2082: A Reason for Long Hawai'ian Words Aug 27, 2020

English has more distinct words than just about any other language, depending upon the metrics, and that fact alongside more flexibility with consonant clusters means that compared to Hawai'ian—with a relatively short vocabulary, fewer letters, and an inability for two consonants to appear together—the words in English can more easily be shorter. For instance, the word for 'zoo' in Hawai'ian is 'kahua hōʻikeʻike holoholona laka ʻole' meaning something like "lockable animal display site".

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