Hawaiian (', ) is a
Polynesian language
The Polynesian languages form a genealogical group of languages, itself part of the Oceanic branch of the Austronesian family.
There are 38 Polynesian languages, representing 7 percent of the 522 Oceanic languages, and 3 percent of the Austro ...
of the
Austronesian language family that takes its name from
Hawaii
Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only state ...
, the largest island in the tropical North Pacific
archipelago
An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands, or sometimes a sea containing a small number of scattered islands.
Examples of archipelagos include: the Indonesian Archi ...
where it developed. Hawaiian, along with
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
, is an official language of the
US state of Hawaii.
King Kamehameha III
Kamehameha III (born Kauikeaouli) (March 17, 1814 – December 15, 1854) was the third king of the Kingdom of Hawaii from 1825 to 1854. His full Hawaiian name is Keaweaweula Kīwalaō Kauikeaouli Kaleiopapa and then lengthened to Keaweaweula K ...
established the first Hawaiian-language
constitution
A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed.
When these princ ...
in 1839 and 1840.
For various reasons, including
territorial
A territory is an area of land, sea, or space, particularly belonging or connected to a country, person, or animal.
In international politics, a territory is usually either the total area from which a state may extract power resources or a ...
legislation establishing English as the official language in schools, the number of
native speakers
A first language, native tongue, native language, mother tongue or L1 is the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother tongu ...
of Hawaiian gradually decreased during the period from the 1830s to the 1950s. Hawaiian was essentially displaced by English on six of seven inhabited islands. In 2001, native speakers of Hawaiian amounted to less than 0.1% of the statewide population. Linguists were unsure if Hawaiian and other
endangered language
An endangered language or moribund language is a language that is at risk of disappearing as its speakers die out or shift to speaking other languages. Language loss occurs when the language has no more native speakers and becomes a "dead langu ...
s would survive.
Nevertheless, from around 1949 to the present day, there has been a gradual increase in attention to and promotion of the language. Public Hawaiian-language immersion preschools called
Pūnana Leo
Pūnana Leo (; often translated as "language nest") 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 i ...
were established in 1984; other immersion schools followed soon after that. The first students to start in immersion preschool have now graduated from college and many are fluent Hawaiian speakers. However, the language is still classified as critically endangered by UNESCO.
A
creole language
A creole language, or simply creole, is a stable natural language that develops from the simplifying and mixing of different languages into a new one within a fairly brief period of time: often, a pidgin evolved into a full-fledged language. ...
,
Hawaiian Pidgin
Hawaiian Pidgin (alternately, Hawaiʻi Creole English or HCE, known locally as Pidgin) is an English-based creole language spoken in Hawaiʻi. An estimated 600,000 residents of Hawaii speak Hawaiian Pidgin natively and 400,000 speak it as a se ...
(or Hawaii Creole English, HCE), is more commonly spoken in Hawaii than Hawaiian. Some linguists, as well as many locals, argue that Hawaiian Pidgin is a
dialect
The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena:
One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a ...
of American English. Born from the increase of immigrants from Japan, China, Puerto Rico, Korea, Portugal, Spain and the Philippines, the pidgin creole language was a necessity in the plantations. Hawaiian and immigrant laborers as well as the white ''luna,'' or overseers, found a way to communicate amongst themselves. Pidgin eventually made its way off the plantation and into the greater community, where it is still used to this day.
The
Hawaiian alphabet
The Hawaiian alphabet (in haw, ka pīʻāpā Hawaiʻi) is an alphabet used to write Hawaiian. It was adapted from the English alphabet in the early 19th century by American missionaries to print a bible in the Hawaiian language.
Origins
In ...
has 13 letters: five vowels: a e i o u (each with a long pronunciation and a short one) and eight consonants: he ke la mu nu pi we
okina (a
glottal stop).
Name
The Hawaiian language takes its name from the largest island in the Hawaiian archipelago,
Hawaii
Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only state ...
(' in the Hawaiian language). 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". It is written "Oh-Why-hee" on the first map of Sandwich Islands engraved by in 1781.
French: Carte de l'OCÉAN PACIFIQUE au Nord de l'équateur, et des côtes qui le bornent des deux cotes: d'après les dernières découvertes faites par les Espagnols, les Russes et les Anglais jusqu'en 1780.
German: Charte des STILLEN WELTMEERS nördlichen des Äequators und der Küsten, die es auf beiden Seiten einschränken: Nach den neuesten, von der Spanier, Russen und Engländer bis 1780.
English (translation): Chart of the PACIFIC OCEAN north of the Equator and the Coasts that bound it on both sides: according to the latest discoveries made by the Spaniards, Russians and English up to 1780. Explorers Mortimer (1791) and
Otto von Kotzebue
Otto von Kotzebue (russian: О́тто Евста́фьевич Коцебу́, tr. ; – ) was a Russian officer and navigator in the Imperial Russian Navy. He was born in Reval. He was known for his explorations of Oceania.
