Hawaiian Language
The world’s indigenous languages are repositories for identity, cultural history, community traditions, and generational memory.
A native people’s language is the key to unlocking unique systems of knowledge and understanding. The Hawaiian language, Olelo Hawaii, is the native language of Hawai‘i. The language was brought to Hawaii by the first people to arrive from the ancestral homelands of Polynesia, and evolved alongside the culture into the nuanced, multi-layered olelo Hawaii we know today.
When the written language was introduced to the masses in the early 1800s, Hawaii residents – both Native Hawaiians and others who came to the islands – developed an insatiable appetite for reading and writing in olelo Hawaii. Nupepa (newspapers) with news of Hawaii and the wonders of the world made their way to all corners of the kingdom, and literacy rates rivaled the most progressive nations in the world. The cosmopolitan citizenry of the kingdom conducted their lives in Hawaiian, the language of the land.
Following the overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom in 1893, Hawaiian language use declined along with other Hawaiian cultural practices, lifestyles, and arts. Aiding in the decline was an 1896 law banning instruction in the language in Hawaii schools.
Puu Ohia Trail, Honolulu, Oahu. Photo: Hawaii Tourism Authority (HTA) / Heather Goodman
The Hawaiian cultural renaissance of the 1970s set the stage for the language’s return from the brink of extinction.
Sparked by the realization that fewer than 50 children spoke the language in the early 1980s, a group of educators established preschools where children learned Hawaiian by interacting with native speaking elders. These schools proved successful, and today are the foundation of an educational system where students can go as far as a doctoral degree in the language.
Even with olelo Hawaii returning to prominence in Hawaii – the first state in the US with a native language as an official state language – it is still classified as a critically endangered language by the United Nations. The proper presentation of the language as it returns to everyday life is critical to its continued survival.
Alphabet
The standardized Hawaiian piapa (alphabet) is divided into two parts:
Na Huapalapala Oiwi (native), the base alphabet used for words whose sounds are derived from Hawaiian itself: A (ā), E (ē), I (ī), O (ō), U ‘ū), H (hē), K (kē), L (lā), M (mū), N (nū), P (pī), W (wē), ‘ (okina)
Nā Huapalapala Paipala (introduced with the translation of the Bible), used for words whose sounds are derived from languages other than Hawaiian: B (bē), C (sē), D (dē), F (fā), G (gā), J (iota), Q (kopa), R (rō), S (sā), T (tī), V (wī), X (kesa), Y (ieta), Z (zeta)
Examples: Iesu ( Jesus), Betelehema (Bethlehem)
Capitalization
The rules of capitalizing Hawaiian words are the same as English. Capitalization mid-sentence simply because the word is Hawaiian (i.e. “our warmest Aloha”) is not appropriate.
Okina
When using it (and we’re not using it on this site), make sure the okina is shown in the orientation of the number 6, not as an apostrophe in the orientation of the number 9. Like all consonants in olelo Hawaii, okina only occur adjacent to vowels – never next to another consonant.
