61 seems that ―nite‖ may graphically add a non-standard ‗flavor‘ to the transcript, but it does
not have any analytical value, at least from a phonetic perspective. However, whether eye-dialect respelling has no analytical value is debatable,
especially when a transcriber is an L1 Hawai‗i Creole speaker. Wong 1999 explains that he has opted to use ―an ad hoc orthography‖ p. 210 in his representation of Hawai‗i
Creole speech:
K: Howzis, Leinani dem waz
planning one trip to da zoo eh … and your ipo wen
jus tell Leinani dat she waz
going join dem …. I‘n ask Leilani how she wen say em … she to‘ me she wen try explain em in Hawaiian but Leinani neva
underst and … so she jus said, ―Yeah, whatevah‖ … she said em li‘ dat, ―Yeah,
whatevah.‖ Wong, 1999, p. 210, my emphasis
Wong 1999 uses non- standard respelling for Hawai‗i Creole features except two tokens
of ―waz,‖ which seems to be eye-dialect respelling of ―was.‖ Because there is no difference in their phonetic value i.e., ―waz‖ vs. ―was‖, the re-spelt form ―waz‖ is only
to add a ‗flavor‘ to the transcript, which may highlight the fact that the above discourse is in Hawai‗i Creole.
21
It might be relevant to ask who decides whether to use eye-dialect respelling; in other words, White and Robillard 1989 are L2 Hawai‗i Creole users while
Wong 1999 is an L1 Hawai‗i Creole user, which could give different meaning to their use of eye-dialect respelling i.e.,
―nite‖ for ―night‖ and ―waz‖ for ―was‖ respectively. I argue that L1 users may be more competent to use eye-dialect respelling for subversive
purposes as an act of self representation.
21
One point about using ―waz‖ is that the vowel may indeed have a different quality from that of ―was.‖
62
2.3.2.2 Non-standard respelling
Some Hawai‗i Creole scholars use their own non-standard respelling e.g., Forman et al., 1973; Iwamura, 1977; Purcell, 1979; Rynkofs, 1993; Watson-Gegeo Boggs, 1977.
Below is an excerpt from Watson-Gegeo and Boggs 1977 that shows an interaction between two Hawaiian children, Ahi A and Palani P:
Excerpt 4 Watson-Gegeo Boggs, 1977, p. 79, line numbers and emphasis are added
01 02
03 04
05 06
07 08
09 10
11 12
13 14
15 16
A: P:
A: P:
A: P:
A: P:
You know ova deh? My dad was walkin op da
mountin
ӕ?.
[Who He saw one mountin lion.
A followin him climb op da mountin, eh? He seen
one [mountin- [Who] climb da mountin?
My
fa’er, he cotchin one mountin lion.
[Oh, cannot. [Yes he] [did I betchu
dolla. [He cannot. interaction
ends Formal opening phrase,
orientation, request for confirmation.
Challenge P knows who. Continues story.
Repeats challenge, more explicitly.
Answers, alleges fact. Contradicts A.
Contradicts P, suggests trial by wager note overlapping
indicating anticipation. Contradicts A.
Watson-Gegeo a nd Boggs 1977 use respellings to capture Hawai‗i Creole features.
Respellings include: ―ova‖ for ―over,‖ ―deh‖ for ―there,‖ ―walkin‖ for ―walking‖ also ―followin‖ and ―cotchin‖, ―op‖ for ―up,‖ ―da‖ for ―the,‖ ―mountin‖ for ―mountain,‖
―fa‘er‖ for ―father,‖ ―cotchin‖ for ―catching,‖ ―betchu‖ for ―bet you,‖ and ―dolla‖ for ―dollar.‖ Other Hawai‗i Creole features are ―one‖ ll. 5 and 8, ―seen‖ l. 7, ―cannot‖ l.
12, and sentence final particles such as ―ӕ?‖ l. 3 and ―eh?‖ l. 7. The non-
standard respellings and the other Hawai‗i Creole features in standard English orthography indicate the informality of the above interaction even though some
63 of the respellings are still vague and there are some inconsistencies. For instance, ―deh‖ l.