Early life ...
(1821) used that spelling.
The initial "O" in the name "Oh-Why-hee" is a reflection of the fact that Hawaiian predicates unique identity by using a
copula form, ''o'', immediately before a proper noun. Thus, in Hawaiian, the name of the island is expressed by saying ', which means "
his
His or HIS may refer to:
Computing
* Hightech Information System, a Hong Kong graphics card company
* Honeywell Information Systems
* Hybrid intelligent system
* Microsoft Host Integration Server
Education
* Hangzhou International School, in ...
is Hawaii." The Cook expedition also wrote "Otaheite" rather than "Tahiti."
The spelling "why" in the name reflects the
pronunciation of ''wh'' in 18th-century English (still
used
Used may refer to:
Common meanings
*Used good, goods of any type that have been used before or pre-owned
*Used to, English auxiliary verb
Places
*Used, Huesca, a village in Huesca, Aragon, Spain
*Used, Zaragoza, a town in Zaragoza, Aragon, Spain ...
in parts of the
English-speaking world
Speakers of English are also known as Anglophones, and the countries where English is natively spoken by the majority of the population are termed the '' Anglosphere''. Over two billion people speak English , making English the largest langua ...
). ''Why'' was pronounced . The spelling "hee" or "ee" in the name represents the sounds , or .
Putting the parts together, ''O-why-(h)ee'' reflects , a reasonable approximation of the native pronunciation, .
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 Hawaii. They still used such phrases as late as March 1822. However, by July 1823, they had begun using the phrase "Hawaiian Language."
In Hawaiian, the language is called ', since adjectives follow nouns.
Family and origin
Hawaiian is a Polynesian member of the
Austronesian language family. It is closely related to other
Polynesian languages
The Polynesian languages form a genealogical group of languages, itself part of the Oceanic branch of the Austronesian family.
There are 38 Polynesian languages, representing 7 percent of the 522 Oceanic languages, and 3 percent of the Austro ...
, such as
Samoan,
Marquesan
The Marquesas Islands (; french: Îles Marquises or ' or '; Marquesan: ' ( North Marquesan) and ' ( South Marquesan), both meaning "the land of men") are a group of volcanic islands in French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity of France in ...
,
Tahitian,
Māori
Māori or Maori can refer to:
Relating to the Māori people
* Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group
* Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand
* Māori culture
* Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...
,
Rapa Nui
Easter Island ( rap, Rapa Nui; es, Isla de Pascua) is an island and special territory of Chile in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian Triangle in Oceania. The island is most famous for its nearly ...
(the language of
Easter Island
Easter Island ( rap, Rapa Nui; es, Isla de Pascua) is an island and special territory of Chile in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian Triangle in Oceania. The island is most famous for its nearl ...
) and
Tongan.
According to Schütz (1994), the
Marquesans colonized the archipelago in roughly 300 CE followed by later waves of immigration from the
Society Islands
The Society Islands (french: Îles de la Société, officially ''Archipel de la Société;'' ty, Tōtaiete mā) are an archipelago located in the South Pacific Ocean. Politically, they are part of French Polynesia, an overseas country of the ...
and
Samoa
Samoa, officially the Independent State of Samoa; sm, Sāmoa, and until 1997 known as Western Samoa, is a Polynesian island country consisting of two main islands (Savai'i and Upolu); two smaller, inhabited islands (Manono Island, Manono an ...
-
Tonga
Tonga (, ; ), officially the Kingdom of Tonga ( to, Puleʻanga Fakatuʻi ʻo Tonga), is a Polynesian country and archipelago. The country has 171 islands – of which 45 are inhabited. Its total surface area is about , scattered over in ...
. Their languages, over time, became the Hawaiian language within the Hawaiian Islands. 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.
Mutual intelligibility
Jack H. Ward (1962) conducted a study using basic words and short utterances to determine the level of comprehension between different Polynesian languages. The mutual intelligibility of Hawaiian was found to be 41.2% with Marquesan, 37.5% with Tahitian, 25.5% with Samoan and 6.4% with Tongan.
History
First European contact
In 1778, British explorer James Cook made Europe's initial, recorded
first contact with Hawaiʻi, beginning a new phase in the development of Hawaiian. During the next forty years, the sounds of
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
(1789),
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
(1804),
French (1816), and
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
(1816) arrived in Hawaii via other explorers and businessmen. Hawaiian began to be written for the first time, largely restricted to isolated names and words, and word lists collected by explorers and travelers.
The early explorers and merchants who first brought European languages to the Hawaiian islands also took on a few native crew members who brought the Hawaiian language into new territory. Hawaiians took these nautical jobs because their traditional way of life changed due to plantations, and although there were not enough of these Hawaiian-speaking explorers to establish any viable speech communities abroad, they still had a noticeable presence. One of them, a boy in his teens known as
Obookiah (), had a major impact on the future of the language. He sailed to
New England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...
