We met someone on a cruise the week before last, who pronounced "Kauai" like Hawaii except with a K. Is this correct?
I presume it could well be, since she lived there for some time (an Aussie sheila with her ex-Nam American husband of 40+ years, and an air traffic controller sacked by The Gipper), however I guess I have never heard the word spoken before.
How else would you pronounce it? Like Maui, but with a "K"?
The pronunciation you describe is very similar to the Japanese word 可愛, meaning "cute". I'm not sure if there's any connection...
How else would you pronounce it? Like Maui, but with a "K"?
I don't know comrade ... that's why I am asking!
Sheesh ... I'm waiting for a proper Seppo, hopefully in a grass skirt.
People pronounce Hawaii in different ways, so perhaps you could clarify a little. You mean she pronounced Kauai in three syllables, ka wa 'i (apostrophe representing glottal stop.) If not that, then what?
I usually hear it pronounced cow EYE, without a distinct w beginning the second syllable and without the glottal stop. I suspect from the spelling of the two words that that is correct in Hawaiian, but I don't know.
I'm with vinny. It's not clear. Did the person say cow-eye or ka-wye-ee?
Here's a lengthy description Kaua'i or Kawai'i?. This author says that there is no glottal stop; the ʻokina (represented by a sort of backward apostrophe) shows that the syllables are pronounced separately, not as a diphthong.
Kauaʻi ≠ Kawaiʻi
Kauaʻi ≠ Kawai
[snip]
Ka-ua-ʻi is wrong
Kau-a-ʻi is correct, but incomplete
There is a spoken feature of the word Kauaʻi that is missing in the depiction aboveand it is known as a w-glide. W-glides arenatural occurrences of the spoken Hawai-ian language. W-glides can follow u vow-els. In the case of the word Kauaʻi, a w-glide follows the first syllable and is addedto the front end of the second syllable.
Kau-(w)a-ʻi
Kauaʻi is pronounced KAU-WAH-ee with stress on the capitalized syllables.
She pronounced it like the common, if less correct, version of Hawaii (no glottal stop or other pauses), obviously except with an initial K. So ka-wye-ee.
My question was prompted because I have always assumed it was as per vinnyD, cow-EYE, but that now appears to be wrong, as there are in fact three syllables according to the nutrax reference (and my cruise colleague herself of course).
A'ight geez Ian, you shud lern fro' Eas' London innit, glo'al stops aint fo' posh krooz types!
I saw a guitarist from Hawaii perform this summer. He had easy-on-the-ear middle American English, but every time he said the word "Hawaii" (and only the word Hawaii), he said it in a decidedly accented way, with the glottal stop in there. I thought it sounded weird (in English) and a little pretentious, but maybe plenty of people in Hawaii do that. I suppose I probably do the same thing myself all the time, just with other place names.
A'ight geez Ian, you shud lern fro' Eas' London innit, glo'al stops aint fo' posh krooz types!
My ancestors weren't posh at all Giora - they were your basic tea-leaves from Colsterworth in Lincolnshire. But they didn't cop any of that East London shite lingo, that's for sure. But they were cruisers of course - First Fleet and all that.