Hawaiian language
Encyclopedia
The Hawaiian language is a Polynesian language that takes its name from Hawaii
, the largest island in the tropical North Pacific archipelago
where it developed. Hawaiian, along with English
, is an official language of the state of Hawaii
. King Kamehameha III
established the first Hawaiian-language constitution
in 1839 and 1840.
For various reasons, including Territorial legislation banning the language in schools, the number of native speakers
of Hawaiian gradually decreased during the period from the 1830s to the 1950s. Hawaiian was essentially displaced by English on six of the seven inhabited islands. As of 2001, native speakers of Hawaiian amount to under 0.1% of the statewide population. Linguists are worried about the fate of this and other endangered languages
.
Nevertheless, from about 1949 to the present, there has been a gradual increase in attention to, and promotion of, the language. Public Hawaiian-language immersion pre-schools called Pūnana Leo
were started in 1984; other immersion schools followed soon after. The first students to start in immersion pre-school have now graduated from college and many are fluent Hawaiian speakers. The federal government acknowledged this development. For example the Hawaiian National Park Language Correction Act of 2000 changed the names of several national park
s in Hawaii observing the Hawaiian spelling.
A creole language spoken in Hawaii is technically called "Hawaii Creole English", abbreviated "HCE". It developed from pidgin
English and is often called simply "Pidgin". It should not be mistaken for the Hawaiian language nor for a dialect of English.
The Hawaiian alphabet
has 23 letters, ten vowels and eight consonants, including the [[ʻokina|okina]] for glottal stop
which is not found in the Latin alphabet
.
or Tahitian
. The island name was first written in English, in 1778 by British explorer James Cook
and his crew members. They wrote it as "Owhyhee" or "Owhyee". Explorers Mortimer (1791) and Otto von Kotzebue
(1821) used that spelling.
The initial "O" in the name is a reflection of the fact that unique identity is predicated in Hawaiian by using a copula form, o, immediately before a proper noun. Thus, in Hawaiian, the name of the island is expressed by saying O Hawaii, which means "[This] is Hawaii." Note that the Cook expedition also wrote "Otaheite" rather than "Tahiti."
The spelling "why" in the name reflects the [hw] pronunciation of wh in 18th century English (still in active use
in parts of the Anglosphere
). Why was pronounced [hwai]. The spelling "hee" or "ee" in the name represents the sounds [hi], [i], or [i].
Putting the parts together, O-why-hee reflects [o-hwai-i], a reasonable approximation of the native pronunciation, [o hɐwɐiʔi].
American missionaries bound for Hawaii used the phrases "Owhihe Language" and "Owhyhee language" in Boston prior to their departure in October 1819 and during their five-month voyage to Hawai'i. They still used such phrases as late as February 1822. However, by July 1823, they had begun using the phrase "Hawaiian Language."
In Hawaiian, Ōlelo Hawaii means "Hawaiian language", as adjectives follow nouns.
. It is closely related to other Polynesian languages
, such as Marquesan
, Tahitian
, Māori
, Rapa Nui
(the language of Easter Island
), and less closely to Samoan
, and Tongan
.
According to Schütz (1994), the Marquesans colonized the archipelago in roughly 300 AD followed by later waves of immigration from the Society Islands
and Samoa
-Tonga
. Their languages, over time, became the Hawaiian language. Kimura and Wilson (1983) also state, "Linguists agree that Hawaiian is closely related to Eastern Polynesian, with a particularly strong link in the Southern Marquesas, and a secondary link in Tahiti, which may be explained by voyaging between the Hawaiian and Society Islands."
Lexicostatistics
is a way of quantifying an approximate evaluation of the degree to which any given languages are genetically related to one another. It is mainly based on determining the number of cognates (genetically shared words) that the languages have in a fixed set of vocabulary items which are nearly universal among all languages. The so-called "basic vocabulary" (or Swadesh list
) amounts to about 200 words, having meanings such as "eye", "hair", "blood", "water", and "and." The measurement of a genetic relationship is expressed as a percentage. For example, Hawaiian and English have 0 cognates in the 200-word list, so they are 0% genetically related. By contrast, Hawaiian and Tahitian
have about 152 cognates in the list, so they are estimated as being 76% genetically related, according to the lexicostatistical method.
The comparative method
is a technique developed by linguists to determine whether or not two or more languages are genetically related, and if they are, the historical nature of the relationships. For a given meaning, the words of the languages are compared.
Linguists observe:
In this method, the definition of "identical" is reasonably clear, but those of "similar" and "dissimilar" are based on phonological criteria which require professional training to fully understand, and which can vary in the contexts of different languages. Basically, a sound's phonetic manner and place of articulation, and its phonological features
, are the main factors considered in investigating its status as "similar" or "dissimilar" to other sounds in a particular context. When linguists find in compared languages that compared words of the same or similar meaning contain sounds which correspond to one another, and find that these same sound correspondences recur regularly in most, or in many, of the comparable words of the languages, then the usual conclusion is that the languages are genetically related.
In both methods, it is very important to exclude loan words from the analysis.
The following table, Decimal Numbers, provides a limited data set for ten meanings. The Proto-Austronesian
(PAN) forms are from . The asterisk (*) is used to show that these are hypothetical, reconstructed forms. The Tagalog forms are from , the Tongan from , and the Hawaiian from . In the table, the year date of the modern forms is rounded off to CE 2000 to emphasize the 6000-year time lapse since the PAN era.
Note 1. For the number "10", the Tongan form in the table is part of the word /hoŋo-fulu/ ('ten'). The Hawaiian form is part of the word /ana-hulu/ ('ten days'), however the more common form used in counting and quantifying is /ʔumi/, a different root.
Application of the lexicostatistical method to the data in the table will show the four languages to be related to one another, with Tagalog having 100% cognacy with PAN, while Hawaiian and Tongan have 100% cognacy with each other, but 90% with Tagalog and PAN. This is because the forms for each number are cognates, except the Hawaiian and Tongan words for the number "1", which are cognate with each other, but not with Tagalog and PAN. When the full set of 200 meanings is used, the percentages will be much lower. For example, Elbert found Hawaiian and Tongan to have 49% (98 ÷ 200) shared cognacy. This points out the importance of data-set size for this method – less data, cruder result; more data, better result.
Application of the comparative method will show partly different genetic relationships. It will point out sound changes, such as:
This method will recognize sound change #1 as a shared innovation of Hawaiian and Tongan. It will also take the Hawaiian and Tongan cognates for "1" as another shared innovation. Due to these exclusively shared features, Hawaiian and Tongan are found to be more closely related to one another than either is to Tagalog or PAN.
The forms in the table show that the Austronesian vowels tend to be relatively stable, while the consonants are relatively volatile. It is also apparent that the Hawaiian words for "5" and "8" have remained essentially unchanged for 6000 years.
, where he eventually became a student at the Foreign Mission School
in Cornwall, Connecticut
. He inspired New Englanders to support a Christian mission to Hawaii, and provided information on the Hawaiian language to the American missionaries there prior to their departure for Hawaii in 1819. Some adventurous native speakers of Hawaiian worked aboard American and/or European ships of that period, thereby expanding, albeit slightly, the geographical area in which Hawaiian could be spoken. However, no viable Hawaiian speech communities were ever established abroad.
in Cornwall, Connecticut
. The missionaries wanted to convert all Hawaiians to Christianity. In order to achieve that goal, they needed to learn the Hawaiian language so that they could publish a Hawaiian Bible, preach in Hawaiian, etc. To that end, they developed a successful alphabet for Hawaiian by 1826, taught Hawaiians to read and write the language, published various educational materials in Hawaiian, and eventually finished translating the Bible. Missionaries also influenced King Kamehameha III
to establish the first Hawaiian-language constitutions in 1839 and 1840.
might have consulted with a native speaker of Hawaiian in Berlin, Germany, before publishing his grammar of Hawaiian ("Über die Hawaiische Sprache") in 1837. When Hawaiian King David Kalākaua
took a trip around the world, he brought his native language with him. When his wife, Queen Kapiolani
, and his sister, Princess (later Queen) Liliuokalani, took a trip across North America and on to the British Islands, in 1887, Liliuokalani's composition Aloha Oe was already a famous song in the U.S.
This is the 115-year period during which Hawaiian-language newspapers were published. Missionaries introduced newspaper publishing in Hawaiian and in English, and played a significant role in publishing a vocabulary (1836) grammar (1854) and dictionary (1865) of Hawaiian. Literacy in Hawaiian was widespread among the local population, especially ethnic Hawaiians. Use of the language among the general population might have peaked around 1881. Even so, some people worried, as early as 1854, that the language was "soon destined to extinction." In spite of a huge decline in the use of Hawaiian, compared to the era of its peak, those fears have never been realized.