, where he eventually became a student at the
Foreign Mission School
The Foreign Mission School was an educational institution which operated between 1817 and 1826 in Cornwall, Connecticut. It was established by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. The ABCFM was focused on sending missionaries ...
in
Cornwall, Connecticut
Cornwall is a town in Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 1,567 at the 2020 census.
History
The town of Cornwall, Connecticut, is named after the county of Cornwall, England. The town was incorporated in 1740, near ...
. 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.
Adelbert von Chamisso
Adelbert von Chamisso (; 30 January 178121 August 1838) was a German poet and botanist, author of ''Peter Schlemihl'', a famous story about a man who sold his shadow. He was commonly known in French as Adelbert de Chamisso (or Chamissot) de Bonc ...
too might have consulted with a native speaker of Hawaiian in Berlin,
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
, before publishing his grammar of Hawaiian (') in 1837.
Folk tales
Like all natural spoken languages, the Hawaiian language was originally an oral language. The native people of the Hawaiian language relayed religion, traditions, history, and views of their world through stories that were handed down from generation to generation. One form of storytelling most commonly associated with the Hawaiian islands is
hula
Hula () is a Hawaiian dance form accompanied by chant (oli) or song ( mele). It was developed in the Hawaiian Islands by the Native Hawaiians who originally settled there. The hula dramatizes or portrays the words of the oli or mele in a visua ...
. Nathaniel B. Emerson notes that "It kept the communal imagination in living touch with the nation's legendary past".
The islanders' connection with their stories is argued to be one reason why Captain James Cook received a pleasant welcome. Marshall Sahlins has observed that Hawaiian folktales began bearing similar content to those of the Western world in the eighteenth century. He argues this was caused by the timing of Captain Cook's arrival, which was coincidentally when the indigenous Hawaiians were celebrating the
Makahiki festival, which is the annual celebration of the harvest in honor of the god
Lono
In Hawaiian religion, the god Lono is associated with fertility, agriculture, rainfall, music and peace. In one of the many Hawaiian stories of Lono, he is a fertility and music god who descended to Earth on a rainbow to marry Laka. In agricultu ...
. The celebration lasts for the entirety of the
rainy season
The rainy season is the time of year when most of a region's average annual rainfall occurs.
Rainy Season may also refer to:
* ''Rainy Season'' (short story), a 1989 short horror story by Stephen King
* "Rainy Season", a 2018 song by Monni
* '' ...
. It is a time of peace with much emphasis on amusements, food, games, and dancing. The islanders' story foretold of the god Lono's return at the time of the Makahiki festival.
Written Hawaiian
In 1820,
Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
missionaries from
New England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...
arrived in Hawaii, and in a few years converted the chiefs to
Congregational
Congregational churches (also Congregationalist churches or Congregationalism) are Protestant churches in the Calvinist tradition practising congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its ...
Protestantism, who in turn converted their subjects. To the missionaries, the thorough Christianization of the kingdom necessitated a complete translation of the Bible to Hawaiian, a previously unwritten language, and therefore the creation of a standard spelling that should be as easy to master as possible. The orthography created by the missionaries was so straightforward that literacy spread very quickly among the adult population; at the same time, the Mission set more and more schools for children.
![Ka Lama Hawaii](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/Ka_Lama_Hawaii.gif)
In 1834, the first Hawaiian-language newspapers were published by missionaries working with locals. The missionaries also played a significant role in publishing a vocabulary (1836) grammar (1854) and dictionary (1865) of Hawaiian. The Hawaiian Bible was fully completed in 1839; by then, the Mission had such a wide-reaching school network that, when in 1840 it handed it over to the Hawaiian government, the Hawaiian Legislature mandated compulsory state-funded education for all children under 14 years of age, including girls, twelve years before any similar
compulsory education law was enacted for the first time in any of the United States.
Literacy in Hawaiian was so widespread that in 1842 a law mandated that people born after 1819 had to be literate to be allowed to marry. In his ''Report to the Legislature'' for the year 1853
Richard Armstrong, the minister of Public Instruction, bragged that 75% of the adult population could read. 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."
When Hawaiian King
David Kalākaua
David (; , "beloved one") (traditional spelling), , ''Dāwūd''; grc-koi, Δαυΐδ, Dauíd; la, Davidus, David; gez , ዳዊት, ''Dawit''; xcl, Դաւիթ, ''Dawitʿ''; cu, Давíдъ, ''Davidŭ''; possibly meaning "beloved one". w ...
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.
Suppression of Hawaiian
The decline of the Hawaiian language was accelerated by the coup that overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy and dethroned the existing Hawaiian queen. Thereafter, a law was instituted that required English as the main language of school instruction.
