413: Phonological Restrictions Jan 25, 2016

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The closest to 'merry Christmas' one can get in Hawai'ian is "mele kalikimaka". This is because Hawai'ian has many restrictive rules, sort of like how the ŋ sound (such as in 'ring') can't go at the front of a word in English. In Hawai'ian, there are only 8 consonants: H, K, L, M, N, P, W, ‘/ʔ (glottal stop), so the sounds get matched up to their closest counterparts, R to L, and S to K. Also, Hawai'ian and every other language from Polynesia cannot have two vowel sounds together, nor can a word end in a consonant. All of these rules together make the approximation "mele kalikimaka"

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