The increase in human travel to and from Hawaii during the 19th century was the means by which a number of diseases arrived, and potentially fatal ones, such as smallpox
, influenza
, and leprosy
, killed large numbers of native speakers of Hawaiian. Meanwhile, native speakers of other languages, especially English
, Chinese
, Japanese
, Portuguese
, and Ilokano
, continued to immigrate to Hawaii. As a result, the actual number, as well as the percentage, of native speakers of Hawaiian in the local population decreased sharply, and continued to fall.
As the status of Hawaiian dropped, the status of English in Hawaii rose. In 1885, the Prospectus of the Kamehameha Schools announced that "instruction will be given only in English language" (see published opinion of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit,
Doe v. Kamehameha Schools, case no. 04-15044, page 8928, filed August 2, 2005).
For a variety of reasons including punishment of Hawaiian children who spoke Hawaiian in school starting around 1900, the number of native speakers of Hawaiian diminished from 37,000 to 1,000; half of these remaining are now in their seventies or eighties (see Ethnologue report below for citations). There has been some controversy over the reasons for this decline.
One school of thought claims that the most important cause for the decline of the Hawaiian language was its voluntary abandonment by the majority of its native speakers. According to Mary Kawena Pukui, they wanted their own children to speak English, as a way to promote their success in a rapidly changing modern environment, so they refrained from using Hawaiian with their own children. The Hawaiian language schools disappeared as their enrollments dropped: parents preferred English language schools. Another school of thought emphasizes the importance of other factors that discouraged the use of the language, such as the fact that the English language was made the only medium of instruction in all schools in 1896 and the fact that schools punished the use of Hawaiian (see "Banning" of Hawaiian below.) General prejudice against Hawaiians (kanaka) has also been blamed for the decline of the language.
A new dictionary was published in 1957, a new grammar in 1979, and new second-language textbooks in 1951, 1965, 1977, and 1989. Master's theses and doctoral dissertations on specific facets of Hawaiian appeared in 1951, 1975, 1976, and 1996.
Understanding the kaona of the language requires a comprehensive knowledge of Hawaiian legends, history and cosmology.
This law established English as the medium of instruction for the government-recognized schools, but it did not ban or make illegal the Hawaiian language in other contexts. The law specifically provided for teaching languages "in addition to the English language," rendering Hawaiian the status of a foreign language. However, Hawaiian was not taught initially in any school, including the all-Hawaiian Kamehameha Schools
, and many children who spoke Hawaiian at school, including on the playground, were disciplined. Beginning in 1900, Mary Kawena Pukui, who was later the co-author of the Hawaiian–English Dictionary, was punished for speaking Hawaiian by being rapped on the forehead, allowed to eat only bread and water for lunch, and denied home visits on holidays. Winona Beamer was expelled from Kamehameha Schools in 1937 for chanting Hawaiian.
Hawaiian-language newspapers were published for over a hundred years, right through the period of the supposed ban. list fourteen Hawaiian newspapers. According to them, the newspapers entitled Ka Lama Hawaii and Ke Kumu Hawaii began publishing in 1834, and the one called Ka Hoku o Hawaii ceased publication in 1948. The longest run was that of Ka Nupepa Kuokoa: about 66 years, from 1861 to 1927.
Efforts to promote the language have increased in recent decades. Hawaiian-language "immersion" schools are now open to children whose families want to introduce Hawaiian language for future generations. The local NPR station features a short segment titled "Hawaiian word of the day" and a Hawaiian language news broadcast. Honolulu television station KGMB
includes a Hawaiian language segment during their morning local news program Sunrise on KGMB9. Additionally, the Sunday editions of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin
, one of Honolulu's two major newspapers, feature a brief article called Kauakukalahale written entirely in Hawaiian by teachers, students, and community members.
Today, on six of the seven permanently inhabited islands, Hawaiian is largely displaced by English, and the number of native speakers of Hawaiian is under 0.1% of the state-wide population. Native speakers of Hawaiian who live on the island named Niihau have remained fairly isolated and have continued to use Hawaiian almost exclusively.
The island named Niihau
, aka 'the Forbidden Island' to tourists, off the southwest coast of Kauai
, is the one island where Hawaiian is still spoken by the entire population as the language of daily life. Children are taught Hawaiian as a first language, and learn English at about age eight. Reasons for the persistence include:
Native speakers of Niihau Hawaiian have three distinct modes of speaking Hawaiian:
The last mode of speaking may be further restricted to a certain subset of Niihauans, and is rarely even overheard by non-Niihauans. In addition to being able to speak Hawaiian in different ways, most Niihauans can speak English too.
states that "[v]ariations in Hawaiian dialects have not been systematically studied", and that "[t]he dialect of Niihau is the most aberrant and the one most in need of study". They recognized that Niihauans can speak Hawaiian in substantially different ways. Their statements are based in part on some specific observations made by . (See below, Processes, under Phonology.)
The modern Hawaiian alphabet, ka pīāpā Hawaii, is a variety of the Latin alphabet
. Hawaiian words end only in vowels, and every consonant must be followed by a vowel. The Hawaiian alphabetical order has all of the vowels before the consonants, as in the following chart.
In 1826, the developers voted to eliminate some of the letters which represented functionally redundant allophone
s (called "interchangeable letters"), enabling the Hawaiian alphabet to approach the ideal state of one-symbol-one-sound, and thereby optimizing the ease with which people could teach and learn the reading and writing of Hawaiian. For example, instead of spelling one and the same word as pule, bule, pure, and bure (because of interchangeable p/b and l/r), the word is spelled only as pule.
However, hundreds of words were very rapidly borrowed into Hawaiian from English, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, Syrian, and Chaldean. Although these loan words were necessarily Hawaiianize
d, they often retained some of their "non-Hawaiian letters" in their published forms. For example, Brazil fully Hawaiianize
d is Palakila, but retaining "foreign letters" it is Barazila. Another example is Gibraltar, written as Kipalaleka or Gibaraleta. While [z] and [ɡ] are not regarded as Hawaiian sounds, [b], [ɹ], and [t] were represented in the original alphabet, so the letters (b, r, and t) for the latter are not truly "non-Hawaiian" or "foreign", even though their post-1826 use in published matter generally marked words of foreign origin.
for the symbol (a letter) which represents the glottal stop
is okina (oki 'cut' + -na '-ing'). It was formerly known as uina ('snap').
For examples of the okina, consider the Hawaiian words Hawaii and Oahu (often simply Hawaii and Oahu in English orthography). In Hawaiian, these words can be pronounced [hʌˈʋʌi.ʔi] and [oˈʔʌ.hu], and can be written with an okina where the glottal stop is pronounced.
published a grammar of Hawaiian in which he made it clear that the glottal stop (calling it "guttural break") is definitely a true consonant of the Hawaiian language. He wrote it using an apostrophe. In 1922, the Andrews-Parker dictionary of Hawaiian made limited use of the opening single quote symbol, called "reversed apostrophe" or "inverse comma", to represent the glottal stop. Subsequent dictionaries have preferred to use that symbol. Today, many native speakers of Hawaiian do not bother, in general, to write any symbol for the glottal stop. Its use is advocated mainly among students and teachers of Hawaiian as a second language, and among linguists.
Because many people who want to write the okina are not familiar with these specific characters and/or do not have access to the appropriate fonts and input and display systems, it is sometimes written with more familiar and readily available characters:
symbol is kahakō (kaha 'mark' + kō 'long'). It was formerly known as mekona (Hawaiianization of macron). It can be written as a diacritical mark
which looks like a hyphen or dash written above a vowel, i.e., ā ē ī ō ū, and Ā Ē Ī Ō Ū. It is used to show that the marked vowel is a "double", or "geminate", or "long" vowel, in phonemic terms.
As early as 1821, at least one of the missionaries, Hiram Bingham
, was using macrons (and breves) in making handwritten transcriptions of Hawaiian vowels.
The missionaries specifically requested their sponsor in Boston
to send them some type (fonts) with accented vowel characters, including vowels with macrons, but the sponsor made only one response and sent the wrong font size (pica instead of small pica). Thus, they could not print ā, ē, ī, ō, nor ū (at the right size), even though they wanted to.
Hawaiian is known for having very few consonant
phonemes – eight: /p, k ~ t, ʔ, h, m, n, l, w ~ v/. It is notable that Hawaiian has allophonic variation of [t] with [k], [w] with [v], and (in some dialects) [l] with [n]. The [t]–[k] variation is quite unusual among the world's languages, and is likely a product both of the small number of consonants in Hawaiian, and the recent shift of historical *t to modern [t]–[k], after historical *k had shifted to [ʔ]. In some dialects, /ʔ/ remains as [k] in some words. These variations are largely free, though there are conditioning factors. /l/ tends to [n] especially in words with both /l/ and /n/, such as in the island name Lānai ([laːˈnɐʔi]–[naːˈnɐʔi]), though this is not always the case: eleele or eneene "black". The [k] allophone is almost universal at the beginnings of words, whereas [t] is most common before the vowel /i/. [v] is also the norm after /i/ and /e/, whereas [w] is usual after /u/ and /o/. After /a/ and initially, however, [w] and [v] are in free variation.
