General Information

What is Kaleo o Ko'olauloa * The Voice of Koolauloa

Kaleo o Ko'olauloa is a community newspaper

sponsored by:

Hawaii Reserves, Inc.

And co-sponsored by:
Brigham Young University Hawai'i
Polynesian Cultural Center

Distribution and Advertising

Kaleo is distributed free to households in Lä'ie, Kahuku and Hau'ula, and in bulk at key locations throughout Ko'olauloa (e.g. Foodland, Kahuku Library, BYU Hawaii's Aloha Center, PCC Employee Center, etc.). Copies are also available by first-class postal subscription for $20 per year. To subscribe, send a check or money order made out to: Attention: Mike Foley, Kaleo o Koolauloa, P.O. Box 101, Laie, HI  96762.

Kaleo will accept paid display advertising with rates ranging from $100-$350. Classified advertising is also available at the prepaid rate of $10 per 3 lines.

For more information on advertising, contact Mike Foley.

Editorial policy and staff

The views and opinions expressed in Kaleo o Ko'olauloa are those of the individual writers and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of its sponsors. You may not copy or reproduce any part of Kaleo o Ko'olauloa without permission. All rights reserved, ©1999-2005.

Letters to the Editor must be signed (although we will withhold the name, upon request) before we will consider publishing them in a future issue of Kaleo on a space-available basis.

Submit news items, letters to the editor and/or advertising queries to Mike Foley at 808-754-4304, e-mail at foleym002@hawaii.rr.com or mail them to: P.O. Box 101, Lä'ie, HI 96762.

Editor & Publisher

Mike Foley

Chief Photographer

Barry Markowitz

 

The Use of Appropriate Hawaiian Diacritical Marks in Kaleo

Kaleo attempts to use appropriate Hawaiian diacritical marks in both its hard-copy and web editions: the kahakö, or Polynesian long-vowel, which is indicated by a macron or bar above the letter; and the 'okina, or glottal stop (which is usually represented with either an apostrophe or a reversed apostrophe — i.e. one shaped like the number six). Such symbols are called diacritical marks.

Polynesian long vowels, which are literally held longer than regular vowels in pronunciation, are found in all Polynesian languages and make meaningful differences in words from their regular counterparts. For example, mana in Hawaiian means 'spiritual force' (among other definitions) whereas mänä means 'arid' or 'desert.' Polynesian long-vowels should not be confused with English phonetic "long vowels" that are sometimes used in teaching children how to differentiate the pronunciation of, for example, the letter "a" in words such as 'hat' and 'hate' — the former being an English "short-A" and the latter being an English "long-A." English speakers occasionally use long or lengthened vowels for emphasis, but the literal length of vowels in English does not change meaning. For example, although awkwardly written: ple-e-e-e-e-ase or hello-o-o-o-o-o, still have the same meaning regardless of how long their pronunciation is sustained.

Since native and fluent speakers already knew these differences when the Hawaiian alphabet was created in the 1820s and '30s, writing Hawaiian diacritical marks was not common. Now, however, many years later and with far fewer Hawaiian speakers, some people inadvertently mispronouce Hawaiian words because of the absence of the diacritical marks. For example, the name of the most populated island in Hawai'i should be pronounced with a glottal break (as in the English expression oh-oh, meaning 'mistake') between the O and the remainder of the name: O'ahu; the name of the most popular beach on O'ahu is more correctly written (and appropriately pronounced) Waikïkï; and the main street through Waikïkï is named after the Islands' last king, Kaläkaua — note that the second 'a' ins His Majesty's name is a Hawaiian long-vowel.

In the last few years, major efforts have been made on several fronts to include Hawaiian diacritical marks on, for example, street and road signs. Kaleo o Ko'olauloa has used them for seven years, a practice which both daily Honolulu newspapers only recently started.

Unfortunately, if you don't have "Hawaiian fonts" installed on your computer, the long-vowel may appear as an umlaut-vowel (see samples to the top-left), and the glottal stop may appear as a regular apostrophe or an umlaut-y (an umlaut is a European diacritical mark with two dots above the letter).

To make reading Kaleo o Ko'olauloa as easy as possible, the web edition has substituted a regular apostrophe for the 'okina and the umlaut-Vowel combination for the Polynesian long-vowel. This may look a little awkward at first, if you don't have Hawaiian fonts on your computer, but is truer to the written forms of Polynesian languages. Also, in a few cases Kaleo has stylistically chosen not to include an 'okina diacritic in some words because it would look awkward too close to an English-language apostrophe; for example, Kaleo's style is to write "Hawaii's" and not "Hawai'i's" or "Hawai‘i’s" to show the possessive form of the word Hawai'i.

The good news is that free copies of Hawaiian fonts for Windows or Mac computers are available from: www.olelo.hawaii.edu/OP/resources/fonts.html. They are also available commercially from Coconut Info (www.coconutinfo.com) or Guava Bob (www.guava.com).