The law cited is identified as Act 57, sec. 30 of the 1896 Laws of the Republic of Hawaii:
This law established English as the medium of instruction for the government-recognized schools both "public and private". While it did not ban or make illegal the Hawaiian language in other contexts, its implementation in the schools had far-reaching effects. Those who had been pushing for English-only schools took this law as licence to extinguish the native language at the early education level. While the law did not make Hawaiian illegal (it was still commonly spoken at the time), many children who spoke Hawaiian at school, including on the playground, were disciplined. This included corporal punishment and going to the home of the offending child to advise them strongly to stop speaking it in their home. Moreover, the law specifically provided for teaching languages "in addition to the English language," reducing Hawaiian to the status of an extra language, subject to approval by the department. Hawaiian was not taught initially in any school, including the all-Hawaiian
Kamehameha Schools. This is largely because when these schools were founded, like Kamehameha Schools founded in 1887 (nine years before this law), Hawaiian was being spoken in the home. Once this law was enacted, individuals at these institutions took it upon themselves to enforce a ban on Hawaiian. 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
Winona Kapuailohiamanonokalani Desha Beamer (August 15, 1923 – April 10, 2008) was a champion of authentic and ancient Hawaiian culture, publishing many books, musical scores, as well as audio and video recordings on the subject. In her home sta ...
was expelled from Kamehameha Schools in 1937 for chanting Hawaiian. Due in part to this systemic suppression of the language after the overthrow, Hawaiian is still considered a critically endangered language.
![Student nationality Hawaii 1890-1920](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Student_nationality_Hawaii_1890-1920.svg)
However, informal coercion to drop Hawaiian would not have worked by itself. Just as important was the fact that, in the same period, native Hawaiians were becoming a minority in their own land on account of the growing influx of foreign labourers and their children. Whereas in 1890 pure Hawaiian students made 56% of school enrollment, in 1900 their numbers were down to 32% and, in 1910, to 16.9%.
At the same time, Hawaiians were very prone to intermarriage: the number of "Part-Hawaiian" students (i.e., children of mixed White-Hawaiian marriages) grew from 1573 in 1890 to 3718 in 1910.
In such mixed households, the low prestige of Hawaiian led to the adoption of English as the family language. Moreover, Hawaiians lived mostly in the cities or scattered across the countryside, in direct contact with other ethnic groups and without any stronghold (with the exception of Niʻihau). Thus, even pure Hawaiian children would converse daily with their schoolmates of diverse mother tongues in English, which was now not just the teachers' language but also the common language needed for everyday communication among friends and neighbours out of school as well. In only a generation English (or rather Pidgin) would become the primary and dominant language of all children, despite the efforts of Hawaiian and immigrant parents to maintain their ancestral languages within the family.
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.
Language revitalization and Hawaiian culture has seen a major revival since the
Hawaiian renaissance
The Hawaiian Renaissance (also called the Hawaiian Cultural Renaissance) was the Hawaiian resurgence of a distinct cultural identity that draws upon traditional kānaka maoli culture, with a significant divergence from the tourism-based culture ...
in the 1970s. Forming in 1983, the
ʻAha Pūnana Leo, meaning "language nest" in Hawaiian, opened its first center in 1984. It was a privately funded Hawaiian preschool program that invited native Hawaiian elders to speak to children in Hawaiian every day. Efforts to promote the language have increased in recent decades. Hawaiian-language "immersion" schools are now open to children whose families want to reintroduce Hawaiian language for future generations. The
Aha Pūnana Leo's Hawaiian language preschools in
Hilo, Hawaii, have received international recognition. The local
National Public Radio
National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...
station features a short segment titled "Hawaiian word of the day" and a Hawaiian language news broadcast.
Honolulu
Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island ...
television station
KGMB ran a weekly Hawaiian language program, ''Āhai Ōlelo Ola'', as recently as 2010.
Additionally, the Sunday editions of the ''
Honolulu Star-Advertiser
The ''Honolulu Star-Advertiser'' is the largest daily newspaper in Hawaii, formed in 2010 with the merger of ''The Honolulu Advertiser'' and the ''Honolulu Star-Bulletin'' after the acquisition of the former by Black Press, which already owned the ...
'', the largest newspaper in Hawaii, feature a brief article called ''Kauakukalahale'' written entirely in Hawaiian by teachers, students, and community members.
Today, the number of native speakers of Hawaiian, which was under 0.1% of the statewide population in 1997, has risen to 2,000, out of 24,000 total who are fluent in the language, according to the US 2011 census. On six of the seven permanently inhabited islands, Hawaiian has been largely displaced by English, but on
Niihau
Niihau ( Hawaiian: ), anglicized as Niihau ( ), is the westernmost main and seventh largest inhabited island in Hawaii. It is southwest of Kauaʻi across the Kaulakahi Channel. Its area is . Several intermittent playa lakes provide wetland ha ...
, native speakers of Hawaiian have remained fairly isolated and have continued to use Hawaiian almost exclusively.
Niʻihau
The isolated island of
Niʻihau
Niihau ( Hawaiian: ), anglicized as Niihau ( ), is the westernmost main and seventh largest inhabited island in Hawaii. It is southwest of Kauaʻi across the Kaulakahi Channel. Its area is . Several intermittent playa lakes provide wetland h ...
