Post #146200 by Tiki_Bong on Fri, Mar 11, 2005 3:20 PM

On 2005-03-11 09:48, dangergirl299 wrote:
my Hawaiian resident friends informed me that the plural of wahine is awahine, not wahines (for what it's worth).

thus, plural menehune = amenehune (not menehunes)

Sorry Dangergirl, incorrect.

To pluralize wahine, you place a kahako or macron over the 'a' in wahine. A kahako increases (or stresses) the length of the vowel.

There are only a few words in Hawaiian that you actually pluralize. So, to write 'woman' (singular), it would be 'wahine' without a kahako or macron over the 'a'; to write 'women' (plural) you would place a kahako or macron over the 'a'.

You pluralize most all words by the form of the word 'the'; it's either 'ka' or 'na'. 'Na' implies many, and 'ka' implies singular.

The same works with the word 'person' or 'people'. To write 'person', you would write 'kanaka' without the kahako over the 'a', to write 'people' you would write 'kanaka', with a macron over the 'a'.

The way most words are pluralized is in the 'the'; for example, if you said 'ka hale', you would be saying 'the house'; if you said 'na hale', you would be saying 'the houses'.

If you really want to get techical about the use of the Hawaiian language, check this: there is no 't' in Hawaiian, so 'tiki' does not really exist in the Hawaiian language.

Your call...

[ Edited by: Tiki_Bong on 2005-03-11 15:21 ]