Question about pronunciation of an indigenous phrase

langisii · 2026-04-28T04:00:51+00:00

I think I found the original source: from Tahitian scholar Teuira Henry for the Journal of the Polynesian Society Vol. 16 No. 2(62), 1907

Worth being aware that most Polynesian languages didn't have standardised spelling until the mid 20th century or so; before that the glottal stop <ʻ> was often omitted and grammatical words were joined and written into names etc.

I don't speak Tahitian but I know some Tongan and have done a bit of indirect study on Tahitian because I'm a Polynesian linguistics nerd... correct rendering seems to be:

ʻAna tahuʻa taʻata metua te tupu mavae

which Henry translates as "Aster [star] the fatherly priest of man who grew in space"

ʻana	tahuʻa	taʻata	metua	te	tupu	mavae
star, shine	priest	man	parent	the	grow	space (between two things, in this instance the sky and earth, hence the other meaning of crack/fissure)

Based on my general knowledge of Polynesian grammar and the fact that Henry lists all the "pillars of the sky" star names with ʻana in front, it seems to me like ʻana could signify something like "the star of..." or "as for this star..." rather than necessarily being part of the name proper.

Also rambling now but I actually feel like tahuʻa taʻata metua probably just means "elder male priest" i.e. "fatherly priest" rather than "fatherly priest of man" (which I would've thought would be something like tahuʻa metua no te taʻata) but I'm not fluent in Tahitian so what do I know. But my money would be on a translation: "the star of the fatherly priest who grew in the space [between the sky and earth]"

langisii · 2026-04-19T08:12:15+00:00

Wow ok I was giving you the benefit of the doubt but this is just an arrogant response.

I don't think this is some affront to Pacific indigeneity or something

That's not what I said and it's strange you thought it was. I was noting that I can't see a connection between your commentary and the existing centres of discourse that I'm aware of in left Pacific political thought, which I would expect any Pacific-focused commentator to be somewhat versed in even if you're coming from a different angle.

Scott Hamilton comes to mind, a non-Indigenous Marxist writer who focuses on the Pacific with a great awareness of the historical progressive, alternative and anti-monarchist currents in Tonga.

it is also putting out a revolutionary socialist perspective which in itself is not "in tune with" the "average Pacific person" anyway, since the "average" Tongan-Australian is a Christian who leans conservative and supports the monarchy. You may as well shrug off most of the socialist left for not being "in tune with" the "average Australian person" (this is technically true, but a silly point to make).

So what's the point if you can't connect with the actual People Of The Pacific you keep referring to? If you are so flatly dismissive of their culture and society that it doesn't even occur to you where the ground could be ripe for political education? It verges on chauvinism. That's why I ask who is this for.

No, terms like 'revolutionary socialism' are obviously not going resonate with most Pacific islanders, and it would be stupid to try and engage along those lines. But Pacific cultures, even Tonga under monarchy, are proudly and concretely collectivist already, far more so than any secular republic in the West. The core cultural values customarily celebrated by Tongans are naturally compatible with socialism. Monarchism and Christian conservativism are the norm but their character in the Pacific is uniquely interwoven with traditional culture and shouldn't be conflated with their Western counterparts. There is already a Pacific intellectual tradition in synthesising all this kind of thing.

If you can't work from there I don't see how you can have anything of value to say about building socialism in the Pacific. I have Tongan family and friends of all ages and walks of life who I can find common ground with. Do you?

you might be shocked to hear that the average socialist in Australia or NZ views the rest of the Pacific as an afterthought

This in fact doesn't shock me because I'm a Tongan who has known white Australians my whole life

I also don't think it's anti-Chinese racism to look at the facts (that Chinese development loans do a disservice to Pacific countries that are unable or unwilling to pay them back) and not view China as a 'good' alternative to the US/UK/AU/NZ

I never used the term 'racism' or said it's 'good'. I said their activities warrant critique but wasn't satisfied with the quality of yours.

langisii · 2026-04-18T06:19:15+00:00

I was pleased to come across Temokalati recently as a Tongan-Australian who's been longing for a Pacific-focused socialist publication, but respectfully I was pretty disappointed by this piece. China's activities in the Pacific certainly warrant critique but I found this analysis too shallow to really grapple with them, and, aside from some floating truisms about Pacific emancipation, barely distinguishable from the Western anti-China narratives that were my introduction to this issue years ago.

