413: Phonological Restrictions Jan 25, 2016

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"