Hawaiians have more than 200 words for rain

Like the Islands themselves, ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi (the Hawaiian language) is a living, breathing part of the native culture. This reflection of the two, the symbiotic relationship between land and language, is displayed in details such as how many words and terms exist in Hawaiian for rain alone: more than 200. This breadth of rain names are specific, descriptive and highly nuanced—a reminder of how keenly and thoughtfully ancient Hawaiians observed and were connected to their environment.

With these words they distinguished Hawaii’s rains in a multitude of ways: by color, intensity, duration, at what times they would arrive, the angles or paths they’d fall in, how a certain rain is linked to a place or area throughout the Islands. There’s the kili noe, a fine, light rain, but it’s not to be mistaken for the kili ʻohu, which was even finer and lighter. Depending where you lived on Oʻahu, when the rain fell in a shape that would circle your home, that was a pōʻaihale rain. The island of Niʻihau has a special rain, the kulu pākakahi, which appears in November. What’s amazing is how nothing about these names are arbitrary. There’s a rain named called […]

Full article: Hawaiians have more than 200 words for rain

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