Kamakawi Word of the Day

itava

• (n.) banana peel
• (n.) peel (any kind)
• (v.) to peel a banana
• (v.) to peel anything
• (v.) to remove
• (adj.) peeled

Ai itava ia i ipe oli i’i ai?
“Will you peel that fruit for me?”

Notes: And, as promised (or foretold), another banana word!

This time it’s the peel. Since banana’s have such a canonical peel, though (or maybe exceptional—highly recognizable), the word for peeling a banana has been extended to peeling anything (and the peel itself to all peels). Then peeling itself was extended to cover removing anything. And so it goes.

And now to figure out if there are anymore banana-related lexical items in Kamakawi…

nanu

• (n.) nose
• (v.) to smell
• (adj.) smelling of

Kaneko oi’i: Nea o nanu uliuli.
“My cat: She of the little nose.”

Notes: HAPPY CATURDAY!!!

I don’t have a lot of full body shots of Keli (as I recall), so I snapped a good one today. Here she is sniffing a jacket lying on the ironing board:

What a proper lady!

Nanu is built off the glyph for hu. It’s pretty straightforward: There’s a mark where the nose is. Here hu is being used for its face-like properties, no its phonetic properties.

i’o

• (n.) goat
• (n.) penis (slang)

A mamata i’o ukia po a!
“Now the goat is facing left!”

Notes: Here is the aforementioned and aforepromised goat! Though some will try to deny it, I affirm—and have long affirmed—that goats are native to the Kamakawi islands. Indeed, there are goats aplenty! Hopping about the way they do. Oh, that reminds me: You’ll like this. It’s a video of pygmy goats running around on a deck! I absolutely love pygmy goats. They’re kind of like a crossbreed of kittens and rabbits.

The iku for i’o is one of my favorite simply for its construction. As you may notice, the iku is built off the the syllabic glyph for i—the first syllable of i’o—so there’s a partial phonetic component to this iku. And even though the glyph for i is a stylized eye, if you put little horns and a goatish beard on it, it also kind of looks like a goat. And there it is!

The other meaning for i’o is a byproduct of how common the i- derivation strategy is. See, the word looks like it could be i- plus ho, and the glyph for ho is a man (same as hopoko). So if an i’o is anything at all, well…you get the idea.

Tomorrow another picture of my (pygmy goat)/(rabbit)!

peva

• (n.) horn (of an animal)
• (adj.) horned, having horns
• (v.) to be horned, to have horns

A tovuka alavene peva!
“That bull is angry!”

Notes: Heh, heh… I’ll have to do entries for alavene and alavene peva someday soon. The pair amuse me.

Anyway, in this case, peva means “horned” as and applies to “cow”. The iku is, you’ll noticed, a modified version of fa, the second syllable of peva. It’s modified in such a way that the iku kind of looks like a stylized goat’s head facing forward (with little goat horns).

Oh my goodness! I just realized I haven’t done the word for “goat”! I’m definitely going to have to correct that error soon!

ikatava

• (n.) palm (leaf)
• (n.) fan
• (v.) to fan

A fumi ipe ti ikatava.
“That’s good for fanning.”

Notes: Hence the reason the word for the two things are the same. Check out this wild palm:

Nice and big! And quite a bit more fan-ish than the usual palms one sees on palmtrees around here.

There’s a straightforward part-to-whole relationship between ikatava and katava. Some day I’ll have to do the tribal name associated with katava… Indeed, some day.

or

uayu

• (v.) to limp
• (adj.) limping
• (n.) (a/the) limp

Uayu ei…
“I’m limping…”

Notes: Not a good game yesterday. Not in any way. My poor body can’t take this punishment for much longer…

There are variant spellings for this one on account of the association with movement. Though a folk etymology, limping is a kind of movement, and lots of movement words end with iu (which always has the “line” determinative beneath it). Add to that the fact that iu and no have the same iku, and darn it if people don’t spell it with the “line” determinative more often than not.

tama

• (n.) leg (of a human)

Au neneoko tama o ia i elenetiá eyana.
“Your legs make a good bed.”

