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The Sounds of HCE Like other creoles, HCE has its own individual system of sounds. Although most of its consonants are similar to those found in varieties of British and American English, the vowels are quite different. Here we talk only bout the differences.
Consonants In words that come from English, many speakers of HCE say 't' or 'd' instead of the 'th' sounds-- for example, tink 'think' and dis 'this.' For many speakers, the 't' sound is usually pronounced as 'ch' before 'r,' as in chri (chree) 'tree'; and the 'd' sound is pronounced as pronounced as 'j' before 'r', as in jril 'drill' Also, especially in fast speech, the 's' sound is pronounced as 'sh' before 'r' or 'tr,' as in groshri 'grocery' and shchrit (shtreet) 'street.' The 'r' is not pronounced after some vowels--for example: paking 'parking' (pronounced like 'pahking'), sked 'scared' and fo 'for.' Sometimes, the final 'r' is changed to another vowel, as in dia 'dear' and welfea 'welfare.' This "r-less" feature is also found in the English spoken in Australia, parts of England, and in the northeastern USA (where the early missionaries to Hawai`i came from).
Vowels For most speakers of HCE the 'ee' sound in 'keen' and the 'i' sound in 'kit' are pronounced similarly, somewhere in between the way the two sounds are pronounced in most varieties of British and American English. The sound of the 'u' in 'put' or 'oo' in 'good' is pronounced similarly to the sound of the 'u' in 'rule' or 'oo' in 'pool.' Also, HCE has what are sometimes called "pure" vowels, as found in languages such as Spanish and Hawaiian, whereas English vowels are typically stretched and changed somewhat. For example, the Hawaiian name "Kekoa" is usually pronounced as 'Kay-koh-wa' by English speakers.
Intonation One of the most striking characteristics of HCE is in the intonation pattern or "melody" you can hear when people speak. One difference between HCE and varieties of English is in the intonation of questions that can be answered "yes" or "no." In most varieties of American English, for example, the pattern is rising, ending at higher pitch or tone of voice. But in HCE, the pattern is falling, dropping to lower pitch in the last syllable. In addition, some HCE words which come from English differ slightly in pronunciation because a different syllable is emphasized most, or stressed. In these examples, the stressed syllable is shown in bold: dikshaneri 'dictionary,' harakein 'hurricane,' aelkahol 'alcohol.' |