Hawaiian has five short
and five long
vowel
s, plus diphthong
s. The short vowels are /u, i, o, e, a/, and the long vowels, if they are considered separate phonemes rather than simply sequences of like vowels, are /uː, iː, oː, eː, aː/. When stressed, short /e/ and /a/ tend to become [ɛ] and [ɐ], while when unstressed they are [e] and [ə]. /e/ also tends to become [ɛ] next to /l/, /n/, and another [ɛ], as in Pele [pɛlɛ]. Some grammatical particles vary between short and long vowels. These include a and o "of", ma "at", na and no "for". Between a back vowel /o/ or /u/ and a following non-back vowel (/a e i/), there is an epenthetic
[w], which is generally not written. Between a front vowel /e/ or /i/ and a following non-front vowel (/a o u/), there is an epenthetic [j] (a y sound), which is never written.
The short-vowel diphthongs are /iu, ou, oi, eu, ei, au, ai, ao, ae/. In all except perhaps /iu/, these are falling diphthongs. However, they are not as tightly bound as the diphthongs of English, and may be considered vowel sequences. (The second vowel in such sequences may receive the stress, but in such cases it is not counted as a diphthong.) In fast speech, /ai/ tends to [ei] and /au/ tends to [ou], conflating these diphthongs with /ei/ and /ou/.
There are only a limited number of vowels which may follow long vowels, and some authors treat these as diphthongs as well: /oːu, eːi, aːu, aːi, aːo, aːe/.
for verbs, in Hawaiian, like other Austronesian personal pronouns
, declension
is found in the differentiation between a- and o-class genitive case
personal pronouns in order to indicate inalienable possession
in a binary possessive class system. Also like many Austronesian languages, Hawaiian pronouns employ separate words for inclusive and exclusive we
, and distinguish singular
, dual
, and plural
. The grammatical function of verbs is marked by adjacent particles
(short words) and their relative positions to indicate tense–aspect–mood.
Some examples verb phrase patterns:
Nouns can be marked with articles
:
ka and ke are singular definite articles. ke is used before words beginning with a-, e-, o- and k-, and with some words beginning - and p-. ka is used in all other cases. nā is the plural definite article.
To show just "part" of a group, the word "kekahi" is used. To show a bigger part, you would insert mau to pluralize the subject
Example:
kekahi pipi
kekahi mau pipi
Hawaii (island)
The Island of Hawaii, also called the Big Island or Hawaii Island , is a volcanic island in the North Pacific Ocean...
, the largest island in the tropical North Pacific archipelago
Archipelago
An archipelago , sometimes called an island group, is a chain or cluster of islands. The word archipelago is derived from the Greek ἄρχι- – arkhi- and πέλαγος – pélagos through the Italian arcipelago...
where it developed. Hawaiian, along with English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, is an official language of the state of Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
. King Kamehameha III
Kamehameha III
Kamehameha III was the King of Hawaii from 1825 to 1854. His full Hawaiian name was Keaweaweula Kiwalao Kauikeaouli Kaleiopapa and then lengthened to Keaweaweula Kiwalao Kauikeaouli Kaleiopapa Kalani Waiakua Kalanikau Iokikilo Kiwalao i ke kapu Kamehameha when he ascended the throne.Under his...
established the first Hawaiian-language constitution
Constitution
A constitution is a set of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which a state or other organization is governed. These rules together make up, i.e. constitute, what the entity is...
in 1839 and 1840.
For various reasons, including Territorial legislation banning the language in schools, the number of native speakers
First language
A first language is the language a person has learned from birth or within the critical period, or that a person speaks the best and so is often the basis for sociolinguistic identity...
of Hawaiian gradually decreased during the period from the 1830s to the 1950s. Hawaiian was essentially displaced by English on six of the seven inhabited islands. As of 2001, native speakers of Hawaiian amount to under 0.1% of the statewide population. Linguists are worried about the fate of this and other endangered languages
Endangered language
An endangered language is a language that is at risk of falling out of use. If it loses all its native speakers, it becomes a dead language. If eventually no one speaks the language at all it becomes an "extinct language"....
.
Nevertheless, from about 1949 to the present, there has been a gradual increase in attention to, and promotion of, the language. Public Hawaiian-language immersion pre-schools called Pūnana Leo
Punana Leo
Pūnana Leo are private, non-profit preschools run by families, in which the Hawaiian language is the language of instruction and administration. Initially opened illegally, the first Pūnana Leo opened in 1984 in Kekaha, Kaua'i...
were started in 1984; other immersion schools followed soon after. The first students to start in immersion pre-school have now graduated from college and many are fluent Hawaiian speakers. The federal government acknowledged this development. For example the Hawaiian National Park Language Correction Act of 2000 changed the names of several national park
National park
A national park is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or owns. Although individual nations designate their own national parks differently A national park is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or...
s in Hawaii observing the Hawaiian spelling.
A creole language spoken in Hawaii is technically called "Hawaii Creole English", abbreviated "HCE". It developed from pidgin
Pidgin
A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not have a language in common. It is most commonly employed in situations such as trade, or where both groups speak languages different from the language of the...
English and is often called simply "Pidgin". It should not be mistaken for the Hawaiian language nor for a dialect of English.
The Hawaiian alphabet
Hawaiian alphabet
The Hawaiian alphabet, ka pīʻāpā Hawaiʻi, was adapted from the English alphabet in the early 19th century by American missionaries to print a Hawaiian bible.- Origins :...
has 23 letters, ten vowels and eight consonants, including the [[ʻokina|okina]] for glottal stop
Glottal stop
The glottal stop, or more fully, the voiceless glottal plosive, is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. In English, the feature is represented, for example, by the hyphen in uh-oh! and by the apostrophe or [[ʻokina]] in Hawaii among those using a preservative pronunciation of...
which is not found in the Latin alphabet
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
.
Name
The Hawaiian language takes its name from the largest island, Hawaii (Hawaii in the Hawaiian language), in the tropical North Pacific archipelago where it developed, originally from a Polynesian language of the South Pacific, most likely MarquesanMarquesan language
Marquesan is a collection of East-Central Polynesian dialects, of the Marquesic group, spoken in the Marquesas Islands of French Polynesia. They are usually classified into two groups, North Marquesan and South Marquesan, roughly along geographic lines....
or Tahitian
Tahitian language
Tahitian is an indigenous language spoken mainly in the Society Islands in French Polynesia. It is an Eastern Polynesian language closely related to the other indigenous languages spoken in French Polynesia: Marquesan, Tuamotuan, Mangarevan, and Austral Islands languages...
. The island name was first written in English, in 1778 by British explorer James Cook
James Cook
Captain James Cook, FRS, RN was a British explorer, navigator and cartographer who ultimately rose to the rank of captain in the Royal Navy...
and his crew members. They wrote it as "Owhyhee" or "Owhyee". Explorers Mortimer (1791) and Otto von Kotzebue
Otto von Kotzebue
Otto von Kotzebue was a Baltic German navigator in Russian service....
(1821) used that spelling.
The initial "O" in the name is a reflection of the fact that unique identity is predicated in Hawaiian by using a copula form, o, immediately before a proper noun. Thus, in Hawaiian, the name of the island is expressed by saying O Hawaii, which means "[This] is Hawaii." Note that the Cook expedition also wrote "Otaheite" rather than "Tahiti."
The spelling "why" in the name reflects the [hw] pronunciation of wh in 18th century English (still in active use
Phonological history of wh
The pronunciation of the digraph ‹wh› in English has varied with time, and can still vary today between different regions. According to the historical period and the accent of the speaker, it is most commonly realised as the consonant cluster or as...
in parts of the Anglosphere
Anglosphere
Anglosphere is a neologism which refers to those nations with English as the most common language. The term can be used more specifically to refer to those nations which share certain characteristics within their cultures based on a linguistic heritage, through being former British colonies...
). Why was pronounced [hwai]. The spelling "hee" or "ee" in the name represents the sounds [hi], [i], or [i].
Putting the parts together, O-why-hee reflects [o-hwai-i], a reasonable approximation of the native pronunciation, [o hɐwɐiʔi].
American missionaries bound for Hawaii used the phrases "Owhihe Language" and "Owhyhee language" in Boston prior to their departure in October 1819 and during their five-month voyage to Hawai'i. They still used such phrases as late as February 1822. However, by July 1823, they had begun using the phrase "Hawaiian Language."
In Hawaiian, Ōlelo Hawaii means "Hawaiian language", as adjectives follow nouns.
Family and origin
Hawaiian is a Polynesian member of the Austronesian language familyAustronesian languages
The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia that are spoken by about 386 million people. It is on par with Indo-European, Niger-Congo, Afroasiatic and Uralic as one of the...
