7. Pago Pago, American Samoa

Thursday, 11 OCT 2012

First a word about phonetics. The typical American would pronounce the name of this city "Paygo Paygo". However, if you read up (Wikipedia is a great resource) you will learn that there are certain consistencies across several of the Polynesian languages, including Maori of New Zealand and native Hawai'ian. Among these consistencies is the pronunciation of the sound called by linguists the "engma" and represented in the International Phonetic Alphabet by a single character that looks like a fused nj. Consider the difference in how we say "singer" and "finger". The former is the pure engma, whereas "finger" is pronounced with the engma followed by hard g: "si<engma>er versus "fi<engma>ger". The g in Pago is properly pronounced as a simple engma. So far this gets us to "Pango Pango", as in the expression "bang on" . However Americans, including the staff of the Volendam, who have visited the island and have heard that the g is actually ng usually say it "Pang-go Pang-go, . This is still incorrect, not only because of the addition of the hard g, but also because the vowel a should be pronounced ah, thus: "Pahng-oh Pahng-oh".

There is a further subtlety that is totally lost on most Westerners. Linguists recognize a distinction between two types of "p", the aspirated and the unaspirated p. The former is common in Indoeuropean languages like English. It is represented in the extreme in words like "please" pronounced "puhlease!", or by "Popeye". The unaspirated p occurs unintentionally in English sometimes in the middle of a word or phrase. Think how you would say "Hopalong" or "deep enough" quickly, sloppily, and without emphasis. It's like a b but without voicing. That's the P in Pahngo Pahngo. Westerners, hearing it spoken by a native, easily mistake it for "bongo".

So now you know, and you can surprise and impress all of your Polynesian friends. And, by the way, the island of Tonga is pronounced

. . . All together now . . .

"Tong-ah" as in " a song a day keeps the blues away".




Here is the entrance to the harbor with its world-famous landmark, McDonald's.

 

In September 2009 the island suffered a tsunami triggered by a major (magnitude 8) earthquake in the Tonga trench, a very active subduction zone that stretches from just south of here all the way down to New Zealand. More than 30 people were killed, including a few predictable candidates for the Darwin Award who hurried out onto the beach to collect fish when the initial sea withdrawal exposed the outer sands. In the aftermath of extensive damage in the lowest areas, one of Samoa's two largest employers, Chicken Of The Sea tuna cannery, decided to close down and move the production to (I suspect) a highly automated modern factory in Georgia, despite the higher per employee labor costs. This threw 2000 people out of work. The other major employer is Starkist (Charlie the Tuna), and they are still going strong. The beach areas have been pretty well cleaned up, but we could still see ruined derelict buildings.

Here is an iconic tourist photo of an offshore island.

We saw several hermit crabs. This was the largest. There were also some very small ones with shells less than a centimeter in size.

 

This is Tyler taking a video of the crab as he scuttled about.

These luxurious busses transported us to Two Dollar Beach for a native show.

The girls and the boys each have their distinctive type of dance. The girls' dance includes lots of hula-like hip swinging and hand motions. The boys' dance is testosterone-fueled and warlike, sort of like the Mauri Haka.

 

A spectacular sky as we sailed out of Amerrican Samoa.

 

 

 

 

 

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