, located off the southwest coast of
Kauai, is the one island where Hawaiian (more specifically a local dialect of Hawaiian known as
Niihau dialect
Niʻihau dialect ( haw, ʻŌlelo Niʻihau, label=Standard Hawaiian, haw, Olelo Matuahine, label=Niʻihau, lit=mother tongue) is a dialect of the Hawaiian language spoken on the island of Niʻihau, more specifically in its only settlement Puʻu ...
) is still spoken as the language of daily life.
states that "
riations in Hawaiian dialects have not been systematically studied", and that "
e dialect of Niʻihau is the most aberrant and the one most in need of study". They recognized that Niʻihauans can speak Hawaiian in substantially different ways. Their statements are based in part on some specific observations made by . (See
Hawaiian phonological processes)
Friction has developed between those on Niʻihau that speak Hawaiian as a first language, and those who speak Hawaiian as a second language, especially those educated by the
College of Hawaiian Language at the
University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo
The University of Hawaii at Hilo (UH Hilo) is a public university in Hilo, Hawaii. It is one of ten general campuses of the University of Hawaii system. It was founded as Hilo Center at Lyman Hall of the Hilo Boys School in 1945 and was a bran ...
. The university sponsors a Hawaiian Language Lexicon Committee () which coins words for concepts that historically have not existed in the language, like "computer" and "cell phone". These words are generally not incorporated into the Niʻihau dialect, which often coins its own words organically. Some new words are Hawaiianized versions of English words, and some are composed of Hawaiian roots and unrelated to English sounds.
Hawaiian in schools
Hawaiian medium schools
The Hawaiian medium education system is a combination of charter, public, and private schools. K–6 schools operate under coordinated governance of the Department of Education and the charter school, while the pre-K–12 laboratory system is governed by the Department of Education, the
ʻAha Pūnana Leo, and the charter school. Over 80% of graduates from these laboratory schools attend college, some of which include Ivy-League schools. Hawaiian is now an authorized course in the Department of Education language curriculum, though not all schools offer the language.
There are two kinds of Hawaiian-immersion medium schools: K–12 total Hawaiian-immersion schools, and grades 7–12 partial Hawaiian immersion schools, the later having some classes are taught in English and others are taught in Hawaiian. One of the main focuses of Hawaiian-medium schools is to teach the form and structure of the Hawaiian language by modeling sentences as a "pepeke", meaning squid in Hawaiian. In this case the pepeke is a metaphor that features the body of a squid with the three essential parts: the poʻo (head), the ʻawe (tentacles) and the piko (where the poʻo and ʻawe meet) representing how a sentence is structured. The poʻo represents the predicate, the piko representing the subject and the ʻawe representing the object. Hawaiian immersion schools teach content that both adheres to state standards and stresses Hawaiian culture and values. The existence of immersion schools in Hawaiʻi has developed the opportunity for intergenerational transmission of Hawaiian at home.
Higher education
The Ka Haka ʻUla O Keʻelikōlani
College of Hawaiian Language is a college at the
University of Hawaii at Hilo
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, th ...
dedicated to providing courses and programs entirely in Hawaiian. It educates and provides training for teachers and school administrators of Hawaiian medium schools. It is the only college in the United States of America that offers a master's and doctorate's degree in an Indigenous language. Programs offered at The Ka Haka ʻUla O Keʻelikōlani
College of Hawaiian Language are known collectively as the "Hilo model" and has been imitated by the Cherokee immersion program and several other Indigenous revitalization programs.
[Montgomery-Anderson, B. (2013). Macro-Scale Features of School-Based Language Revitalization Programs. ''Journal of American Indian Education, 52''(3), 41-64.]
Since 1921, the University of Hawaiʻi at Manoa and all of the University of Hawaiʻi Community Colleges also offer Hawaiian language courses to students for credit. The university now also offers free online courses not for credit, along with a few other websites and apps such as
Duolingo
Duolingo ( ) is an American educational technology company which produces learning apps and provides language certification.
On its main app, users can practice vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation and listening skills using spaced repetition. D ...
.
Orthography
Hawaiians had no written language prior to Western contact, except for petroglyph symbols.
The modern Hawaiian alphabet, ''ka pīāpā Hawaii'', is based on the
Latin script
The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern Italy ...
. 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
In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor ''phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in ''s ...
s (called "interchangeable letters"), enabling the Hawaiian alphabet to approach the ideal state of one-symbol-one-
phoneme
In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language.
For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-wes ...
, 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'' and ''D'' were 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, and Syriac.
