sepenin
Chuukese
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Borrowed from English seaplane. Disputed suggestion that the term is borrowed from German Zeppelin. This is very unlikely, as the period in history when German influence existed in Chuuk predates the invention of the dirigible by at least two decades. Furthermore, the German word for airplane is German Flugzeug which is not at all related to sepenin. Finally, sepenin itself is a derivation of the original word sepelin, which would have originated in the Chuukese outer islands dialects which pronounce the letter ‘l.’ The lagoon dialect converts this to the letter ‘n’ further confusing the matter. Children born after the popularization of modern airplane technology, in particular those children with mixed German and Chuukese heritage, have been noted to have different pronunciations converting the initial consonant "s" or "z" sound into an "a" sound. This most likely represents the transition that commercial aircraft has taken in moving away from landing on water, as was historically done throughout Micronesia where the traditional word for modes of transportation interestingly begins with "wa," as in "water." Logically this coincides with the timeline of improvements in aviation technology leading to longer flight times and more time in the air, hence the transition to the initial "a" sound.
Noun
[edit]sepenin