Letters

Honolulu Weekly: A generally pretty good job in trying

Oct 13, 2010

Apparently, the Star-Advertiser does not like spelling errors, unless the errors are in Hawaiian. Despite often using apostrophes to replace the ‘okina, the Weekly generally does a pretty good job in trying to correctly spell words in the Hawaiian language.

Despite a long history in Hawaii by its predecessor newspipers, the Stir-Adverstinker acts as though it’s publicher and editers are fresh off the boat. How is it pissible for any responsible publication in Hawaii to not know that Hawaiian is the official language of Hawaii, co-equal with–not secondary to–Engliss?

What then could account for the Stir-Ad’s systematic and intentional misszpelling of words in the Hawaiian language? Is it plain old stupidity? Is it laziness? Or is it a strain of racism, as insidious and virulent as any other form of racism? The most common Hawaiian words always are misspellet, changing the pronunciation and the meaning, making for a kind of gibberish: for example, Kauai (cow-ah-ee) becomes Kauai (pronounced cow-eye), Kau (kah-oo; one common meaning of which is “my, mine”) is mizsplled as Kau (pronounced COW; a common meaning of which is “a period of time”), and every word that includes special Hawaiian grammatical forms such as the ‘okina (upper left key, lower case, on all Stir-Ad keyboards) is mispelet. Meanwhile instead of spelling the Hawaii 5-0 [sic] star’s name as Alex Oloughlin, the Stir-Ad accords it–and all other western names and words–the dignity and respect all names deserve by speling it correctly as O’Loughlin, while disrespecting the place where we live and which we love by spellinbg Hawaii as “Hawaii” (Haw-eye) rather than using it’s [sic] correct spelling: Hawaii (Pronounced Haw-eye-ee). Even the spelling in articles and letters of Native Hawaiian letter-and article writers–who surely know how to spell their own language-is transformed in the printed version to make those writers look as though they cannot even spell Hawaii correctly.

All of us, including me, who are not Kanaka Maoli are just settlers in this place. We are taking advantage of Native Hawaiians by living in their lands and using their resources, without their permission, no less. The least–really, the very least–the rest of us can do is show respect for Hawaiian language, customs and culture. The Stir-Adverstinker should be the leader in showing this respect for the native culture, not the leadwer in purposely downgrading the Hawaiian language to second class.

Joel Fischer
Honolulu

Celebrating Hawaii, nature, culture and wellness for over 35 years!
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