Although these loan words were necessarily
Hawaiianize
Hawaiianization refers to the taking of 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 and its conjugated forms are an increas ...
d, they often retained some of their "non-Hawaiian letters" in their published forms. For example, ''Brazil'' fully
Hawaiianize
Hawaiianization refers to the taking of 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 and its conjugated forms are an increas ...
d is ''Palakila'', but retaining "foreign letters" it is ''Barazila''. Another example is ''Gibraltar'', written as ''Kipalaleka'' or ''Gibaraleta''. While and are not regarded as Hawaiian sounds, , , and 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
''ʻOkina'' (''oki'' 'cut' + ''-na'' '-ing') is the modern
Hawaiian 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 ...
for the symbol (a letter) that represents the
glottal stop. 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 are pronounced and , and are written with an okina where the glottal stop is pronounced.
Elbert & Pukui's ''Hawaiian Grammar'' says "The glottal stop, ‘, is made by closing the glottis or space between the vocal cords, the result being something like the hiatus in English ''oh-oh''."
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 Alexander
William DeWitt Alexander (April 2, 1833 – February 21, 1913) was an educator, author and linguist in the Kingdom of Hawaii and Republic of Hawaii.
He then constructed maps for the Territory of Hawaii.
Early life
Alexander was born in Honolulu ...
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, then called "reversed apostrophe" or "inverse comma", to represent the glottal stop.
Subsequent dictionaries and written material associated with the Hawaiian language revitalization have preferred to use this symbol, the ''okina'', to better represent spoken Hawaiian. Nonetheless, excluding the ''okina'' may facilitate interface with English-oriented media, or even be preferred stylistically by some Hawaiian speakers, in homage to 19th century written texts. So there is variation today in the use of this symbol.
Electronic encoding
![Okina-using-Linux-Libertine](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/Okina-using-Linux-Libertine.svg)
The okina is written in various ways for electronic uses:
* turned comma:
,
Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, wh ...
hex value 02BB (decimal 699). This does not always have the correct appearance because it is not supported in some fonts.
* opening single quote, a.k.a. left single quotation mark: ‘
Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, wh ...
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
Times New Roman is a serif typeface. It was commissioned by the British newspaper ''The Times'' in 1931 and conceived by Stanley Morison, the artistic adviser to the British branch of the printing equipment company Monotype, in collaboration w ...
it can look like a very small "6" with the circle filled in black:
‘.
Because many people who want to write the ʻokina 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
',
Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, wh ...
hex value 27 (decimal 39), following the missionary tradition.
* the ASCII grave accent (often called
"backquote" or "backtick")
`,
Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, wh ...
hex value 60 (decimal 96)
* the right single quotation mark, or "curly apostrophe"
’,
Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, wh ...
hex value 2019 (decimal 8217)
Macron
A modern Hawaiian name for the
macron 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 phonological terms.
(See:
Vowel length
In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived length of a vowel sound: the corresponding physical measurement is duration. In some languages vowel length is an important phonemic factor, meaning vowel length can change the meaning of the word, ...
)
As early as 1821, at least one of the missionaries,
Hiram Bingham, was using macrons (and
breve
A breve (, less often , neuter form of the Latin "short, brief") is the diacritic mark ˘, shaped like the bottom half of a circle. As used in Ancient Greek, it is also called , . It resembles the caron (the wedge or in Czech, in Slo ...
s) in making handwritten transcriptions of Hawaiian vowels. The missionaries specifically requested their sponsor in
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
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
Owing to extensive
allophony
In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor ''phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in ''s ...
, Hawaiian has more than 13
phones
A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into ele ...
. 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.
Phonology
Consonants
Hawaiian is known for having very few
consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wi ...
phonemes – eight: . It is notable that Hawaiian has allophonic variation of with ,
with , and (in some dialects) with . The – 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 –, after historical *k had shifted to . In some dialects, remains as in some words. These variations are largely free, though there are conditioning factors. tends to especially in words with both and , such as in the island name ''Lānai'' (–), though this is not always the case: ''eleele'' or ''eneene'' "black". The allophone is almost universal at the beginnings of words, whereas is most common before the vowel . is also the norm after and , whereas is usual after and . After and initially, however, and are in free variation.
Vowels
Hawaiian has five
short
Short may refer to:
Places
* Short (crater), a lunar impact crater on the near side of the Moon
* Short, Mississippi, an unincorporated community
* Short, Oklahoma, a census-designated place
People
* Short (surname)
* List of people known as ...
and five
long
Long may refer to:
Measurement
* Long, characteristic of something of great duration
* Long, characteristic of something of great length
* Longitude (abbreviation: long.), a geographic coordinate
* Longa (music), note value in early music mens ...
vowel
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
s, plus
diphthongs.
Monophthongs
Hawaiian has five pure vowels. The short vowels are , and the long vowels, if they are considered separate phonemes rather than simply sequences of like vowels, are . When stressed, short and have been described as becoming and , while when unstressed they are and . Parker Jones (2017), however, did not find a reduction of /a/ to in the phonetic analysis of a young speaker from
Hilo, Hawaiʻi; so there is at least some variation in how /a/ is realised.
also tends to become next to , , and another , as in ''Pele'' . 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 or and a following non-back vowel (), there is an
epenthetic
In phonology, epenthesis (; Greek ) means the addition of one or more sounds to a word, especially in the beginning syllable ('' prothesis'') or in the ending syllable (''paragoge'') or in-between two syllabic sounds in a word. The word ''epent ...