. It is closely related to other Polynesian languages
Polynesian languages
The Polynesian languages are a language family spoken in the region known as Polynesia. They are classified as part of the Austronesian family, belonging to the Oceanic branch of that family. They fall into two branches: Tongic and Nuclear Polynesian. Polynesians share many cultural traits...
, such as Marquesan
Marquesan language
Marquesan is a collection of East-Central Polynesian dialects, of the Marquesic group, spoken in the Marquesas Islands of French Polynesia. They are usually classified into two groups, North Marquesan and South Marquesan, roughly along geographic lines....
, Tahitian
Tahitian language
Tahitian is an indigenous language spoken mainly in the Society Islands in French Polynesia. It is an Eastern Polynesian language closely related to the other indigenous languages spoken in French Polynesia: Marquesan, Tuamotuan, Mangarevan, and Austral Islands languages...
, Māori
Maori language
Māori or te reo Māori , commonly te reo , is the language of the indigenous population of New Zealand, the Māori. It has the status of an official language in New Zealand...
, Rapa Nui
Rapa Nui language
Rapa Nui , also known as Pascuan or Pascuense, is an Eastern Polynesian language spoken on the island of Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island....
(the language of Easter Island
Easter Island
Easter Island is a Polynesian island in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian triangle. A special territory of Chile that was annexed in 1888, Easter Island is famous for its 887 extant monumental statues, called moai, created by the early Rapanui people...
), and less closely to Samoan
Samoan language
Samoan Samoan Samoan (Gagana Sāmoa, is the language of the Samoan Islands, comprising the independent country of Samoa and the United States territory of American Samoa. It is an official language—alongside English—in both jurisdictions. Samoan, a Polynesian language, is the first language for most...
, and Tongan
Tongan language
Tongan is an Austronesian language spoken in Tonga. It has around 200,000 speakers and is a national language of Tonga. It is a VSO language.-Related languages:...
.
According to Schütz (1994), the Marquesans colonized the archipelago in roughly 300 AD followed by later waves of immigration from the Society Islands
Society Islands
The Society Islands are a group of islands in the South Pacific Ocean. They are politically part of French Polynesia. The archipelago is generally believed to have been named by Captain James Cook in honor of the Royal Society, the sponsor of the first British scientific survey of the islands;...
and Samoa
Samoa
Samoa , officially the Independent State of Samoa, formerly known as Western Samoa is a country encompassing the western part of the Samoan Islands in the South Pacific Ocean. It became independent from New Zealand in 1962. The two main islands of Samoa are Upolu and one of the biggest islands in...
-Tonga
Tonga
Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga , is a state and an archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean, comprising 176 islands scattered over of ocean in the South Pacific...
. Their languages, over time, became the Hawaiian language. Kimura and Wilson (1983) also state, "Linguists agree that Hawaiian is closely related to Eastern Polynesian, with a particularly strong link in the Southern Marquesas, and a secondary link in Tahiti, which may be explained by voyaging between the Hawaiian and Society Islands."
Methods of proving Hawaiian's family relationships
The genetic history of the Hawaiian language is demonstrated primarily through the application of lexicostatistics, and the comparative method.Lexicostatistics
Lexicostatistics
Lexicostatistics is an approach to comparative linguistics that involves quantitative comparison of lexical cognates. Lexicostatistics is related to the comparative method but does not reconstruct a proto-language...
is a way of quantifying an approximate evaluation of the degree to which any given languages are genetically related to one another. It is mainly based on determining the number of cognates (genetically shared words) that the languages have in a fixed set of vocabulary items which are nearly universal among all languages. The so-called "basic vocabulary" (or Swadesh list
Swadesh list
A Swadesh list is one of several lists of vocabulary with basic meanings, developed by Morris Swadesh from 1940 onward, with the final, posthumously published version 1971 [1972], which is used in lexicostatistics and glottochronology .- Versions and authors :There are several versions of Swadesh...
) amounts to about 200 words, having meanings such as "eye", "hair", "blood", "water", and "and." The measurement of a genetic relationship is expressed as a percentage. For example, Hawaiian and English have 0 cognates in the 200-word list, so they are 0% genetically related. By contrast, Hawaiian and Tahitian
Tahitian language
Tahitian is an indigenous language spoken mainly in the Society Islands in French Polynesia. It is an Eastern Polynesian language closely related to the other indigenous languages spoken in French Polynesia: Marquesan, Tuamotuan, Mangarevan, and Austral Islands languages...
have about 152 cognates in the list, so they are estimated as being 76% genetically related, according to the lexicostatistical method.
The comparative method
Comparative method
In linguistics, the comparative method is a technique for studying the development of languages by performing a feature-by-feature comparison of two or more languages with common descent from a shared ancestor, as opposed to the method of internal reconstruction, which analyzes the internal...
is a technique developed by linguists to determine whether or not two or more languages are genetically related, and if they are, the historical nature of the relationships. For a given meaning, the words of the languages are compared.
Linguists observe:
- identical sounds,
- similar sounds, and
- dissimilar sounds, in corresponding positions in the words
In this method, the definition of "identical" is reasonably clear, but those of "similar" and "dissimilar" are based on phonological criteria which require professional training to fully understand, and which can vary in the contexts of different languages. Basically, a sound's phonetic manner and place of articulation, and its phonological features
Distinctive feature
In linguistics, a distinctive feature is the most basic unit of phonological structure that may be analyzed in phonological theory.Distinctive features are grouped into categories according to the natural classes of segments they describe: major class features, laryngeal features, manner features,...
, are the main factors considered in investigating its status as "similar" or "dissimilar" to other sounds in a particular context. When linguists find in compared languages that compared words of the same or similar meaning contain sounds which correspond to one another, and find that these same sound correspondences recur regularly in most, or in many, of the comparable words of the languages, then the usual conclusion is that the languages are genetically related.
In both methods, it is very important to exclude loan words from the analysis.
The following table, Decimal Numbers, provides a limited data set for ten meanings. The Proto-Austronesian
Proto-Austronesian language
The Proto-Austronesian language is the reconstructed ancestor of the Austronesian languages, one of the world's major language families. However, Ross notes that what may be the most divergent languages, Tsou, Rukai, and Puyuma, are not addressed by the reconstructions, which therefore cannot...
(PAN) forms are from . The asterisk (*) is used to show that these are hypothetical, reconstructed forms. The Tagalog forms are from , the Tongan from , and the Hawaiian from . In the table, the year date of the modern forms is rounded off to CE 2000 to emphasize the 6000-year time lapse since the PAN era.
| Decimal Numbers | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PAN Proto-Austronesian language The Proto-Austronesian language is the reconstructed ancestor of the Austronesian languages, one of the world's major language families. However, Ross notes that what may be the most divergent languages, Tsou, Rukai, and Puyuma, are not addressed by the reconstructions, which therefore cannot... , circa 4000 BC |
*isa | *DuSa | *telu | *Sepat | *lima | *enem | *pitu | *walu | *Siwa | *puluq |
| Tagalog Tagalog language Tagalog is an Austronesian language spoken as a first language by a third of the population of the Philippines and as a second language by most of the rest. It is the first language of the Philippine region IV and of Metro Manila... |
isá | dalawá | tatló | ápat | limá | ánim | pitó | waló | siyám | sampu |
| Ilocano Ilokano language Ilokano or Ilocano is the third most-spoken language of the Republic of the Philippines.... |
maysá | dua | talló | uppát | limá | inném | pitó | waló | siam | sangapúlo |
| Cebuano Cebuano language Cebuano, referred to by most of its speakers as Bisaya , is an Austronesian language spoken in the Philippines by about 20 million people mostly in the Central Visayas. It is the most widely spoken of the languages within the so-named Bisayan subgroup and is closely related to other Filipino... |
usá | duhá | tuló | upat | limá | unom | pitó | waló | siyám | napulu |
| Chamorro Chamorro language Chamorro is a Malayo-Polynesian language, spoken on the Mariana Islands by about 47,000 people Chamorro (Chamorro: Fino' Chamoru or simply Chamoru) is a Malayo-Polynesian (Austronesian) language, spoken on the Mariana Islands (Guam, Rota, Tinian, and Saipan) by about 47,000 people Chamorro... |
maisa/håcha | hugua | tulu | fatfat | lima | gunum | fiti | guålu | sigua | månot/fulu |
| Malay Malay language Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore... |
satu | dua | tiga | empat | lima | enam | tujuh | lapan | sembilan | sepuluh |
| Javanese Javanese language Javanese language is the language of the Javanese people from the central and eastern parts of the island of Java, in Indonesia. In addition, there are also some pockets of Javanese speakers in the northern coast of western Java... |
siji | loro | telu | papat | limo | nem | pitu | wolu | songo | sepuluh |
| Tongan Tongan language Tongan is an Austronesian language spoken in Tonga. It has around 200,000 speakers and is a national language of Tonga. It is a VSO language.-Related languages:... |
taha | ua | tolu | fā | nima | ono | fitu | valu | hiva | -fulu |
| Samoan Samoan language Samoan Samoan Samoan (Gagana Sāmoa, is the language of the Samoan Islands, comprising the independent country of Samoa and the United States territory of American Samoa. It is an official language—alongside English—in both jurisdictions. Samoan, a Polynesian language, is the first language for most... |
tasi | lua | tolu | fā | lima | ono | fitu | valu | iva | sefulu |
| Māori Maori language Māori or te reo Māori , commonly te reo , is the language of the indigenous population of New Zealand, the Māori. It has the status of an official language in New Zealand... |
tahi | rua | toru | whā | rima | ono | whitu | waru | iwa | tekau (archaic: ngahuru) |
| Marquesan Marquesan language Marquesan is a collection of East-Central Polynesian dialects, of the Marquesic group, spoken in the Marquesas Islands of French Polynesia. They are usually classified into two groups, North Marquesan and South Marquesan, roughly along geographic lines.... |
e tahi | e 'ua | e to'u | e fa | e 'ima | e ono | e fitu | e va'u | e iva | 'onohu'u |
| Hawaiian | kahi | lua | kolu | hā | lima | ono | hiku | walu | iwa | -hulu |
Note 1. For the number "10", the Tongan form in the table is part of the word /hoŋo-fulu/ ('ten'). The Hawaiian form is part of the word /ana-hulu/ ('ten days'), however the more common form used in counting and quantifying is /ʔumi/, a different root.
