Hawaiian

Introduction

volcano

surfing

Hawaiian is a member of the Oceanic group of Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian language family. The Oceanic group spreads over a large triangular area in the Pacific Ocean from Hawai‘i to New Zealand to Easter island. While Hawaiian is related to other Polynesian languages such as Samoan, Fijian, Tahitian and Maori, they are not mutually intelligible. It is thought that Marquesan or Tahitian seafarers settled in the Hawaiian Archipelago around 1000 AD. Linguistic evidence points to the genesis of the Hawaiian language from the language of these settlers some 10 centuries ago.

Hawaiian Map Until the arrival of Captain Cook in 1778, followed by American missionaries in 1820, Hawaiian was the only language spoken in the Hawaiian islands. Since Hawaiian was a strictly spoken language, the missionaries developed a Roman-based writing system for Hawaiian.The 19th century, when Hawai‘i was an independent kingdom, was the golden age of the Hawaiian language: literacy rates were high, dozens of newspapers were published, many religious and literary works were translated into Hawaiian, and traditional oral literature was transcribed.

However, increased travel to and from Hawai‘i during the 19th century brought devastating diseases, such as smallpox, influenza, and leprosy, that killed large numbers of native speakers of Hawaiian. At the same time, the number of native speakers of other languages, especially English, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, and Ilokano, continued to grow. As a result, the actual number, as well as the percentage, of native speakers of Hawaiian in the local population declined sharply. English gradually replaced Hawaiian as the medium of instruction in schools, especially after Hawai‘i’s conversion to U.S. territorial status in 1899.

Hawaiian Man

Hawai‘i is the only state in the U.S. that has designated a native language, Hawaiian, as one of its two official state languages. In 1978, Hawaiian was made an official language of Hawai‘i, along with English. Formerly considered critically endangered, Hawaiian is rebounding due to a resurgence of interest in Hawaiian language and culture, Hawaiian language immersion programs of the Hawai‘i State Department of Education and the Hawaiian language programs at the University of Hawai‘i Honolulu and Hilo campuses. Hawaiian classes are popular at all levels of education. In 1993 about 8,000 people could speak and understand Hawaiian as a second language (Ethnologue). A decade later, the number has grown to 27,000.

Click here for more detailed information about Hawai‘i's language revitalization efforts.

Structure

Sound System

Women singing

Man

Children

Hawaiian has a small inventory of phonemes, i.e., sounds that make a difference in word meaning. Like all Austronesian languages, it is characterized by a large number of vowels, a small number of consonants, and a simple syllabic structure that does not allow any consonant clusters.

Vowels

There are five short vowels /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/ and five long vowels Vowel length makes a difference in word meaning, e.g., kahuna "priest (singular)" — "priests (plural)"
All syllables end in a vowel, except for some borrowed words.
There are nine diphthongs: iu, eu, ou, au, ei, oi, ai, ae, ao.
Syllables can have one or two vowels.One-vowel syllables have can have any of the ten vowels, two-vowel syllables can have any of the nine diphthongs.

Consonants
Hawaiian has 8 consonants.

..	Bilabial	Alveolar	Velar	Glottal
Stop	p	.	k
Fricative	.	.		h
Nasal	m	n	.	.
Lateral	..	l	..	.
Palatal approximant	w	.	..	.

// = is produced by a closure of the vocal cords, as in the interjection uh-oh, it is represented in writing by ‘ ('okina).
/w/ is sometimes pronounced as [v] between vowels.

Click here to listen to a sample of spoken Hawaiian.
Click here to listen to a Hawaiian chant.

Grammar

Hawaiian art

Artwork

flowers

As is the case in all Austronesian languages, Hawaiian words are not inflected. They consist of content words (roots) and particles that are added to roots to indicate grammatical functions. Hawaiian also relies on reduplication to express plurality, frequency, or augmentation.

Noun phrase

With a few exceptions, nouns do not use affixation. Instead, paricles are used in the role of prepositions and case markers. They precede noun phrases and pronouns.
Personal pronouns have singular, dual, and plural number.
Like other Austronesian languages, personal pronouns have an inclusive form that includes the addressee, and an exclusive form that does not.
The definite determiners ke and ka are used to mark definiteness.
Possession is expressed by possessive markers k- and n-.
A finely differentiated set of demonstrative pronouns is used to mark proximity between speaker and addressee, and between speaker and the modified noun.

Verb phrase
Verbs employ mostly preverbal particles and prefixes, and to a lesser extent, suffixes to mark various categories.

Numerous preverbal particles and prefixes are used to express tense, aspect, mood, causativity, stativity, and adverbial modification.
A small number of suffixes function as markers of transitivity, and voice, as well as nominalization.

Word order
The normal word order in Hawaiian sentences is Verb – Subject – Object. A common process in Hawaiian is topicalization, i.e., the placement of components that are the topic or focus, at the beginning of utterances.

Vocabulary

Guitar player

Children dancing

ceremony

Hawaiian vocabulary is Polynesian in origin, but the language has also borrowed words from English, Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese, and Ilocano. Many of the loanwords have to do with imported foods, rituals, clothes, and everyday items.

Here are a few common phrases and words in Hawaiian.

Hawaiian Phrases

Below are the numerals 1-10 in Hawaiian (for counting in series).

Hawaiian Numerals

Click here for the first 101 words to learn in Hawaiian.

Writing

Hawaiian dress

Hawaiian Man

The Hawaiian alphabet (ka pī āpā Hawai‘i) was created during the 1820-1826 period by missionaries from the US mainland. The first publication appeared in 1822. The alphabet was revised in 1826 when some redundant letters were eliminated.

The current Hawaiian alphabet is given below. The vowels are always listed first.

A a

E e

I i

O o

U u

H h

K k

L l

M m

N n

P p

W w

‘

/a/

/e/

/i/

/o/

/u/

/h/

/k/

/l/

/m/

/n/

/p/

/w/

/

‘ ('okina) = glottal stop, a sound produced by closure of the vocal cords, as in the interjection uh-oh.
= macron is used to indicate vowel length, e.g.,
w = is sometimes pronounced as [v] between vowels.

Take a look at Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Hawaiian.

Translation
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

lei

ukulele

Hawaiian words in English
A number of Hawaiian words have entered the American English lexicon. Here are a few of them (not in correct Hawaiian spelling but as they occur in English texts.

aā	type of lava that produces a rough, jagged surface
aloha	"hello, goodbye, love"
haole	person of European origin
hula	an ancient Hawaiian dance that tells a story through movement.
kahuna	Hawaiian priest or wizard; also used in the slang phrase "big kahuna"
lei	flower garland
luau	Hawaiian-style feast
pahoehoe	type of lava that produces a smooth, billowy, ropy surface
poi	thick paste made from the fermented corm of the taro plant
ukulele	a musical intrument; literally "jumping flea"
wiki	"fast," as in Wikipedia

Resources

Click here to find out where Hawaiian is taught in the United States.
Click here to find learning materials for studying Hawaiian.

Online resources for the study of Hawaiian language and culture
E Ola ka ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i
UCLA Language Profile for Hawaiian
Yamada Language Center Guide for Hawaiian
Ethnologue report on Hawaiian
Wikipedia article on Hawaiian
Hawaiian studies at the University of Hawai ‘i/Hilo
University of Hawa i ‘i at Manoa: Center for Hawaiian Studies
The Hawaiian Language Web Site
The Hawaiian Home Page