, which is generally not written. Between a front vowel or and a following non-front vowel (), there is an
epenthetic
In phonology, epenthesis (; Greek ) means the addition of one or more sounds to a word, especially in the beginning syllable ('' prothesis'') or in the ending syllable (''paragoge'') or in-between two syllabic sounds in a word. The word ''epent ...
(a ''y'' sound), which is never written.
Diphthongs
The short-vowel diphthongs are . In all except perhaps , these are
falling diphthong
A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech ...
s. 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, tends to and tends to , conflating these diphthongs with and .
There are only a limited number of vowels which may follow long vowels, and some authors treat these sequences as diphthongs as well: .
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.
Historical development
Historically, glottal stop developed from *k.
Loss
Loss may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Music
* ''Loss'' (Bass Communion album) (2006)
* ''Loss'' (Mull Historical Society album) (2001)
*"Loss", a song by God Is an Astronaut from their self-titled album (2008)
* Losses "(Lil Tjay son ...
of intervocalic consonant phonemes has resulted in Hawaiian long vowels and diphthongs.
Grammar
Hawaiian is an
analytic language with
verb–subject–object
A verb () is a word (part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descri ...
word order. While there is no use of
inflection
In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and defin ...
for verbs, in Hawaiian, like other
Austronesian personal pronouns,
declension
In linguistics, declension (verb: ''to decline'') is the changing of the form of a word, generally to express its syntactic function in the sentence, by way of some inflection. Declensions may apply to nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and ...
is found in the differentiation between a- and o-class
genitive case
In grammar, the genitive case (abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can al ...
personal pronouns in order to indicate
inalienable possession
In linguistics, inalienable possession (abbreviated ) is a type of possession in which a noun is obligatorily possessed by its possessor. Nouns or nominal affixes in an inalienable possession relationship cannot exist independently or be "ali ...
in a binary possessive class system. Also like many Austronesian languages, Hawaiian pronouns employ separate words for
inclusive and exclusive we
In linguistics, clusivity is a grammatical distinction between ''inclusive'' and ''exclusive'' first-person pronouns and verbal morphology, also called ''inclusive " we"'' and ''exclusive "we"''. Inclusive "we" specifically includes the addressee ...
(clusivity), and distinguish
singular
Singular may refer to:
* Singular, the grammatical number that denotes a unit quantity, as opposed to the plural and other forms
* Singular homology
* SINGULAR, an open source Computer Algebra System (CAS)
* Singular or sounder, a group of boar, ...
,
dual, and
plural
The plural (sometimes abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the default quantity represented by that noun. This de ...
. The grammatical function of verbs is marked by adjacent
particles
In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscule in older texts) is a small localized object which can be described by several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass.
They vary greatly in size or quantity, from s ...
(short words) and by their relative positions, that indicate
tense–aspect–mood
Tense–aspect–mood (commonly abbreviated ) or tense–modality–aspect (abbreviated as ) is a group of grammatical categories that are important to understanding spoken or written content, and which are marked in different ways by different la ...
.
Some examples of verb phrase patterns:
* ''ua'' –
perfective
The perfective aspect ( abbreviated ), sometimes called the aoristic aspect, is a grammatical aspect that describes an action viewed as a simple whole; i.e., a unit without interior composition. The perfective aspect is distinguished from the i ...
* ''e'' ''ana'' –
imperfective
The imperfective (abbreviated or more ambiguously ) is a grammatical aspect used to describe ongoing, habitual, repeated, or similar semantic roles, whether that situation occurs in the past, present, or future. Although many languages have a g ...
* ''ke'' ''nei'' –
present progressive
The present continuous, also called the present progressive or present imperfect, is a verb form used in modern English that combines the present tense with the continuous aspect. It is formed by the present tense form of be and the present part ...
* ''e'' –
imperative
* ''mai'' – negative imperative
* ''i'' – purposive
* ''ke'' – infinitive
Nouns can be marked with
articles
Article often refers to:
* Article (grammar), a grammatical element used to indicate definiteness or indefiniteness
* Article (publishing), a piece of nonfictional prose that is an independent part of a publication
Article may also refer to:
G ...
:
* ''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 part of a group, the word ''kekahi'' is used. To show a bigger part, ''mau'' is inserted to pluralize the subject.
Examples:
* ''kekahi pipi'' (one of the cows)
* ''kekahi mau pipi'' (some of the cows)
Semantic domains
Hawaiian has thousands of words for elements of the natural world. According to the Hawaiian Electronic Library, there are thousands of names for different types of wind, rain, parts of the sea, peaks of mountains, and sky formations, demonstrating the importance of the natural world to Hawaiian culture. For example, "Hoʻomalumalu" means "sheltering cloud" and "Hoʻoweliweli" means "threatening cloud".
