Need a very small translation from English to Hawaiian

Hello everybody,

hope I'll stumble upon somebody speaking Hawaiian in this part of the forum (probably not as much visited as the others, but it would be off-topic elsewhere) – I need a very small (ukulele related) translation from English to Hawaiian, only these three words:

The Flea Whisperer – like "The Horse Whisperer", only with fleas ...

Google translation shows me "Kaʻuku lele'ōlelo" – is this 100% percent correct (and making sense) or would you translate it differently?

Thanks a lot for any help in advance, really appreciated!

My knowledge of the Hawaiian language is painfully rudimentary, but here are a couple of observations.

There is no single Hawaiian word "Ka'uku." I believe Google translate meant Ka 'uku. Ka means "the" and " 'uku" means "flea."

I don't believe there is a single word "lele'ōlelo." "Lele" means "jumping" and " 'ōlelo" means "language."

It looks as though Google Translate ran the words with 'okina into the words before them. Google translate may have meant to give you the phrase "Ka 'uku lele 'ōlelo," which would translate as "the flea jumping language" (or, taking Hawaiian grammar and word order conventions into account, "the jumping flea language" or "Ka 'ukulele 'ōlelo," which would translate as "the ukulele language."

Hawaiian word order rules generally dictate that the subject/noun comes before the adjective that modifies it, so even if you want to say either "the jumping flea language" or "the ukulele language," I believe the proper Hawaiian would be Ka 'olelo 'uku lele" or "Ka 'olelo 'ukulele," respectively. (Disclaimer: Hawaiian sometimes uses "ke" instead of "ka" for "the." I don't know whether the word " 'olelo" takes "ka" or "ke.")

Applying rules of Hawaiian word order to your phrase, I believe that the English version of the Hawaiian phrase you're looking for would be "the whisperer flea" of "the whisperer 'ukulele," with "flea" and " 'ukulele," respectively, modifying the word "whisperer." Otherwise, it appears that flea or 'ukulele is the subject of your phrase and you are saying something like "the flea/'ukulele language" or "the whispering flea/'ukulele."

The Hawaiian word for whisper or whispering is "hāwanana." I don't know whether or how one would modify this word to change it from whisper to whisperer. Maybe there's a suffix or prefix that does this, or maybe you have to use the Hawaiian equivalent of "one who whispers." So maybe the English version of your phrase is "the one who whispers the language of flea/'ukulele."

As I said, my knowledge of Hawaiian is rudimentary. If I've made any misstatements about Hawaiian, my deepest apologies.

Hi mds725,

thanks a lot for your detailled answer – in this case the Google translation probably is wrong indeed. I'm even not sure anymore after reading your explanation if there exist a sense-making translation at all.

The case is the following: For a short story, I need a fictional honorific Hawaiian nickname for a ukulele player. That‘s why I chose „The flea whisperer“ (Which origin I would explain with his soft, tender strumming trademark). If anybody has another suggestion for a nice fictional Hawaiian ukulele player nickname (together with its correct English translation), this would work, too.

Thanks so much for any other input and thanks to you, mds725!

Hi Bill,

thanks for the link - but I haven't got problems to find a "normal" (although with meaning) Hawaiian - I need an additional fictional, Ukulele-related honorific name which I'm not able to construct out of this list even though it lists meanings to the names. Like Aretha Franklin is called "The Goddess of Soul“ or James Brown „Mr. Dynamite“ or something like that. The more "poetic", the better.

I am aware that my question may sound a bit silly without real context, but I can promise that it wouldn't if you knew the whole thing I need it for ...

Nothing to add to answer your question--but I must admit I'm curious about it! Looking forward to hearing some day...

If you're using whisperer in the context of understanding or comprehend or be clear, you'd use maopopo
Then you'd add a prefix either ka or ke, and your subject noun which is flea..uku

mm stan said:

If you're using whisperer in the context of understanding or comprehend or be clear, you'd use maopopo
Then you'd add a prefix either ka or ke, and your subject noun which is flea..uku

Click to expand...

Thanks Stan! I am curious now too, so does that mean that:

"maopopo ke uku" = "the flea whisperer" ?

mm stan said:

If you're using whisperer in the context of understanding or comprehend or be clear, you'd use maopopo
Then you'd add a prefix either ka or ke, and your subject noun which is flea..uku

Click to expand...

Thanks a lot for the input, mm stan, really appreciated! I'll try to work with that.