The Hawaiian language is spoken on the Hawaiian Islands, and along with English, it is one of the official languages of the state of Hawaii. It is a member of the Polynesian subgroup of the Austronesian language family, and it is related to other Polynesian languages such as Tahitian, Samoan, and Maori.
The number of Hawaiian speakers declined sharply after Hawaii was annexed by the United States. For a time, schools and authorities discouraged - even punished - people for speaking Hawaiian, with the result that many families chose not to pass their ancestral language on to their children. English soon replaced Hawaiian as the language of everyday life on most of the islands, with the exception of Ni‘ihau, the smallest inhabited island in the state. Ni‘ihau is closed to most visitors, and the people who live there continue to speak Hawaiian as their first language and the language of everyday communication.
Fortunately, attitudes toward Hawaiian have changed in recent decades. The Hawaiian language is now recognized as a unique cultural heritage of the Hawaiian people, and there is a strong movement aimed at reviving the language throughout the state. Many schools now teach Hawaiian to their students, and there are even immersion schools where all subjects are taught in Hawaiian.
Hawaiian newspapers, radio programs, and other efforts have also contributed to the language revival movement.
Prior to contact with Europeans, Hawaiian was a purely oral language, meaning that it did not have an alphabet or a written form. The first Hawaiian texts date from the early nineteenth century. Those texts, and modern Hawaiian texts today, use a variation of the Latin alphabet (the same alphabet used by English). However, the Hawaiian alphabet is notably shorter than the English alphabet - it consists of just 12 letters, along with one special symbol, called the ‘okina.
The ‘okina resembles a single opening quote. It is used to represent the sound of a glottal stop, which is often described to English speakers as sounding like the break in "uh-oh". (Note, however, that in Hawaiian, this sound can appear at the beginning of word in addition to in the middle.) The ‘okina functions as a consonant in Hawaiian.
Hawaiian consonants can only appear at the beginning of a syllable, never at the end. Consonants always appear singly - Hawaiian has no consonant clusters. It does, however, have many syllables that consist only of vowels, with no consonant at all.
Hawaiian vowels can be long or short. The long form is indicated by writing a short line called a macron over the letter, as in ā and ō. Long vowels have the same pronunciation as short vowels, except that the sound is held longer. Certain vowels can be combined to produce diphthongs.
It is interesting to note that the small number of Hawaiian letters and the strict rules for syllable formation mean that there are only around 162 possible syllables in the Hawaiian language. This number is much smaller than in most languages, and it helps contribute the distinctive sound of Hawaiian. However, the restricted number of syllables does not limit the number of words in the Hawaiian vocabulary.
One part of the movement to restore the Hawaiian language is an on-going effort to adapt and broaden the vocabulary to cover all the aspects of modern life, including technology. In some cases, the Hawaiian vocabulary has been expanded by borrowing words from English or other languages. The spelling and pronunciation of such loan words are usually changed to use only the letters of the Hawaiian alphabet and to follow the Hawaiian words of syllable formation, as in the case of
hola from English "hour". Other times, native Hawaiian vocabulary has been given additional meanings to reflect new advances, as in the case of
ho‘ouka, a word that traditionally means "to load gear into a canoe" but now carries the added meaning of "upload" in the case of computer data.
Hawaiian has left its mark on other languages as well. English words of Hawaiian origin include
hula (the traditional Hawaiian dance) and
ukulele (which actually comes from a Hawaiian phrase meaning "leaping flea", from the nickname of an early ukulele player who popularized the instrument). Plus, there are a variety of Hawaiian words which are commonly used in Hawaii even by people who do not speak Hawaiian, including
mahalo "thank you" and the quintessentially Hawaiian word
aloha, with all of its meanings.
One thing that English speakers learning Hawaiian should take note of about Hawaiian grammar is the word order. Unlike English sentences, which are arranged in subject-verb-object order, Hawaiian sentences are arranged verb-subject-object. This word order, in which the first word in a sentence is often a verb, is common in Polynesian languages.
If you're interested in learning to speak Hawaiian, check out Transparent Language's
Hawaiian software programs. It's easier than ever to learn Hawaiian and to begin to speak Hawaiian with the language resources and Hawaiian language software from Transparent Language, including our
Languages of the World program. Mahalo for reading our language page, and we wish you the best of luck in your endeavors to learn Hawaiian!