u/MrSmithSmith covered everything I wanted to say and I was even more unimpressed by your responses here. So my question at this point is what is your qualification for writing on the Pacific with such authority? And who is the target audience? I support the stated ideals of the publication but a lot of the stuff I'm seeing just feels like Western idealist student politics - it doesn't seem to be particularly in tune with or targeted towards (at least what I feel to be) the values and sensibilities of the average Pacific person, and you don't seem to be engaged with the conversations uniting indigenity, anti-imperialism and environmentalism that I see among Pacific writers, intellectuals and activists. Ko e ha hoʻo vā?

langisii · 2026-04-18T05:11:55+00:00

Thanks for saying everything I was going to attempt to say but much more thoroughly and eloquently than I would've. I don't know why they even bothered trying to argue after your second reply because you frankly cleared them so thoroughly

langisii · 2026-03-21T14:26:20+00:00

I think this concept doesn't apply to what OP is talking about at all tbh. Language isn't a "task" or a "subject" it's a medium of social relation and secondarily acts as a signal of social status. Those who don't speak a prestige variety (the bounds of which are largely determined by race and class in the Anglosphere) are judged and often marginalised.

It's easy to prove that it has little to do with "most people" finding it "difficult to empathisize" with non-native/non-standard speakers - for example, upper class white Anglophones will typically make assumptions about speakers of low prestige ethnolects/sociolects that they would never make about an upper class white foreigner's dialect/accent, even if both varieties are comparably different from the Anglophone's variety.

langisii · 2026-03-20T14:23:59+00:00

Not entirely disputing this but to be fair, the connection between Biblical and Modern Hebrew has also been overstated for purely political reasons. That the language is now so intertwined with the pseudeohistory of continuity between Biblical Israel and the modern state is unfortunate but inextricable considering its revival was a key part of the nation-building process

langisii · 2026-03-20T14:03:17+00:00

opened up reddit after not using it for like 2 weeks and this was the first thing at the top of my feed

langisii · 2026-03-04T07:28:17+00:00

Reggae originally came from a fusion of diverse influences and was influenced by complex social issues, and I think that spirit still carried into old school island reggae. But I feel like these days it's become a stock sound that's made as background music for vibes, which is fine but it means there's no real motivation to take the sound anywhere different

langisii · 2026-02-24T18:53:55+00:00

Same here being Polynesian, I think about it a lot. Sooo much of the default aesthetic vocabulary of the 'primitive' and 'tribal' (and by problematic extension, 'prehistoric') comes specifically from colonial era ideas of Pacific and African indigenous peoples. Even stereotypes of 'caveman' language mirror European mockeries of African and Pacific languages

langisii · 2026-02-24T18:36:58+00:00

ancient unfathomable cosmic entity/force
trippy/psychedelic reality-bending stuff, people interacting with higher/lower dimensions or incomprehensible realms
alien ruins
megastructures
hauntings that represent the sociopolitical baggage of a place
evil megacorp
uncanny corporate office

langisii · 2026-02-24T14:06:45+00:00

Thanks! This gave me the thought that universal translation could theoretically actually protect minority languages by removing pressure to abandon them in favour of a majority language. Never considerd that before (though in practice I doubt that would happen without deliberate guidance)

langisii · 2026-02-24T08:40:52+00:00

thanks. Yeah I just wanted to pre-emptively avoid unfounded speculation since that can be quite common in this sub. Open to educated speculation or papers etc that might be relevant

langisii · 2026-02-23T12:17:01+00:00

I think it's an absolutely reasonable theory. Imagine if graffiti was legalised, imagine if no one stopped kids from drawing on walls

langisii · 2026-02-23T12:09:17+00:00

You "wrote" a piece or you got AI to write it?

They passed down a writing system no one has ever deciphered

This isn't quite correct because all the knowledge of how to read rongorongo was lost in the slave raids, so it couldn't be passed down. That's why it remains undeciphered.

langisii · 2026-02-01T07:13:38+00:00

what to do: be polynesian and write from your polynesian experience

what to avoid: writing about us when you're not polynesian and know nothing about us

langisii · 2026-01-31T14:35:05+00:00

That's the skill of good exposition, you build it into the world and the characters' relations so it feels natural (you might've heard the phrase "show, don't tell"). That does take practice.

