Kamakawi Word of the Day

upo

• (v.) to feel queasy
• (adj.) queasy
• (n.) queasiness

Ae upo i’i…
“The queasiness is inside me…”

Notes: That’s a bit of a different way of saying what, essentially, the verb by itself expresses.

Today’s iku is a simple ikunoala (u inside of po), but it rather neatly expresses how I feel when I feel nauseous. Basically, I feel like I have a great big W in my stomach. I don’t know if I can describe the feeling any better than that.

ui

• (v.) to join, to conjoin
• (n.) joining, conjoining, coming together
• (n.) joint (body part)
• (phon.) glyph for the sequence ui

He ui eya i peaka!
“Let’s conjoin them!”

Notes: I’ve classified today’s word as an ikuiku, but I’m not sure about the classification. It derives from a figure that looks pretty much like this one, but it started out abstract. It’s, essentially, an abstract representation of joining (perhaps originally a drawing of a knot, though it no longer means “knot”). So the thing looks like what it’s supposed to look like, but it’s not very…picture-y. Aside from throwing up my hands and calling it an ikunima’u, though, all I can do is classify it an ikuiku.

uoi

• (v.) to attempt (something), to try (something) out
• (adv.) to try to

Ai ine ia i uku ai uoi?!
“What are you trying to do?!”

Notes: HAPPY CATURDAY!!!

You know, I could have sworn that I’d already put this picture up:

But no. I was thinking of this picture. Apparently “surprised” is something Keli does well—and often.

As for this iku… Yeah. It’s, uh…something. Sometimes you just have to throw up your hands and say, “I don’t know where this came from.” I think that’s what all those involved say about Small Soldiers. It just happened, and now we’re stuck with it—just as I’m stuck with this really bizarre (and yet, somehow, specific-looking) iku. Ikunima’u? Check.

umu

• (n.) lip
• (n.) rim, edge

A kavi umu o ia!
“Your lip is big!”

Notes: Presumably from a fight. I think umu is an iku’ume. I mean, that seems right. Looks pretty good, for what it is. Not much else to say, other than iTunes won’t play right now, so I’m restarting my computer. So take that.

ue

• (phon.) glyph for the sequence ue
• (pron.) first person plural inclusive pronoun

Ue ie inotu.
“We are the world.”

Notes: Today’s iku completely mystifies me. It kind of looks like ua, but it shouldn’t be related to the word for “hill”. And yet, I think that’s what I was doing. I think by adding the line below, that kind of made it an e sound…somehow. Perplexing.

Anyway, Kamakawi, like many languages, distinguishes between a “we” that includes the addressee and a “we” that excludes the addressee. This is the one that includes the addressee—and today, that means you! So jump on in and enjoy the inclusivity!

WE ARE THE WORLD! WE ARE THE CHILDREN!

uya

• (n.) wrist

Oku itu uyo o ei.
“My wrist doesn’t hurt.”

Notes: This is true. Ever since I got the new keyboard and mouse, my wrist problems have vanished. And now that I have my chair, my shoulder problems have vanished, too. It’s awesome!

This was one of the last fome I did. I got to a point (some five or six hundred iku in) that I decided, “Enough! No more glyphs!” But this one was just too easy and made too much sense not to add. And since its middle consonant is a glide, it meant I didn’t have to add it to the bisyllabic glyph chart, so adding it was no problem.

Now, though, I’m pretty sure I’m done. I may get tempted and add one or two later (especially when I finally create my font that doesn’t foolishly make use of bold and italics to get all the glyphs in one font), but for now, the five hundred or so fome I have are good enough for me.

uno

• (n.) pool of water

A tutuku lelea o ipe uno.
“The water from that pool is fresh.”

Notes: This is a common word. It’s something smaller than a lake, but larger than a puddle. Whenever you see a little bit of water anywhere, it’s an uno. They’re all over the islands: salty and fresh.

ukeuke

• (n.) rottenness, rot
• (adj.) rotten

I ukeuke i ipe foye.
“There is a rottenness on that papaya.”

Notes: HAPPY CATURDAY!!!

Today’s word has nothing to do with today’s cat picture (another from when Keli was sitting on top of the couch):

To complete the cycle of rottenness, we have ukeuke. On occasion, a stem by itself becomes a kind of verbal noun. Sometimes it takes the -kV suffix. In this case, a full reduplication was used for the nominal form, giving us “rottenness”.

Since the full reduplication is so often associated with adjectives, though, ukeuke can be used adjectivally to mean the same thing as uke.

And with that, I have finished! No more of rottenness, or rotting: Let us speak only of cats! Cats and meowing and murring!

ukemu

• (v.) to rot
• (adj.) rotting

A uke ipe nukoa…
“That meat is rotting…”

Notes: In conjunction with yesterday’s post, we continue with our rotten theme. The verb uke is a stative verb which describes something which is rotten. In order to describe the process of rotting, one uses the inchoative suffix -mu to get ukemu, which is “to rot”.

When used adjectivally, this sets up a nice dichotomy. Specifically, one uses uke to describe something that is rotten (e.g. nukoa uke, “rotten meat”), and ukemu to describe something which is currently rotting (nukoa ukemu, “rotting”). In this way, the two words complement each other, and almost look like English participles.

I don’t know why I chose “rotting” to serve as the example for this discussion… I swear, it just happened; I didn’t actually intend for it.

uke

• (v.) to be rotten
• (adj.) rotten

Ai uke ipe, ua…?
“Is that rotten, or…?”

Notes: You know that feeling when you’re looking at food and you can’t tell if it’s moldy or not? Tough experience, that one. For example, I had these leftover bratwursts, and they kind of looked like they might have the beginnings of mold growing on them, but it could just as easily have been congealed grease—I couldn’t tell! So…I went ahead and ate them. I’m not dead yet. We’ll see what happens.

Anyway, oddly enough, uke is a good word to illustrate the occasional nature of certain Kamakawi lexemes. Often a lexeme can be used as a verb, adjective and noun, and often the meanings will be predictable. Sometimes the predictability breaks down, though it often does so in predictable ways.

In the case of uke, it’s used only as a verb or adjective; never as a noun. We’ll see how this plays out in the coming days.

The iku for uke is fairly straightforward: the base is u, and the little tooth from ke fits on top right in the middle. ALl the ke words have the little tooth kind of glommed on somewhere where it seems to fit. This one always reminded me of a bird in a nest.