Notes: HAPPY CATURDAY!

Though I’d be delighted to have a bat as a pet, I have only a cat. She is quite the cat, though, and has gotten snuggly of late. Here she is taking a little siesta on Erin’s legs:

I think she regards my legs as uneven, and unsuitable for sitting or lying. It’s too bad, but I can’t fault her: Between my legs and Erin’s legs, the choice seems obvious enough to me.

(Huh. Just stepped away from the screen, came back, and saw the words “between my legs”. Out of context, that can be a bit embarrassing…)

Tama is the counterpart of ponu, which is the word used for an animal’s leg. It’s a pretty straightforward ikuiku, I think.

ino

• (n.) egg
• (adj.) egg-shaped
• (v.) to be egg-shaped or ovular

A ile ei iu ino!
“I hate eggs!”

Notes: Remember that post I did awhile back on mushrooms? Well this is the exact opposite of that.

Let me make it clear: I hate eggs! I revile them. In any form. I don’t eat them raw, cooked, boiled, for breakfast—I mean, anything. I appreciate what they do for baked goods, but if they appear in any kind of solid form, my stomach roils.

See, when I was very young, I was allergic to eggs (or so I’m told). I was given one and swelled up like a balloon and had to be rushed off to the hospital. That didn’t have anything to do with my present distaste for them, I don’t think. It’s more the fact that I never ate them thereafter, and never developed a taste for them.

Plus, have you seen those things?! All gooey and…bouncy… Boingy, I’d call them (that’s also what I called fat when I was very young, which I likewise despised). Plus, they’re little chickens! I understand that there’s a difference between fertilized and unfertilized, but really, that makes little difference to the part of my brain that says, “Ewwww!” when presented with certain foods (like onions).

There. I feel better having gotten that off my chest. Let it be known! I despise eggs.

noni

• (n.) stomach

Pamale ei ie noni o ei ea ima!
“I must harden my stomach!”

Notes: Indeed, I must. It’s part of my goal to get back to the gym after my unfortunate convalescence on account of my twisted ankle. I’m almost back to being able to run, though! Pretty soon I’ll get back to where I was last summer (indeed, word is I may start playing basketball again).

The word noni is kind of a joke. It shares a form with the Hawaiian word noni, which is the name of a fruit whose juice (according to my grandmother) is supposed to help stomach problems. I’ve tried taking this juice. In my opinion, all it does is help vomiting problems (i.e. if you feel the inability to vomit, try drinking some noni juice: It is VILE!). Needing a form for the Kamakawi word for “stomach”, though, I thought I’d give the nod to noni as a way of saying, “Well, I tried.”

And, after all, it may help with stomach problems. I can’t verify the claims myself, as I didn’t submit it to a thorough test (and hereafter refuse to do so).

hata

• (n.) thigh

Au male neneoko hata o ia ie elenetiá li’i.
“Your thighs will serve as my bed.”

Notes: HAPPY CATURDAY!

The other day, I was on the computer checking e-mail in the morning, and then I was going to go brush my teeth, take a shower, etc. Keli was sitting next to me just meowing and meowing. I didn’t know what she wanted (usually when she meows she’s downstairs and wants me to come down to [or she's upstairs and wants me to come up]; she rarely meows right next to me), so I scooped her up and put her on my lap and petted her a bit.

Usually when I do this, she purrs for a little bit, but she’s impatient, so after a minute or two she wants to do something else, and hops down. This time she did this instead:

Yep. That’s her asleep on my lap. She never sleeps on my lap—ever. She’s generally not that type of cat. And yet, there we were.

So instead of getting up to brush my teeth and shower, I was sitting in my chair, my chest perpendicular to the computer, with nothing to do but sit there. I tried to kind of twist around and at least do a little internet surfing, but that proved cumbersome. So I just took a picture and waited.

Eventually, my legs started to get tired, and she noticed that her bed wasn’t as steady as it had been. Finally when she felt she couldn’t sleep comfortably anymore, she turned her head towards me to give me a reproachful stare, and she hopped off.

Then I brushed my teeth and showered.

Hooray cats!