1 is respelled differently from other tokens of the same phonological process i.e., r- delet
ion such as ―dolla‖ l. 14. In addition, even though A, who is one of the participants in the above excerpt, drops r‘s in lines 1 ―deh‖ and 14 ―dolla, the sound
remains in ―My fa‘er‖ l. 10. Moreover, it is likely that ―You know‖ l. 1 shows a trace of monophthongization, and it is also probable that ―him‖ l. 6 is pronounced as ―om.‖
Non-standard respelling can easily become inconsistent, so I illustrate in the next section a more consistent system that is designed to treat Hawai‗i Creole as an autonomous
language.
2.3.2.3 The Odo orthography
Roberts 2005 highlights three important events in the study of Hawai‗i Creole, one of which is Carol Odo‘s invention of ―a non-etymological phonetic orthography for Hawai‗i
Creole‖ Roberts, 2005, p. 27.
22
Odo created a writing system for Hawai‗i Creole to deal
with a great amount of recording data, but her intent was not to transform Hawai‗i Creole
into a literary language; later in the 1990s, the sociolinguist Charlene Sato adopted Odo‘s
system as an orthography in her academic and political quest to legitimize Hawai‗i
Creole. Following is a summary of this orthography taken from Sakoda and Siegel‘s
2003 work on the grammar of Hawai‗i Creole.
22
Note that Roberts refers to Odo‘s work as ―non-etymological phonetic orthography.‖ Odo‘s product is undoubtedly non-etymological, but 1 whether it is orthography and 2 whether it is phonetic is debatable
Kent Sakoda, personal communication, 2009. The Odo orthography is not strictly phonetic; rather, it is phonemic because it does not allow one to discriminate between the differences in vowel quality of the
same phoneme, a problem which can be overcome through the use of International Phonetic Alphabet symbols. Odo did not name her system the Odo orthography, although it is popularly known as such in
academic circles. She regarded
Hawai‗i Creole as a constellation of features that Hawai‗i English speakers adopt in style-shifting, and she did not believe that t
here is a Hawai‗i Creole speech community.
64 Figure 2.2. Vowels in the Odo orthography Sakoda Siegel, 2003, p. 24, IPA added
symbol sound
Odo spelling other examples
IPA
a e
i o
u
ae or ӕ aw
ai au
ei oi
ou r
fun or father fake
feet foam
food fat
fall file
foul fail
foil fold
fur
fanfada fek
fit fom
fud faet
fawl fail
faul feil
foil fould
fr ap up, mada mother, pam palm
red, mek make, tude today bit beatbit, mi me, priti pretty
brok broke, oke okay, ol old but boot, gud good, yu you
raep wrap, laet let, aek act law, awn on, tawk talk
laik like, ai I, krai cry hau how, laud loud, kau cow
eit eight, meid maid, eij age boil, toi toy, chois choice
vout vote, toud toad, gout goat wrd word, hr her, brd bird
ʌ, a e,
ɛ i,
ɪ o
u, ʊ
ɛ, ӕ ɔ
a ɪ, aj
a ʊ, aw
e ɪ, ej
o ɪ, oj
o ʊ, ow
ɹ
Figure 2.3. Consonants in the Odo orthography Sakoda Siegel, 2003, p. 25, IPA added
symbol examples
IPA
b d
f g
h j
k l
m n
p r
s t
v w
y z
ch sh
zh D
‗
bawl ball, rib dawg dog, baed bad
fani funny, inaf enough go, baeg bag
haed had, hou how jank junk, baej badge
kil kill, kik kick ple play, pul pull
mai my, him nais nice, pin
pau ‘finished’, grup group
raet rat, krai cry
sel sell, mas mus’, mus
t tel tell, fait fight
vaen van, neva never wid weed, wea where
yu you, yelo yellow zu zoo, izi easy
chek check, kaech catch shel shell, fish
mezha measure, yuzholi usually
kaDai ‘spicy hot’, kaDate karate ali‘i ‘chief’, Hawai‘i
b d
f g
h d
ʒ k
l m
n p
ɹ s
t v
w j
z
ʧ ʃ
ʒ ɾ
ʔ
2.3.3 Representing my data