Hawaiian

## Overview

The **Hawaiian language** (Hawaiian: '**ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi'**) is a Polynesian language that takes its name from Hawaiʻi, 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 establishing English as the official 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 seven inhabited islands. In 2001, native speakers of Hawaiian amounted to less than 0.1% of the statewide population. Linguists were unsure that Hawaiian and other endangered languages 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 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. The federal government has acknowledged this development. For example, the Hawaiian National Park Language Correction Act of 2000 changed the names of several national parks in Hawaiʻi, observing the Hawaiian spelling. However, the language is still classified as critically endangered by UNESCO.

A creole language spoken in Hawaiʻi is Hawaiian Pidgin (or Hawaii Creole English, HCE). It should not be mistaken for the Hawaiian language nor for a dialect of English.

The Hawaiian alphabet has 13 letters: five vowels (each with a long pronunciation and a short one) and eight consonants, one of which is the glottal stop called ʻokina.

## 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 (1789), Russian (1804), French (1816), and German (1816) arrived in Hawaiʻi 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 (*ʻŌpūkahaʻia*), had a major impact on the future of the language. He sailed to New England, where he eventually became a student at the Foreign Mission School in Cornwall, Connecticut. He inspired New Englanders to support a Christian mission to Hawaiʻi, and provided information on the Hawaiian language to the American missionaries there prior to their departure for Hawaiʻi in 1819.

### Written Hawaiian

In 1820, Protestant missionaries from New England arrived in Hawaiʻi.

Adelbert von Chamisso 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 Kapiʻolani, and his sister, Princess (later Queen) Liliʻuokalani, took a trip across North America and on to the British Islands, in 1887, Liliʻuokalani's composition *Aloha ʻOe* was already a famous song in the U.S.

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. 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.

### Suppression of Hawaiian

The decline of the Hawaiian language dates back to a coup that overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy and dethroned the existing Hawaiian queen. Thereafter, a law was instituted that banned the Hawaiian language from being taught. The law cited as banning the Hawaiian language is identified as Act 57, sec. 30 of the 1896 Laws of the Republic of Hawaiʻi. 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 stopped short of making Hawaiian illegal (it was still the dominant language 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 strongly advise them 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 a foreign 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 was expelled from Kamehameha Schools in 1937 for chanting Hawaiian.

### 1949 to Present

In 1949, the legislature of the Territory of Hawaiʻi 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 reintroduce Hawaiian language for future generations. The ʻAha Pūnana Leo’s Hawaiian language preschools in Hilo, Hawaii, have received international recognition. The local National Public Radio station features a short segment titled "Hawaiian word of the day" and a Hawaiian language news broadcast. Honolulu television station KGMB ran a weekly Hawaiian language program, *ʻĀhaʻi ʻŌlelo Ola*, as recently as 2010. Additionally, the Sunday editions of the *Honolulu Star-Advertiser*, 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 Niʻihau, native speakers of Hawaiian have remained fairly isolated and have continued to use Hawaiian almost exclusively.

## Hawaiian excerpt from Wikipedia article "ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi"

ʻO ka **ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi** ka mea ʻōlelo makuahine a ka poʻe maoli o ka pae moku ʻo Hawaiʻi, ma laila wale nō kahi e ʻōlelo ʻia nei ia ʻōlelo, no ka mea, ʻaʻole nui ka poʻe ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi i kēia mau lā. Wahi a kekahi mau anamanaʻo aupuni, he 8,000-15,000 nā mea i hiki ke ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi. He ʻōlelo kūhelu ka ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi me ka ʻōlelo Pelekania ma ka mokuʻāina ʻo Hawaiʻi wale nō. ʻAʻole nui nā mokuʻāina ʻē aʻe me ʻelua a ʻoi paha ʻōlelo kūhelu.

ʻO kekahi o ka poʻe maoli, ʻaʻole hiki ke ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi, no ka mea, i ka wā mikionali, ua kauleo ka poʻe kahiko i nā kamaliʻi me ka manaʻo e kāpae i ka ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi. Wahi a nā mikionali, he ʻino ke ʻōlelo aku ma ka leo makuahine, no ka mea, inā aʻo mai nā kamaliʻi i kēia ʻōlelo ʻaʻole i hiki ke neʻe mua i ke ao hou. No laila i pāpā ʻia ai ka leo e nā mikionali, a ma muli o kēia, ua nui nā kānaka i hōʻole i ka ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi i nā kamaliʻi. A ʻo ka hopena o kēia hana naʻaupō ke emi nui ʻana o ka heluna o nā mea ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi mai ka wā mikionali, a hiki loa mai i kēia wā.

Akā nō naʻe, i kēia manawa, hū nō ka ka hoihoi o ka poʻe maoli a me ka po'e no nā lāhui ʻokoʻa aku e aʻo mai i ka ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi ma muli o nā kānaka e aʻo mai nei e pili ana i ko Hawaiʻi mōʻaukala kahiko. Ua nui maila ke kākoʻo ʻana i nā māhele ʻike Hawaiʻi like ʻole, a ʻo ka ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi nō hoʻi kekahi. Aia ma ke Kulanui o Hawaiʻi ma Mānoa ka polokalamu mua loa ma ʻAmelika Hui Pū ʻia e loaʻa ai he kēkelē laeoʻo ma kekahi ʻōlelo ʻōiwi o ʻAmelika.

He pilina ko ka ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi i nā ʻōlelo Polenekia ʻē aʻe, e laʻa ka ʻōlelo Kāmoa, ka ʻōlelo Tonga, ka ʻōlelo Māʻohi, ka ʻōlelo Aotearoa, a pēlā aku. Wahi a ko nā kūpuna moʻolelo, na lākou i hoʻoili mai i nā hanauna o kēia lā, ua hoʻokele mai lākou mai Kahiki i kekahi mau makahiki he nui i hala akula. A ma mua o ka hōʻea ʻana i Kahiki, ua hoʻokele maila lākou mai Kāmoa a Tonga paha. Ma muli o kekahi o ko nā kūpuna moʻolelo, ua hoʻokele aʻela lākou mai Nuʻuhiwa i ka ʻĀina ʻEnata. ʻŌlelo ʻia ma kekahi mau oli a me kekahi mau moʻolelo, ʻo Hawaiʻiloa lāua ʻo Pāʻao nā mea mua loa i kū mai ma Hawaiʻi, a no Kahiki mai lāua. Ua lawe pū mai lāua i nā mea hou, nā akua hou a me nā kapu hou mai Tahiti mai. Wahi a kekahi mau moʻolelo ʻē aʻe, no Kāmoa mai ʻo Pāʻao.