Application of the lexicostatistical method to the data in the table will show the four languages to be related to one another, with Tagalog having 100% cognacy with PAN, while Hawaiian and Tongan have 100% cognacy with each other, but 90% with Tagalog and PAN. This is because the forms for each number are cognates, except the Hawaiian and Tongan words for the number "1", which are cognate with each other, but not with Tagalog and PAN. When the full set of 200 meanings is used, the percentages will be much lower. For example, Elbert found Hawaiian and Tongan to have 49% (98 ÷ 200) shared cognacy. This points out the importance of data-set size for this method – less data, cruder result; more data, better result.
Application of the comparative method will show partly different genetic relationships. It will point out sound changes, such as:
- the loss of all PAN word-final consonants in Tongan and Hawaiian;
- lowering of PAN *u to Tagalog [o] in word-final syllables;
- retention of PAN *t in word-initial and word-medial position in Tagalog and Tongan, but shift to /k/ in Hawaiian;
- retention of PAN *p in Tagalog, but shift to /f/ in Tongan and /h/ in Hawaiian.
This method will recognize sound change #1 as a shared innovation of Hawaiian and Tongan. It will also take the Hawaiian and Tongan cognates for "1" as another shared innovation. Due to these exclusively shared features, Hawaiian and Tongan are found to be more closely related to one another than either is to Tagalog or PAN.
The forms in the table show that the Austronesian vowels tend to be relatively stable, while the consonants are relatively volatile. It is also apparent that the Hawaiian words for "5" and "8" have remained essentially unchanged for 6000 years.
History
For Hawaiian language history before 1778, see Family and origin above.In Hawaii
In 1778, British explorer James Cook made the first reported European discovery of Hawaii.That marked a new phase in the development and use of Hawaiian. During the next forty years, the sounds of Spanish (1789), Russian (1804), French (1816), and German (1816) arrived in Hawaii via other explorers and businessmen. Hawaiian began to take form as a written language, but largely restricted to isolated names and words, and word lists collected by explorers and travellers.Abroad
The people responsible for "importing" those languages were also responsible for "exporting" the Hawaiian language into new territory, because there were some adventurous native speakers of Hawaiian who opted to do some exploring of their own by leaving Hawai'i and sailing off to "see the world" aboard the wooden ships of the Caucasian explorers. Although there were not enough of these Hawaiian-speaking explorers (and apparently no females) to establish any viable speech communities abroad, nevertheless, there were a few here and there, in various parts of the world, who may be said to have spread the use of the language, at least a little bit. One of them, a male in his teens known as Obookiah (Ōpūkahaia), had a major impact on the future of the language. He sailed to New EnglandNew England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
, where he eventually became a student at the Foreign Mission School
Foreign Mission School
The Foreign Mission School was an educational institution which existed between 1817 and 1826 in Cornwall, Connecticut. It was established by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions to bring Christianity and Western culture to non-caucasian people by educating missionaries of...
in Cornwall, Connecticut
Cornwall, Connecticut
Cornwall is a town in Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 1,434 at the 2000 census.In 1939 poet Mark Van Doren wrote "The Hills of Little Cornwall", a short poem in which the beauties of the countryside were portrayed as seductive:The town was also home to the Foreign...
. He inspired New Englanders to support a Christian mission to Hawaii, and provided information on the Hawaiian language to the American missionaries there prior to their departure for Hawaii in 1819. Some adventurous native speakers of Hawaiian worked aboard American and/or European ships of that period, thereby expanding, albeit slightly, the geographical area in which Hawaiian could be spoken. However, no viable Hawaiian speech communities were ever established abroad.
In Hawaii
The arrival of American Protestant missionaries (from New England) in 1820 marked another new phase in the development of the Hawaiian language. Their evangelical mission had been inspired by the presence of several young Hawaiian males, especially Obookiah (Ōpūkahaia), at the Foreign Mission SchoolForeign Mission School
The Foreign Mission School was an educational institution which existed between 1817 and 1826 in Cornwall, Connecticut. It was established by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions to bring Christianity and Western culture to non-caucasian people by educating missionaries of...
in Cornwall, Connecticut
Cornwall, Connecticut
Cornwall is a town in Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 1,434 at the 2000 census.In 1939 poet Mark Van Doren wrote "The Hills of Little Cornwall", a short poem in which the beauties of the countryside were portrayed as seductive:The town was also home to the Foreign...
. The missionaries wanted to convert all Hawaiians to Christianity. In order to achieve that goal, they needed to learn the Hawaiian language so that they could publish a Hawaiian Bible, preach in Hawaiian, etc. To that end, they developed a successful alphabet for Hawaiian by 1826, taught Hawaiians to read and write the language, published various educational materials in Hawaiian, and eventually finished translating the Bible. Missionaries also influenced King Kamehameha III
Kamehameha III
Kamehameha III was the King of Hawaii from 1825 to 1854. His full Hawaiian name was Keaweaweula Kiwalao Kauikeaouli Kaleiopapa and then lengthened to Keaweaweula Kiwalao Kauikeaouli Kaleiopapa Kalani Waiakua Kalanikau Iokikilo Kiwalao i ke kapu Kamehameha when he ascended the throne.Under his...
to establish the first Hawaiian-language constitutions in 1839 and 1840.
Abroad
Adelbert von ChamissoAdelbert von Chamisso
Adelbert von Chamisso was a German poet and botanist.- Life :He was born Louis Charles Adélaïde de Chamissot at the château of Boncourt at Ante, in Champagne, France, the ancestral seat of his family...
might have consulted with a native speaker of Hawaiian in Berlin, Germany, before publishing his grammar of Hawaiian ("Über die Hawaiische Sprache") in 1837. When Hawaiian King David Kalākaua
Kalakaua
Kalākaua, born David Laamea Kamanakapuu Mahinulani Nalaiaehuokalani Lumialani Kalākaua and sometimes called The Merrie Monarch , was the last reigning king of the Kingdom of Hawaii...
took a trip around the world, he brought his native language with him. When his wife, Queen Kapiolani
Queen Kapiolani
Queen Kapiolani formally Esther Kapiolani or Esther Kapiolani Napelakapuokakae, was married to King David Kalākaua and reigned as Queen Consort of the Kingdom of Hawaii.-Life:...
, and his sister, Princess (later Queen) Liliuokalani, took a trip across North America and on to the British Islands, in 1887, Liliuokalani's composition Aloha Oe was already a famous song in the U.S.
In Hawaii
The increase in human travel to and from Hawaii during the 19th century was the means by which a number of diseases arrived, and potentially fatal ones, such as smallpox
Smallpox
Smallpox was an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. The disease is also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera, which is a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning "spotted", or varus, meaning "pimple"...
, influenza
Influenza
Influenza, commonly referred to as the flu, is an infectious disease caused by RNA viruses of the family Orthomyxoviridae , that affects birds and mammals...
, and leprosy
Leprosy
Leprosy or Hansen's disease is a chronic disease caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium leprae and Mycobacterium lepromatosis. Named after physician Gerhard Armauer Hansen, leprosy is primarily a granulomatous disease of the peripheral nerves and mucosa of the upper respiratory tract; skin lesions...
, killed large numbers of native speakers of Hawaiian. Meanwhile, native speakers of other languages, especially English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
, Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
, Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
, and Ilokano
Ilokano language
Ilokano or Ilocano is the third most-spoken language of the Republic of the Philippines....
, continued to immigrate to Hawaii. As a result, the actual number, as well as the percentage, of native speakers of Hawaiian in the local population decreased sharply, and continued to fall.
