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| Name | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Hawaiian language takes its name from the largest island, Hawaii (Hawaiʻi in the Hawaiian language), in the tropical North Pacific archipelago where it developed, originally from a Polynesian language of the South Pacific, most likely Marquesan or Tahitian. The island name was first written in English, in 1778 by British explorer James Cook and his crew members. They wrote it as "Owhyhee" or "Owhyee". Explorers Mortimer (1791) and Otto von Kotzebue (1821) used that spelling.[5]
The initial "O" in the name is a reflection of the fact that unique identity is predicated in Hawaiian by using a copula form, o, immediately before a proper noun.[6] Thus, in Hawaiian, the name of the island is expressed by saying O Hawaiʻi, which means "[This] is Hawaiʻi."[7] Note that the Cook expedition also wrote "Otaheite" rather than "Tahiti."[8]
The spelling "why" in the name reflects the [hw] pronunciation of wh in 18th century English (still in active use in parts of the Anglosphere). Why was pronounced [hwai]. The spelling "hee" or "ee" in the name represents the sounds [hi], [i], or [i].[9]
Putting the parts together, O-why-hee reflects [o-hwai-i], a reasonable approximation of the native pronunciation, [o hɐwɐiʔi].
American missionaries bound for Hawaiʻi used the phrases "Owhihe Language" and "Owhyhee language", in Boston prior to their departure in October 1819 and during their five-month voyage to Hawai'i.[10] They still used such phrases as late as February 1822.[11] However, by July 1823, they had begun using the phrase "Hawaiian Language."[12]
In Hawaiian, ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi means "Hawaiian language", as adjectives follow nouns.[13]
[ Tags:Hawai,Ni,Polynesian,Polynesian Language,Archipelago,English,Marquesan,Tahitian,James Cook,Otto Von Kotzebue,In Active Use,Anglosphere, | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Family and origin |
Hawaiian is a Polynesian member of the Austronesian language family.[14] It is closely related to other Polynesian languages, such as Marquesan, Tahitian, Māori, Rapa Nui (the language of Easter Island), and less closely to Samoan, and Tongan.
According to Schütz (1994), the Marquesans colonized the archipelago in roughly 300 AD[15] followed by later waves of immigration from the Society Islands and Samoa-Tonga. Their languages, over time, became the Hawaiian language.[16] Kimura and Wilson (1983) also state, "Linguists agree that Hawaiian is closely related to Eastern Polynesian, with a particularly strong link in the Southern Marquesas, and a secondary link in Tahiti, which may be explained by voyaging between the Hawaiian and Society Islands."[17]
[ | Tags:Language Family,Austronesian,Eastern Polynesian,Austronesian Language Family,Polynesian Languages,Māori,Rapa Nui,Easter Island,Samoan,Tongan,Society Islands,Samoa,Tonga, Methods of proving Hawaiian's family relationships |
The genetic history of the Hawaiian language is demonstrated primarily through the application of lexicostatistics, and the comparative method.[18][19]
Lexicostatistics is a way of quantifying an approximate evaluation of the degree to which any given languages are genetically related to one another.[20][21] It is mainly based on determining the number of cognates (genetically shared words) that the languages have in a fixed set of vocabulary items which are nearly universal among all languages.[20] The so-called "basic vocabulary" (or Swadesh list) amounts to about 200 words,[22] having meanings such as "eye", "hair", "blood", "water", and "and."[23] The measurement of a genetic relationship is expressed as a percentage.[20][24] For example, Hawaiian and English have 0 cognates in the 200-word list, so they are 0% genetically related. By contrast, Hawaiian and Tahitian have about 152 cognates in the list, so they are estimated as being 76% genetically related,[25] according to the lexicostatistical method.
