) to choke, to gag
• (n.) choking
• (adj.) choking

A kuka ei ti kipe hie.
“I’m still choking on yesterday.”

Notes: Yesterday a friend asked me to take her to the DMV. I went to take her, and my car wouldn’t start. About an hour and a half later, this is a shot of my car being towed away:

The Green Shark certainly seen better days, but the engine just won’t turn over. I thought it’d be a small thing, but it never seems to work out that way when a mechanic gets a hold of it… In all likelihood, repairing it will cost me $500. “But David!” they say. “The car is 17 years old! Why not get a new one?” Because new cars cost money—and I have precious little of that.

Today’s iku may look familiar, but, I can assure you, it’s different from the one you’re thinking of—or it is if you’re thinking of huka, “anchovy”. Notice that the vertical like for kuka extends up through the top of the hu glyph, and below the writing line. That’s because it’s the “bad” line determinative. It’s striking through the face, as that’s usually where you see the telltale signs of choking. In huka, the vertical line is ka, and so doesn’t extend through the top of hu, and doesn’t extend below the writing line.

In tomorrow’s adventure, I find a new way to lose money I can’t afford to spend… Anyone got a surefire way to win the lottery?

[Edit: Actually now that I'm looking at it, the line in huka does extend below the writing line. Eh. That's not the key difference, anyway.]