As the status of Hawaiian dropped, the status of English in Hawaii rose. In 1885, the Prospectus of the Kamehameha Schools announced that "instruction will be given only in English language" (see published opinion of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit,
Doe v. Kamehameha Schools, case no. 04-15044, page 8928, filed August 2, 2005).
For a variety of reasons including punishment of Hawaiian children who spoke Hawaiian in school starting around 1900, the number of native speakers of Hawaiian diminished from 37,000 to 1,000; half of these remaining are now in their seventies or eighties (see Ethnologue report below for citations). There has been some controversy over the reasons for this decline.
One school of thought claims that the most important cause for the decline of the Hawaiian language was its voluntary abandonment by the majority of its native speakers. According to Mary Kawena Pukui, they wanted their own children to speak English, as a way to promote their success in a rapidly changing modern environment, so they refrained from using Hawaiian with their own children. The Hawaiian language schools disappeared as their enrollments dropped: parents preferred English language schools. Another school of thought emphasizes the importance of other factors that discouraged the use of the language, such as the fact that the English language was made the only medium of instruction in all schools in 1896 and the fact that schools punished the use of Hawaiian (see "Banning" of Hawaiian below.) General prejudice against Hawaiians (kanaka) has also been blamed for the decline of the language.
A new dictionary was published in 1957, a new grammar in 1979, and new second-language textbooks in 1951, 1965, 1977, and 1989. Master's theses and doctoral dissertations on specific facets of Hawaiian appeared in 1951, 1975, 1976, and 1996.
Kaona or Hidden meaning
According to Mary Kawena Pukui and Samuel Elbert in the definitive Dictionary, kaona (kao-na) is a "Hidden meaning, as in Hawaiian poetry; concealed reference, as to a person, thing, or place; words with double meanings that might bring good or bad fortune." Pukui lamented, “in spite of years of dedicated work, it is impossible to record any language completely. How true this seems for Hawaiian, with its rich and varied background, its many idioms heretofore undescribed, and its ingenious and sophisticated use of figurative language.” On page xiii of the 1986 Dictionary she warned: "Hawaiian has more words with multiple meanings than almost any other language. One wishing to name a child, a house, a T-shirt, or a painting, should be careful that the chosen name does not have a naughty or vulgar meaning. The name of a justly respectable children's school, Hana Hauoli, means happy activity and suggests a missionary author, but among older Hawaiians it has another, less 'innocent' meaning that should not concern little children. A Honolulu street (and formerly the name of a hotel) is Hale Lea 'joyous house', but lea also means orgasm."Understanding the kaona of the language requires a comprehensive knowledge of Hawaiian legends, history and cosmology.
"Banning" of Hawaiian
The law cited as banning the Hawaiian language is identified as Act 57, sec. 30 of the 1896 Laws of the Republic of Hawaii:The English Language shall be the medium and basis of instruction in all public and private schools, provided that where it is desired that another language shall be taught in addition to the English language, such instruction may be authorized by the Department, either by its rules, the curriculum of the school, or by direct order in any particular instance. Any schools that shall not conform to the provisions of this section shall not be recognized by the Department. [signed] June 8, 1896 Sanford B. DoleSanford B. DoleSanford Ballard Dole was a lawyer and jurist in the Hawaiian Islands as a kingdom, protectorate, republic and territory...
, President of the Republic of Hawaii
This law established English as the medium of instruction for the government-recognized schools, but it did not ban or make illegal the Hawaiian language in other contexts. The law specifically provided for teaching languages "in addition to the English language," rendering Hawaiian the status of a foreign language. However, Hawaiian was not taught initially in any school, including the all-Hawaiian Kamehameha Schools
Kamehameha Schools
Kamehameha Schools , formerly called Kamehameha Schools/Bishop Estate , is a private co-educational college-preparatory institution that specializes in Native Hawaiian language and cultural education. It is located in Hawaii and operates three campuses: Kapālama , Pukalani , and Keaau...
, and many children who spoke Hawaiian at school, including on the playground, were disciplined. Beginning in 1900, Mary Kawena Pukui, who was later the co-author of the Hawaiian–English Dictionary, was punished for speaking Hawaiian by being rapped on the forehead, allowed to eat only bread and water for lunch, and denied home visits on holidays. Winona Beamer was expelled from Kamehameha Schools in 1937 for chanting Hawaiian.
Hawaiian-language newspapers were published for over a hundred years, right through the period of the supposed ban. list fourteen Hawaiian newspapers. According to them, the newspapers entitled Ka Lama Hawaii and Ke Kumu Hawaii began publishing in 1834, and the one called Ka Hoku o Hawaii ceased publication in 1948. The longest run was that of Ka Nupepa Kuokoa: about 66 years, from 1861 to 1927.
1949 to present
In 1949, the legislature of the Territory of Hawaii commissioned Mary Pukui and Samuel Elbert to write a new dictionary of Hawaiian, either revising the Andrews-Parker work, or starting from scratch. Pukui and Elbert took a middle course, using what they could from the Andrews dictionary, but making certain improvements and additions that were more significant than a minor revision. The dictionary they produced, in 1957, introduced an era of gradual increase in attention to the language (and culture).Efforts to promote the language have increased in recent decades. Hawaiian-language "immersion" schools are now open to children whose families want to introduce Hawaiian language for future generations. The local NPR station features a short segment titled "Hawaiian word of the day" and a Hawaiian language news broadcast. Honolulu television station KGMB
KGMB
KGMB is the CBS-affiliated television station for the state of Hawaii that is licensed to Honolulu. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 23 from a transmitter in Palehua....
includes a Hawaiian language segment during their morning local news program Sunrise on KGMB9. Additionally, the Sunday editions of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin
Honolulu Star-Bulletin
The Honolulu Star-Bulletin was a daily newspaper based in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States. At the time publication ceased on June 6, 2010, it was the second largest daily newspaper in the state of Hawaii...
, one of Honolulu's two major newspapers, feature a brief article called Kauakukalahale written entirely in Hawaiian by teachers, students, and community members.
Today, on six of the seven permanently inhabited islands, Hawaiian is largely displaced by English, and the number of native speakers of Hawaiian is under 0.1% of the state-wide population. Native speakers of Hawaiian who live on the island named Niihau have remained fairly isolated and have continued to use Hawaiian almost exclusively.
Niihau
Niihau is the only area in the world where Hawaiian is the first language and English is a foreign language. Because of many sufficiently marked variations, Niihau people, when visiting or living in Honolulu, substitute the Oahu dialect [sic] for their own – apparently easy to do – saying that otherwise people in Honolulu have trouble understanding them. Niihau people speak very rapidly; many vowels and entire syllables are dropped or whispered.
The island named Niihau
Niihau
Niihau or Niihau is the seventh largest of the inhabited Hawaiian Islands in the U.S. state of Hawaii, having an area of . Niihau lies southwest of Kauai across the Kaulakahi Channel. Several intermittent playa lakes provide wetland habitats for the Hawaiian Coot, the Black-winged Stilt, and the...
, aka 'the Forbidden Island' to tourists, off the southwest coast of Kauai
Kauai
Kauai or Kauai, known as Tauai in the ancient Kaua'i dialect, is geologically the oldest of the main Hawaiian Islands. With an area of , it is the fourth largest of the main islands in the Hawaiian archipelago, and the 21st largest island in the United States. Known also as the "Garden Isle",...
, is the one island where Hawaiian is still spoken by the entire population as the language of daily life. Children are taught Hawaiian as a first language, and learn English at about age eight. Reasons for the persistence include:
- Niihau has been privately owned for over 100 years;
- visiting by outsiders has been only rarely allowed;
- the Caucasian owners/managers of the island have favored the Niihauans' continuation of their language;
- and, most of all, because the Niihau speakers themselves have naturally maintained their own native language, even though they sometimes use English as a second language for school.
Native speakers of Niihau Hawaiian have three distinct modes of speaking Hawaiian:
- an imitation and adaptation to "standard" Hawaiian;
- a native Niihau dialect that is significantly different from "standard" Hawaiian, including extensive use of palatalizations and truncations, and differences in diphthongization, vowel raising, and elision;
- a manner of speaking among themselves which is so different from "standard" Hawaiian that it is unintelligible to non-Niihau speakers of Hawaiian.
The last mode of speaking may be further restricted to a certain subset of Niihauans, and is rarely even overheard by non-Niihauans. In addition to being able to speak Hawaiian in different ways, most Niihauans can speak English too.
states that "[v]ariations in Hawaiian dialects have not been systematically studied", and that "[t]he dialect of Niihau is the most aberrant and the one most in need of study". They recognized that Niihauans can speak Hawaiian in substantially different ways. Their statements are based in part on some specific observations made by . (See below, Processes, under Phonology.)