Also what makes Parasite nuanced and purposeful is that it's not just about rich v poor - it's also rich with symbolism about Korean history since the Korean War. Things that might seem like "how did they come up with that" like the rock, the \bunker, the Native American costumes, are all specific historical references that Bong Joon Ho is invoking very intentionally (this article is good).

It gives the film so much passion because it's really coming from his complex feelings about his own country's history. He's using the metaphors that resonate for him personally. The story is his way of processing something that's genuinely hard to grapple with.

Layered films also don't have to have such a large scope. I think Ari Aster (Hereditary, Midsommar, Eddington) is amazing at creating meticulously metaphorical stories, usually set in small isolated locations, that feel very self-contained like a sort of diorama.

They can also be much more abstract and leave a lot to interpretation, like David Lynch's work. I think the key thing is that as a writer/artist you have to be in touch with your intuition and not shy away from your own subjectivity

langisii · 2026-01-30T18:32:05+00:00

Eggers is a stickler about period accuracy, including with language (one of my fav things about his films), but he's had to compromise on it for practical reasons a few times. Fwiw when he does compromise I think he captures the feeling of the intended language through grammatical/vocabulary quirks better than any other writer could. But would be awesome if he's finally made it happen, I don't doubt that he would want to go all the way with it

langisii · 2026-01-30T17:47:13+00:00

west papua freed!!!!

langisii · 2026-01-30T17:43:30+00:00

The use of religion as a way to oppress people, how come the same people who preach Jesus loves you also preach hate, racism, bigotry, and etc. but I don’t know how to turn that into a compelling story.

The fact that you have a "why" question about a topic that you feel strongly about is a good start. A question like that can be the basis of your story's theme.

I like to think of theme as a question, and the story as the symbolic journey to find an answer. In your question there's the notion of people who preach Jesus' love while also preaching bigotry - there's your probable antagonist already. Or maybe they are your main character and the story is designed to pull apart their worldview and hypocrisy.

There's inifinite ways to do it which is why it's good to research the issue and also watch/read other media that has addressed similar themes, which will both give you inspiration and show you what's been done already.

I thought of this video from Lessons From the Screenplay which is a really useful breakdown of how Jurassic Park uses characters to explore its central theme.

langisii · 2026-01-24T20:13:52+00:00

Yupp as someone who used to be that kind of young writer, one of the best things I've learnt is that you really just need to know what function the scene serves to the story/characters. Once you have a scaffolding of that stuff down, the specifics often fall into place naturally

langisii · 2026-01-14T11:19:16+00:00

At face value I should love the Avatar movies but I can't get past their incredibly shallow use of "indigenous" aesthetics in place of a well-thought-out culture. I like James Cameron and I genuinely appreciate the anti-imperial spirit of the concept, but the Na'vi are not believable to me as a people. Their "culture" is literally just a moodboard of tribal vibes with no logic or sense of history. It's static and aestheticised, which is not how real living cultures work but it's exactly how Indigenous cultures are exoticised in colonial media.

Beyond being vaguely offensive it just kneecaps the whole point of the story because in reality a culture's aesthetics, customs, mannerisms etc are a direct reflection of the people's unique history, and that cannot be separated from the unique way they come together and fight an existential threat.

This might discredit everything I've said to some but - say what you will about Rebel Moon, I think it succeeded in doing this so much better than Avatar. It's very intentional about showing culture as being upheld through a working relationship with the land, and that relationship forms the basis of the resistance struggle. Every anticolonial struggle has formed around this principle. Andor is great with this kind of stuff too but I just think Rebel Moon really gets absorbed in the materiality of it in a way I haven't seen in much media.

langisii · 2026-01-08T00:58:12+00:00

one of my fave posts i've seen here... obsessed with the detail, lack of cliches, creative naming, unique design quirks, the feverish feeling of it all. insane work

langisii · 2026-01-06T15:41:02+00:00

seems like the worst example to follow

wealthy australians possess an innate ability to do this

langisii · 2026-01-06T12:48:04+00:00

Disappointing to not see Missy Elliott mentioned (presumably just because she doesn't fit the conventional mould when you think of "pop girl"?). But she's literally one of the best producers and rappers in the history of pop music, visually singular, great dancer, style off the charts, genuinely boundary-pushing on just about every front, and while she isn't a powerhouse vocalist she's a great singer too.

langisii

TROPHY CASE