Echoes from Polynesia

Echoes from Polynesia is a guide to island names, pronunciation, and cultural significance. This is the first book of The Hawaii/Polynesia series. 

Echoes is an introduction designed to help those interested in Polynesian people, athletes, and culture more accurately pronounce their names, place-names, and phrases. Too often, mispronunciations occur — sometimes embarrassingly so — due to media and other people not understanding Polynesian phonetics.

 While learning any Polynesian language can be hard for adults, compared to many other languages throughout the world, Polynesian phonetics should not be particularly difficult for English speakers, except for a few hard parts that are described and discussed in this book. For example, you’ll learn:

● The basics of Polynesian phonetics, a bit of grammar, and the hard parts to be aware of.
● How Polynesian languages are related and differ.
● How early Christian missionaries in the Pacific created Romanized writing systems for the previously oral-only Polynesians and how some of their choices might have caused mispronunciation confusion today.
● Several of the author’s adventures, experiences, and insights about the people and places of Polynesia.

Mahalo nui and fa‘afetai tele (“thanks” in Hawaiian and Sāmoan) for your interest.

— Mike (Mikaele) Foley,  Lā‘ie, Hawaii

AUTHOR's BIO:

Mike (Mikaele) Foley grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah, and first went to Polynesia as a voluntary missionary in Sāmoa for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in March 1965. Prior to that, he had never met a Sāmoan, but before the end of that year, he had learned the language fluently.

Afterward, he moved to Hawaii, “completed” his education, taught ESL (English as a second or foreign language) and Sāmoan at the university level, and for many years since has worked as a professional writer and photographer in marketing communications, focusing largely on Hawai‘i and Polynesia.

His interest in digital media began with computers in the early 1970s and 1980s, websites in the 1990s, and other digital creativity since then. He has been a freelance communications specialist working from his home office in Lā‘ie, Hawaii, for more than 20 years.