Orthography (writing system)
Hawaiians had no written language prior to western contact, except for petroglyph symbols.The modern Hawaiian alphabet, ka pīāpā Hawaii, is a variety of the Latin alphabet
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
. Hawaiian words end only in vowels, and every consonant must be followed by a vowel. The Hawaiian alphabetical order has all of the vowels before the consonants, as in the following chart.
Origin
This writing system was developed by American Protestant missionaries during 1820–1826. It was the first thing they ever printed in Hawaii, on January 7, 1822, and it originally included the consonants B, D, R, T, and V, in addition to the current ones (H, K, L, M, N, P, W), and it had F, G, S, Y and Z for "spelling foreign words". The initial printing also showed the five vowel letters (A, E, I, O, U) and seven of the short diphthongs (AE, AI, AO, AU, EI, EU, OU).In 1826, the developers voted to eliminate some of the letters which represented functionally redundant allophone
Allophone
In phonology, an allophone is one of a set of multiple possible spoken sounds used to pronounce a single phoneme. For example, and are allophones for the phoneme in the English language...
s (called "interchangeable letters"), enabling the Hawaiian alphabet to approach the ideal state of one-symbol-one-sound, and thereby optimizing the ease with which people could teach and learn the reading and writing of Hawaiian. For example, instead of spelling one and the same word as pule, bule, pure, and bure (because of interchangeable p/b and l/r), the word is spelled only as pule.
- Interchangeable B/P. B was dropped, P was kept.
- Interchangeable L/R. R was dropped, L was kept.
- Interchangeable K/T. T was dropped, K was kept.
- Interchangeable V/W. V was dropped, W was kept.
However, hundreds of words were very rapidly borrowed into Hawaiian from English, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, Syrian, and Chaldean. Although these loan words were necessarily Hawaiianize
Hawaiianize
The transitive verb to Hawaiianize means to take a physical product, word, or concept hitherto unrelated to Hawaiian culture, and confer a Hawaiian form, quality, and character upon it through various means. The word is an increasingly popular neologism, in the manner of Anglicise, Africanise, and...
d, they often retained some of their "non-Hawaiian letters" in their published forms. For example, Brazil fully Hawaiianize
Hawaiianize
The transitive verb to Hawaiianize means to take a physical product, word, or concept hitherto unrelated to Hawaiian culture, and confer a Hawaiian form, quality, and character upon it through various means. The word is an increasingly popular neologism, in the manner of Anglicise, Africanise, and...
d is Palakila, but retaining "foreign letters" it is Barazila. Another example is Gibraltar, written as Kipalaleka or Gibaraleta. While [z] and [ɡ] are not regarded as Hawaiian sounds, [b], [ɹ], and [t] were represented in the original alphabet, so the letters (b, r, and t) for the latter are not truly "non-Hawaiian" or "foreign", even though their post-1826 use in published matter generally marked words of foreign origin.
Glottal stop
A modern Hawaiian nameHawaiian name
A Hawaiian name is a name in the Hawaiian language. Such names are popular not only in Hawaiian families, but also among other residents of Hawaii, and even in the United States mainland among both non-native and native Hawaiians.- Meanings of names :...
for the symbol (a letter) which represents the glottal stop
Glottal stop
The glottal stop, or more fully, the voiceless glottal plosive, is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. In English, the feature is represented, for example, by the hyphen in uh-oh! and by the apostrophe or [[ʻokina]] in Hawaii among those using a preservative pronunciation of...
is okina (oki 'cut' + -na '-ing'). It was formerly known as uina ('snap').
For examples of the okina, consider the Hawaiian words Hawaii and Oahu (often simply Hawaii and Oahu in English orthography). In Hawaiian, these words can be pronounced [hʌˈʋʌi.ʔi] and [oˈʔʌ.hu], and can be written with an okina where the glottal stop is pronounced.
History
As early as 1823, the missionaries made some limited use of the apostrophe to represent the glottal stop, but they did not make it a letter of the alphabet. In publishing the Hawaiian Bible, they used it to distinguish kou ('my') from kou ('your'). In 1864, William DeWitt AlexanderWilliam DeWitt Alexander
William DeWitt Alexander was an educator, author and linguist in the Kingdom of Hawaii and Republic of Hawaii.He then constructed maps for the Territory of Hawaii.-Life:...
published a grammar of Hawaiian in which he made it clear that the glottal stop (calling it "guttural break") is definitely a true consonant of the Hawaiian language. He wrote it using an apostrophe. In 1922, the Andrews-Parker dictionary of Hawaiian made limited use of the opening single quote symbol, called "reversed apostrophe" or "inverse comma", to represent the glottal stop. Subsequent dictionaries have preferred to use that symbol. Today, many native speakers of Hawaiian do not bother, in general, to write any symbol for the glottal stop. Its use is advocated mainly among students and teachers of Hawaiian as a second language, and among linguists.
Electronic encoding
The okina is written in various ways for electronic uses:- turned comma: , UnicodeUnicodeUnicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
hex value 02BB (decimal 699). This does not always have the correct appearance because it is not supported in some fonts/browsers (mainly Internet ExplorerInternet ExplorerWindows Internet Explorer is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, starting in 1995. It was first released as part of the add-on package Plus! for Windows 95 that year...
before version 6). - opening single quote, aka left single quotation mark: ‘ UnicodeUnicodeUnicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
hex value 2018 (decimal 8216). In many fonts this character looks like either a left-leaning single quotation mark or a quotation mark thicker at the bottom than at the top. In more traditional serif fonts such as Times New Roman it can look like a very small "6" with the circle filled in black: ‘.
Because many people who want to write the okina are not familiar with these specific characters and/or do not have access to the appropriate fonts and input and display systems, it is sometimes written with more familiar and readily available characters:
- the ASCII apostrophe ', UnicodeUnicodeUnicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
hex value 27 (decimal 39), following the missionary tradition. - the ASCII grave accent (often called "backquote" or "backtick") `, UnicodeUnicodeUnicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
hex value 60 (decimal 96) - the right single quotation mark, or "curly apostrophe" ’, UnicodeUnicodeUnicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
hex value 2019 (decimal 146)
Macron
A modern Hawaiian name for the macronMacron
A macron, from the Greek , meaning "long", is a diacritic placed above a vowel . It was originally used to mark a long or heavy syllable in Greco-Roman metrics, but now marks a long vowel...
symbol is kahakō (kaha 'mark' + kō 'long'). It was formerly known as mekona (Hawaiianization of macron). It can be written as a diacritical mark
Diacritic
A diacritic is a glyph added to a letter, or basic glyph. The term derives from the Greek διακριτικός . Diacritic is both an adjective and a noun, whereas diacritical is only an adjective. Some diacritical marks, such as the acute and grave are often called accents...
which looks like a hyphen or dash written above a vowel, i.e., ā ē ī ō ū, and Ā Ē Ī Ō Ū. It is used to show that the marked vowel is a "double", or "geminate", or "long" vowel, in phonemic terms.
As early as 1821, at least one of the missionaries, Hiram Bingham
Hiram Bingham I
Hiram Bingham, formally Hiram Bingham I , was leader of the first group of Protestant missionaries to introduce Christianity to the Hawaiian islands.-Life:...
, was using macrons (and breves) in making handwritten transcriptions of Hawaiian vowels.
The missionaries specifically requested their sponsor in Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
to send them some type (fonts) with accented vowel characters, including vowels with macrons, but the sponsor made only one response and sent the wrong font size (pica instead of small pica). Thus, they could not print ā, ē, ī, ō, nor ū (at the right size), even though they wanted to.
Pronunciation
Due to extensive allophony, Hawaiian has more than 13 phones. Although vowel length is phonemic, long vowels are not always pronounced as such, even though under the rules for assigning stress in Hawaiian, a long vowel will always receive stress.Consonants
| Labial Labial consonant Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. This precludes linguolabials, in which the tip of the tongue reaches for the posterior side of the upper lip and which are considered coronals... |
Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth... |
Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum).... |
Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider... |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :... |
m | n | ||
| Plosive | p | t ~ k | ʔ | |
| Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or... |
h | |||
| Sonorant | w ~ v | l | ||
Hawaiian is known for having very few consonant
Consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
phonemes – eight: /p, k ~ t, ʔ, h, m, n, l, w ~ v/. It is notable that Hawaiian has allophonic variation of [t] with [k], [w] with [v], and (in some dialects) [l] with [n]. The [t]–[k] variation is quite unusual among the world's languages, and is likely a product both of the small number of consonants in Hawaiian, and the recent shift of historical *t to modern [t]–[k], after historical *k had shifted to [ʔ]. In some dialects, /ʔ/ remains as [k] in some words. These variations are largely free, though there are conditioning factors. /l/ tends to [n] especially in words with both /l/ and /n/, such as in the island name Lānai ([laːˈnɐʔi]–[naːˈnɐʔi]), though this is not always the case: eleele or eneene "black". The [k] allophone is almost universal at the beginnings of words, whereas [t] is most common before the vowel /i/. [v] is also the norm after /i/ and /e/, whereas [w] is usual after /u/ and /o/. After /a/ and initially, however, [w] and [v] are in free variation.
