You may have heard this educational song by Flanders and Swan:
Oh its hard to say, olimakityluchachichichi, but in Tonga that means "no",
If I ever have the money, 'tis to Tonga I shall go...
For each lovely Tongan maiden there, will gladly make a date,
and by the time she's said olimakityluchachichichi,
It is usually too late!
You may also have spent hours, perhaps days, repeating "olimakityluchachichichi" to yourself, as a first step to learn Tongan.
You then wasted some time, I'm afraid. Flanders and Swan were not particularly accurate on this point, and the real Tongan word for "no" is "‘ikai".
(I have not found any overly reputable source for this, but search the web for Tongan no 'ikai, and you will find some bilingual official forms and private blogs that confirm it.)
4 comments:
ʻIkai means no in Tongan. The cluster of nonsense they claimed to mean no is completely meaningless. Additionally, Tongan orthography has no Y or Ch. If Swann was really a linguist, this is quite sad.
Yes, it may be sad, or it may just be to do with the fact that they were trying to make people laugh and enjoy themselves, just maybe, since they were comic singers...
There was nothing sad about it! It was joke. Do you think Flanders actually encountered a talking gnu?
Exactly!
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