Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 25, Number 11, 1 November 2008 — Why is Maunakea spelled as one word? [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Why is Maunakea spelled as one word?

I By Larry Kimura Hawaiian names, both personal and plaee names, are usually made up of several root words combined together to represent the person or plaee. Hawaiian tradition is to write these roots words together as a single word, for example, Kamehameha not Ka Mehameha, Kalākaua not Ka Lā Kaua, Waikīkl not Wai Kīkl, Keauhou not Ke Au Hou. The Hawaiian tradition is different from the English one, as in English the parts of a plaee name are sometimes written separately, e.g., Mount

Vernon, New York, Red River Valley. It is also eommon in English to write "native" names as separate words: Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Red Cloud. The Hawaiian tradition is based in the Hawaiian granunar of the oral language that marks separate words differently from names. In the case of two mountains on Hawai'i Island that scientists from outside Hawai'i have eome to dominate, Maunakea and Maunaloa, American English spelling traditions have been imposed on earlier Hawaiian spelling traditions. The earlier Hawaiian spelling traditions ean be seen in places with the same name where American scientists have not had as mueh of an inlluenee, e.g., Maunaloa on Moloka'i, Maunakea Street in Honolulu, and the Maunakea family name. 01der Hawaiian writings also include examples of Maunakea and Maunaloa written as one word when referring to the mountains on Hawai'i. Larry Kimura is an assistant professor at Ka Haka 'Ula 0 Ke'elikōlani College of Hawaiian Language, University of Hawai'i at Hilo H

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