The

Hawaiian language Hawaiian (', ) is a Polynesian language of the Austronesian language family 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 ...

has offered a number of words to the

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the ...

. 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 "goodbye", or ''mahalo'', meaning "thank you"). English also borrows some Hawaiian words (e.g. ''

ukulele The ukulele ( ; from haw, ukulele , approximately ), also called Uke, is a member of the lute family of instruments of Portuguese origin and popularized in Hawaii. It generally employs four nylon strings. The tone and volume of the instrumen ...

'', '' mahimahi'', and '' muʻumuʻu''). Hawaiian vocabulary often overlaps with other Polynesian languages, such as Tahitian, so it is not always clear which of those languages a term is borrowed from. The Hawaiian

orthography An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and ...

is notably different from the

English orthography English orthography is the writing system used to represent spoken English, allowing readers to connect the graphemes to sound and to meaning. It includes English's norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalisation, word breaks, emphasis, ...

because there is a special letter in the Hawaiian alphabet, the ʻokina. The ʻokina represents a

glottal stop The glottal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents thi ...

, which indicates a short pause to separate syllables. The kahakō represents longer vowel sounds. Both the okina and kahakō are often omitted in English orthography. Due to the Hawaiian orthography's difference from English orthography, the pronunciation of the words differ. For example, the '' muʻumuʻu'', traditionally a Hawaiian dress, is pronounced by many mainland (colloquial term for the Continental U.S.) residents. However, many Hawaii residents have learned that the ʻokina in Hawaiian signifies a glottal stop. Thus, in the Hawaiian language, ''muʻumuʻu'' is pronounced , approximately . The pronunciations listed here are how it would sound in Hawaiian orthography.

References

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:List Of English Words Of Hawaiian Origin

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 ...

Hawaiian Hawaii culture

See also

References