Varieties and debates
There is a marked difference between varieties of the Hawaiian language spoken by most native Hawaiian elders and the Hawaiian Language taught in education, sometimes regarded as "University Hawaiian" or "College Hawaiian". "University Hawaiian" is often so different from the language spoken by elders that Native Hawaiian children may feel scared or ashamed to speak Hawaiian at home, limiting the language's domains to academia.
Language varieties spoken by elders often includes
Pidgin Hawaiian
Pidgin Hawaiian (or Hawaii Plantation Pidgin) is a pidgin spoken in Hawaii, which draws most of its vocabulary from the Hawaiian language and could have been influenced by other pidgins of the Pacific region, such as Maritime Polynesian Pidgi ...
,
Hawaiian Pidgin
Hawaiian Pidgin (alternately, Hawaiʻi Creole English or HCE, known locally as Pidgin) is an English-based creole language spoken in Hawaiʻi. An estimated 600,000 residents of Hawaii speak Hawaiian Pidgin natively and 400,000 speak it as a se ...
, Hawaiian-infused English, or another variety of Hawaiian that is much different from the "University Hawaiian" that was standardized and documented by colonists in the 19th century.
[Wong, L. (1999). Authenticity and the Revitalization of Hawaiian. ''Anthropology & Education Quarterly,'' ''30''(1), 94-115.]
The divide between "University Hawaiian" and varieties spoken by elders has created debate over which variety of Hawaiian should be considered "real" or "authentic", as neither "University Hawaiian" nor other varieties spoken by elders are free from foreign interference. Hawaiian cultural beliefs of divine intervention as the driving force of language formation expedites distrust in what might be seen as the mechanical nature of colonial linguistic paradigms of language and its role in the standardized variety of "University Hawaiian".
Hawaiian's authenticity debate could have major implications for revitalization efforts as language attitudes and trends in existing language domains are both UNESCO factors in assessing a language's level of endangerment.
[Grenoble, Lenore A. (2012). Austin, Peter (ed.). "The Cambridge Handbook of Endangered Languages". Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/cbo9780511975981.002. Retrieved 2020-12-08.]
See also
* The
list of Hawaiian words and
list of words of Hawaiian origin at
Wiktionary
Wiktionary ( , , rhyming with "dictionary") is a multilingual, web-based project to create a free content dictionary of terms (including words, phrases, proverbs, linguistic reconstructions, etc.) in all natural languages and in a numbe ...
, a free dictionary and Wikipedia sibling project
*
Languages of the United States
*
List of English words of Hawaiian origin
The Hawaiian language has offered a number of words to the English language. Some Hawaiian words are known to non-Hawaiian speakers, and a few have also been assimilated into the English language (e.g. ''aloha'', meaning "hello", "love", or "goodb ...
*
Pidgin Hawaiian
Pidgin Hawaiian (or Hawaii Plantation Pidgin) is a pidgin spoken in Hawaii, which draws most of its vocabulary from the Hawaiian language and could have been influenced by other pidgins of the Pacific region, such as Maritime Polynesian Pidgi ...
(not to be confused with
Hawaiian Pidgin
Hawaiian Pidgin (alternately, Hawaiʻi Creole English or HCE, known locally as Pidgin) is an English-based creole language spoken in Hawaiʻi. An estimated 600,000 residents of Hawaii speak Hawaiian Pidgin natively and 400,000 speak it as a se ...
)
References
References
*
*
*
* .
* Memoir 19 of the ''International Journal of American Linguistics''.
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
External links
Niuolahiki Distance Learning Program(a moodle-based online study program for Hawaiian)
Ulukau – the Hawaiian electronic library includes English to/from Hawaiian dictionary
digitized Hawaiian language newspapers published between 1834 and 1948Hawaiian Vocabulary List(from the World Loanword Database)
Ka Haka ʻUla O Keʻelikōlani, College of Hawaiian Language
Kulaiwinbsp;– learn Hawaiian through distance learning courses
Hawaiian.saivus.org – Detailed Hawaiian Language Pronunciation Guide
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
Maui. ''
Maui No Ka 'Oi Magazine
The island of Maui (; Hawaiian: ) is the second-largest of the islands of the state of Hawaii at 727.2 square miles (1,883 km2) and is the 17th largest island in the United States. Maui is the largest of Maui County's four islands, whic ...
'' Vol.12 No.3 (May 2008).
"Speak Hawaiian"'Article about Hawaiian language resource on iPhone. (May 2010).
Kelley L. Ross, Ph.D., 2008
OLAC Resources in and about the Hawaiian languageArticle about Hawaiian Dictionary resource on iPhone in Honolulu Magazine. (May 2012).
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hawaiian Language
Hawaiian language,
Marquesic languages
Analytic languages
Definitely endangered languages
Endangered Austronesian languages
Endangered languages of Oceania
Verb–subject–object languages
Languages attested from the 18th century
18th-century establishments in North America