The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1898-09-04
srEEon OF rnr HANA11ANs.
VowclS Run Riot, Consonants Are Few and
There IL q Great Literature OF Poetry.

NOWcib nun hl0te OOnoOnnut1 Are EOW ant
There IL n Great Literature Of Poetry.
Along with territory and a few other thing
at what has been called the crossroads Of stht
Pacific. the United States have annexed q new
language and a somewhat considerable lttera.
ture owned by the $4,000 people left as the
remnant Of their race. The Hawaiian IL not q
dih1cult or Grabbed speech. Il is soft and
musical. most Of the white people now In Ha.
wall speak It more or less fully. and It offers nc
great dff1oulty to the others who may be ex-
peoted to all up the new domain.
Its most prominent characteristic Is the
great use OF vowels. Besides the fve'voWels
1t needs only seven consonants to make up the
alphabet. and the one hard and fast rule OF the
grammar is that two consonants shall never
come together and that no word or syllable
shall end with other than q vowel. On the
other hand. vowels may string along In indef-
mite succession. The speech abounds with
whole words which have not a single conson-
ant to hold them together. Two vowels stand
side by side in q majority Of words. The on
portunity to triplicate the vowel has mot been
neglected; a word has been formed of every
such combination. Thus "aaa" means friend
ly. zee" Is the verb to risesup. iii" is little.
200" means 20 shrink. and ''uuu" means to
stammer Four vowels together form many,
words. as "aaua," q crone or bag with wrin-
kles under the eyes. Some few words consist
OF as many as five vowels one after the other.
such'as ~"iiaao." which is the name for poi when
1t Is hard and musty. or ~"oiaio," the word
meaning true.
h language Is highly developed In gram
mar and rhetoric. developed by the savage
Hawaiians up to the limits Of their needs and
containing the elements Of a still further de-
velopment. The proof OF that may be found In
the books which have been translated into
Hawaiian. tTha Holv aorfok,,-o, L. Tr---rr-
show this. Despite the fact that the history
ana the doctrine therein contained were abso-
luteIy beyond the line OF island experience. IL
has been found possible to express them per-
fectly In the native tongue with only a very
Few words adapted from foreign sources; in
fact. there are fewer than i per cent. Of nat
uralized words In the Hawaiian.
1t a Its widespread linguistic anlnities. The !
tongue Of which It Is one member
ls spoken over q wide extent OF the Pacific, as !
far south as New Zealand. as far east as Te
Pita to Whenua or Rapa-nui. which is better
known as the Easter Island OF the colossal
carvings; When Cook traversed those seas he
P fS%Pessan 's Stem is as i NE a SnSRSsge o. Of the
English. Dutch, and German. There are Ma
trSes eddTif9 FL e: there Is%ets are stems eeFp which maj 6e
east one great effort has been made To- nro va
he Polynesians, to be an early ofIshoot Of the
he Germanic stock. "ot' "
iii For =, ,tgpn len mcs7oI nnwFtittsn, letters were the
slthfai n @e@ory and an dPG Pssis::t aofh n re- RSsf% ruff held %Gdh IN
l pnnso- Thsre we're poems which preserved the
cries 81 great ady waTrior eh GieSsse T6 SaS eb the VIC
= rom me tbs seT rSeI %sy 81 BE- so shoW " by By this extract
omposed long. before the Whitee mem d hiTssn.
be Hawaiian lines fuinii ali Che Teoui h11 enfS
4 prosody: I
oKahili, moku kai Q loa,
Alma o Olopena noho 81. 4
Ike aloalo o IA la, Ia moku. ke hihi mai.
Ia Ike hoi Su ia Kahfld. =
No Kshih fShSi1 ! pif q S luna AAnnn t
ka iWt kuamoo o Ia lani; '
luna keehI iho, =
Aole o KAhiki fGnaka; {
HookAhi o KAhih kanRka-ho haoie. l.
Ne au Ia he fAnaka; b
He kanaks no, =.
Pal kan; q 10 ke kanAka hookahi Q HID. =
Kahiki 10 not only the parent archipelaOo ~ =
anti. from which the name Is drawn, IL Is any a
land. The great mystery Of this poem u
? came to Hawaii. The Translation 9s beelISSTIee !.
era ana attempts to carry some OF the swing. y
not quite the rhythm. OF the original: o.
.hiki's 2 land in the wide-spreading ocean. "
,e great OlopanR's abode which he dwell IN. v
thin is the Island, outside It the sun WhirIs' n
" IN " sne SUI anS the land when you make II. =,
K trre that my eyes have indeed seen Kahiti. ..
g teTsrinG height. Of the bacfbone Of ReaHyen; III
%in h :Si ses & but Ti az of o the . tS1s # E 1Siia m
But I. like . mortal. ~
A man sven M. m