Monophthongs
| Short Vowel length In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may etymologically be one, such as in Australian English. While not distinctive in most dialects of English, vowel length is an important phonemic factor in... |
Long Vowel length In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may etymologically be one, such as in Australian English. While not distinctive in most dialects of English, vowel length is an important phonemic factor in... |
|||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also... |
Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark... |
Front | Back | |
| Close Close vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the... |
i | u | iː | uː |
| Mid Mid vowel A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an open vowel and a close vowel... |
ɛ ~ e | o | eː | oː |
| Open Open vowel An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue... |
ɐ ~ ə | aː | ||
Hawaiian has five short
Vowel length
In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may etymologically be one, such as in Australian English. While not distinctive in most dialects of English, vowel length is an important phonemic factor in...
and five long
Vowel length
In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may etymologically be one, such as in Australian English. While not distinctive in most dialects of English, vowel length is an important phonemic factor in...
vowel
Vowel
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
s, plus diphthong
Diphthong
A diphthong , also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: That is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel...
s. The short vowels are /u, i, o, e, a/, and the long vowels, if they are considered separate phonemes rather than simply sequences of like vowels, are /uː, iː, oː, eː, aː/. When stressed, short /e/ and /a/ tend to become [ɛ] and [ɐ], while when unstressed they are [e] and [ə]. /e/ also tends to become [ɛ] next to /l/, /n/, and another [ɛ], as in Pele [pɛlɛ]. Some grammatical particles vary between short and long vowels. These include a and o "of", ma "at", na and no "for". Between a back vowel /o/ or /u/ and a following non-back vowel (/a e i/), there is an epenthetic
Epenthesis
In phonology, epenthesis is the addition of one or more sounds to a word, especially to the interior of a word. Epenthesis may be divided into two types: excrescence, for the addition of a consonant, and anaptyxis for the addition of a vowel....
[w], which is generally not written. Between a front vowel /e/ or /i/ and a following non-front vowel (/a o u/), there is an epenthetic [j] (a y sound), which is never written.
Diphthongs
| Ending with /u/ | Ending with /i/ | Ending with /o/ | Ending with /e/ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starting with /i/ | iu | |||
| Starting with /o/ | ou | oi | ||
| Starting with /e/ | eu | ei | ||
| Starting with /a/ | au | ai | ao | ae |
The short-vowel diphthongs are /iu, ou, oi, eu, ei, au, ai, ao, ae/. In all except perhaps /iu/, these are falling diphthongs. However, they are not as tightly bound as the diphthongs of English, and may be considered vowel sequences. (The second vowel in such sequences may receive the stress, but in such cases it is not counted as a diphthong.) In fast speech, /ai/ tends to [ei] and /au/ tends to [ou], conflating these diphthongs with /ei/ and /ou/.
There are only a limited number of vowels which may follow long vowels, and some authors treat these as diphthongs as well: /oːu, eːi, aːu, aːi, aːo, aːe/.
| Ending with /u/ | Ending with /i/ | Ending with /o/ | Ending with /e/ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starting with /o/ | oːu | |||
| Starting with /e/ | eːi | |||
| Starting with /a/ | aːu | aːi | aːo | aːe |
Phonotactics
Hawaiian syllable structure is (C)V. All CV syllables occur except for wū; wu occurs only in two words borrowed from English. As shown by Schütz, Hawaiian word-stress is predictable in words of one to four syllables, but not in words of five or more syllables. Hawaiian phonological processes include palatalization and deletion of consonants, as well as raising, diphthongization, deletion, and compensatory lengthening of vowels. Phonological reduction (or "decay") of consonant phonemes during the historical development of the language has resulted in the phonemic glottal stop. Ultimate loss (deletion) of intervocalic consonant phonemes has resulted in Hawaiian long vowels and diphthongs.Grammar
Hawaiian is an analytic language and a VSO language. While there is no use of inflectionInflection
In grammar, inflection or inflexion is the modification of a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case...
for verbs, in Hawaiian, like other Austronesian personal pronouns
Austronesian personal pronouns
This article describes the personal pronoun systems of various Austronesian languages.-Proto-languages:The Proto-Austronesian and Proto-Malayo-Polynesian personal pronouns below were reconstructed by Robert Blust....
, declension
Declension
In linguistics, declension is the inflection of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and articles to indicate number , case , and gender...
is found in the differentiation between a- and o-class genitive case
Genitive case
In grammar, genitive is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun...
personal pronouns in order to indicate inalienable possession
Inalienable possession
In linguistics, inalienable possession refers to the linguistic properties of certain nouns or nominal morphemes based on the fact that they are always possessed. The semantic underpinning is that entities like body parts and relatives do not exist apart from a possessor. For example, a hand...
in a binary possessive class system. Also like many Austronesian languages, Hawaiian pronouns employ separate words for inclusive and exclusive we
Clusivity
In linguistics, clusivity is a distinction between inclusive and exclusive first-person pronouns and verbal morphology, also called inclusive "we" and exclusive "we"...
, and distinguish singular
Grammatical number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
, dual
Dual (grammatical number)
Dual is a grammatical number that some languages use in addition to singular and plural. When a noun or pronoun appears in dual form, it is interpreted as referring to precisely two of the entities identified by the noun or pronoun...
, and plural
Plural
In linguistics, plurality or [a] plural is a concept of quantity representing a value of more-than-one. Typically applied to nouns, a plural word or marker is used to distinguish a value other than the default quantity of a noun, which is typically one...
. The grammatical function of verbs is marked by adjacent particles
Grammatical particle
In grammar, a particle is a function word that does not belong to any of the inflected grammatical word classes . It is a catch-all term for a heterogeneous set of words and terms that lack a precise lexical definition...
(short words) and their relative positions to indicate tense–aspect–mood.
Some examples verb phrase patterns:
- ua verb perfective
- e verb ana imperfective
- ke verb nei present progressive
- e verb imperativeImperative moodThe imperative mood expresses commands or requests as a grammatical mood. These commands or requests urge the audience to act a certain way. It also may signal a prohibition, permission, or any other kind of exhortation.- Morphology :...
- mai verb negative imperative
Nouns can be marked with articles
Article (grammar)
An article is a word that combines with a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun. Articles specify the grammatical definiteness of the noun, in some languages extending to volume or numerical scope. The articles in the English language are the and a/an, and some...
:
- ka honu the turtle
- nā honu the turtles
- ka hale the house
- ke kanaka the person
ka and ke are singular definite articles. ke is used before words beginning with a-, e-, o- and k-, and with some words beginning - and p-. ka is used in all other cases. nā is the plural definite article.
To show just "part" of a group, the word "kekahi" is used. To show a bigger part, you would insert mau to pluralize the subject
Example:
- One of the cows
kekahi pipi
- Some of the cows
kekahi mau pipi
See also
- The list of Hawaiian words and list of words of Hawaiian origin at WiktionaryWiktionaryWiktionary is a multilingual, web-based project to create a free content dictionary, available in 158 languages...
, a free dictionary and Wikipedia sibling project - Languages of the United States
- List of English words of Hawaiian origin
External links
- Ulukau – the Hawaiian electronic library, includes English to/from Hawaiian dictionary
- Hawaiian Vocabulary List (from the World Loanword Database)
- Ka Haka ʻUla O Keʻelikōlani, College of Hawaiian Language
- Kulaiwi – learn Hawaiian through distance learning courses
- Was Hawaiian outlawed?
- Examples of published claims that Hawaiian was outlawed
- Hawaiian.saivus.org – Detailed Hawaiian Language Pronunciation Guide
- Hawaiian and Indonesian with Japanese translation incl. sound file
- Traditional and Neo Hawaiian: The Emergence of a New Form of Hawaiian Language as a Result of Hawaiian Language Regeneration
- "Hale Pa'i" Article about Hawaiian language newspapers printed at Lahainaluna on MauiMauiThe island of Maui is the second-largest of the Hawaiian Islands at and is the 17th largest island in the United States. Maui is part of the state of Hawaii and is the largest of Maui County's four islands, bigger than Lānai, Kahoolawe, and Molokai. In 2010, Maui had a population of 144,444,...
. Maui No Ka 'Oi MagazineMaui No Ka 'Oi MagazineMaui Nō Ka Oi Magazine is a bi-monthly regional magazine published by the Haynes Publishing Group in Wailuku, Hawaii.The phrase Maui nō ka ʻoi means "Maui is unparallel" in the Hawaiian language. Maui Nō Ka Oi Magazine features stories relating to the culture, art, dining, environmental issues,...
Vol.12 No.3 (May 2008). - "Speak Hawaiian" Article about Hawaiian language resource on iPhone. (May 2010).
- A Hawaiian Glossary
- How to Pronounce "Hawai'i", Kelley L. Ross, Ph.D, 2008
- OLAC Resources in and about the Hawaiian language