These two languages have enjoyed a great resurgence in recent decades, bucking the trend of being bullied into irrelevance by the culturally more dominant neighbouring language, which in both cases happens to be English.
Bold claim No.1: Your knowledge of the Hawaiian language is probably more extensive than your Welsh.
How so? Because... Fact*: There are more words in the Oxford English Dictionary that derive from Hawaiian than from Welsh.
Do you find it more surprising that there are so many of the former or so few of the latter?
*I feel I should row back slightly on this assertion. It is a "fact" that has stayed with me since I heard it being confidently stated by my Linguistics professor at Nottingham University, circa 1990. Since then, Welsh has continued to grow in stature and influence, and whenever there is a new publication of the OED, there are often new additions to (British) English that are irrefutably of Welsh origin. A similar process has occurred with Hawaiian words going into the Merriam-Webster dictionary, but it appears to a lesser extent. Welsh appears to be catching up and overtaking her mid-Pacific challenger.
English words of Hawaiian origin
Aloha - this has three meanings: hello, goodbye, and love (the latter is only used in Hawai’i)
Awa - a plant belonging to the pepper family. An intoxicating beverage is made from its roots.
Haole - outsider or foreigner
Honu - a green sea turtle
Hula - a Hawaiian dance which used to be performed only by men as a war dance and a symbol of masculinity
Kahuna - a priest, shaman, or wizard; also used to refer to a local or someone who has lived in Hawai’i a long time.
Luau - a feast, with singing and dancing
Mahalo - thank you
Ohana - family
Pele's hair - named after Pele, the fire goddess of volcanoes, it is the glass fibres from a volcano
Taboo* - from the Hawaiian word kapu, something unacceptable or forbidden
Ukulele** - a little guitar
There are fewer consonants in the Hawaiian language, in fact it is easier to list the consonants that do exist: H, K, L, M, N, P, W and the okina ` written like an apostrophe, which represents a glottal stop. Think of how a Cockney pronounces bottle.
Another word that could justifiably make the list is `a`a, which contains two okina, meaning that it is pronounced “ah-ah”, not “aah”. It is a type of volcanic rock, by the way. Remember it for the next time you play Scrabble.
The ‘w’ sounds more like a soft ‘v’ (think German). The word Hawai’i contains both of these lesser-known features, making it surely one of the most mispronounced place names in the world!
*Captain Cook learnt to his fatal cost what it meant to break taboo. On his first voyage to the islands he was given a royal welcome, fortuitously arriving from the ‘good’ direction, at an acceptable time of year and month; even the large white sail on his ship was favourably evocative of divine legend. The second time however, he inadvertently broke taboo by landing at a location which was off limits and was surprised to find the locals much less hospitable. Very much less, in fact, given that they used the excuse of a minor disagreement about supplies to kill him.
**Ukulele is possibly the best-known of all Hawaiian words, but what is the literal translation of uku and lele? The locals were so mesmerised by how quickly the guitarists’ fingers moved around the fretboard, that they exclaimed it looked like “fleas jumping”, which is what the words literally mean.
English words of Welsh origin
Bard - Either from Welsh bardd (where the bard was highly respected) or Scottish bardis (where it was a term of contempt)
Cawl - a traditional Welsh soup/stew
Corgi - from cor, "dwarf" + gi "dog"
Crag - from Welsh craig, meaning a stony hill
Eisteddfod - This lovely name for a literary and arts festival actually means “to be sitting down”, which re-evokes the image of the audience respectfully listening to the bard. This word contains an example of the Welsh double-d, which is pronounced as a soft ‘th’ sound.
Flannel - the etymology is uncertain, but Welsh gwlanen = "flannel wool" is likely
Flummery - from llymru. Flummery is/was a type of blancmange, which could be made to look like other, less bland, food, as a culinary joke. This gentle deception could be why ‘flummery’ took the second meaning of ‘complete nonsense’.
Gull – There was a Celtic word, from which Welsh gets gwylan, and which in turn gives English gull. It is unclear exactly what the original word was, but it was probably onomatopoeic, mimicking the sound of the bird.
Penguin - literal meaning: white-head (pen = head and gwyn = white). We can overlook the fact that most species of penguin have black heads!
Wrasse - a sea fish; gwrach is Welsh for hag or witch.
So, whilst the English language has borrowed most heavily from French, Latin and Greek, it also magpies words from any other where contact has been made. I am conscious that I have merely listed examples; it might have been more interesting to attempt to explain why there are more words deriving from a language spoken on a small group of islands on the opposite site of the globe than one spoken by our friends and neighbours at the other end of the M4.
Neither Welsh nor Hawaiian are currently offered by SameSky Languages. As soon as there is demand, we will set about recruiting a teacher.
Andrew Wenger is the director and lead teacher at SameSky Languages. Please contact him for information on how to enrol in a language-learning course:
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