The comparative method is a technique developed by linguists to determine whether or not two or more languages are genetically related, and if they are, the historical nature of the relationships.[18][26] For a given meaning, the words of the languages are compared.[27] Linguists observe:[28]
identical sounds,
similar sounds, and
dissimilar sounds, in corresponding positions in the words
In this method, the definition of "identical" is reasonably clear, but those of "similar" and "dissimilar" are based on phonological criteria which require professional training to fully understand, and which can vary in the contexts of different languages. Basically, a sound's phonetic manner and place of articulation, and its phonological features, are the main factors considered in investigating its status as "similar" or "dissimilar" to other sounds in a particular context. When linguists find in compared languages that compared words of the same or similar meaning contain sounds which correspond to one another, and find that these same sound correspondences recur regularly in most, or in many, of the comparable words of the languages, then the usual conclusion is that the languages are genetically related.[29][30]
In both methods, it is very important to exclude loan words from the analysis.[31]
The following table, Decimal Numbers, provides a limited data set for ten meanings. The Proto-Austronesian (PAN) forms are from Li (2004:4). The asterisk (*) is used to show that these are hypothetical, reconstructed forms. The Tagalog forms are from Ramos (1971), the Tongan from Churchward (1959), and the Hawaiian from Pukui & Elbert (1986). In the table, the year date of the modern forms is rounded off to CE 2000 to emphasize the 6000-year time lapse since the PAN era.
Decimal Numbers
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
PAN, circa 4000 BC
*isa
*DuSa
*telu
*Sepat
*lima
*enem
*pitu
*walu
*Siwa
*puluq
Tetum
ida
rua
tolu
haat
lima
neen
hitu
ualo
sia
sanulu
Tagalog
isá
dalawá
tatló
ápat
limá
ánim
pitó
waló
siyám
sampu
Ilokano (Ilocano)
maysa
dua
talló
uppat
limá
innem
pitó
waló
siám
sangpulo
Kapampangan
metung
adwa
atlu
apat
lima
anam
pitu
walu
siyam
apulu
Cebuano
usá
duhá
tuló
upat
limá
unom
pitó
waló
siyám
napulu
Malay
satu
dua
tiga
empat
lima
enam
tujuh
lapan
sembilan
sepuluh
Javanese
siji
loro
telu
papat
limo
nem
pitu
wolu
songo
sepuluh
Malagasy
irai(ka)
roa
telo
efatra
dimy
enina
fito
valo
sivy
folo
Māori
tahi
rua
toru
whā
rima
ono
whitu
waru
iwa
tekau
Tongan
taha
ua
tolu
fā
nima
ono
fitu
valu
hiva
-fulu
Chamorro
maisa/håcha
hugua
tulu
fatfat
lima
gunum
fiti
guålu
sigua
månot/fulu
Hawaiian
kahi
lua
kolu
hā
lima
ono
hiku
walu
iwa
-hulu
Note 1. For the number "10", the Tongan form in the table is part of the word /hoŋo-fulu/ ('ten'). The Hawaiian form is part of the word /ana-hulu/ ('ten days'), however the more common form used in counting and quantifying is /ʔumi/, a different root.
Application of the lexicostatistical method to the data in the table will show the four languages to be related to one another, with Tagalog having 100% cognacy with PAN, while Hawaiian and Tongan have 100% cognacy with each other, but 90% with Tagalog and PAN. This is because the forms for each number are cognates, except the Hawaiian and Tongan words for the number "1", which are cognate with each other, but not with Tagalog and PAN. When the full set of 200 meanings is used, the percentages will be much lower. For example, Elbert found Hawaiian and Tongan to have 49% (98 ÷ 200) shared cognacy.[32] This points out the importance of data-set size for this method — less data, cruder result; more data, better result.
Application of the comparative method will show partly different genetic relationships. It will point out sound changes,[33] such as:
the loss of all PAN word-final consonants in Tongan and Hawaiian;
lowering of PAN *u to Tagalog [o] in word-final syllables;
retention of PAN *t in word-initial and word-medial position in Tagalog and Tongan, but shift to /k/ in Hawaiian;
retention of PAN *p in Tagalog, but shift to /f/ in Tongan and /h/ in Hawaiian.
This method will recognize sound change #1 as a shared innovation of Hawaiian and Tongan. It will also take the Hawaiian and Tongan cognates for "1" as another shared innovation. Due to these exclusively shared features, Hawaiian and Tongan are found to be more closely related to one another than either is to Tagalog or PAN.
The forms in the table show that the Austronesian vowels tend to be relatively stable, while the consonants are relatively volatile. It is also apparent that the Hawaiian words for "5" and "8" have remained essentially unchanged for 6000 years.
[ | Tags:Lexicostatistics,Cognates,Swadesh List,Comparative Method,Phonological Features,Loan Words,Proto-austronesian,Pan,Tetum,Tagalog, In Hawaiʻi |
In 1778, British explorer James Cook made the first reported European discovery of Hawaiʻi.That marked a new phase in the development and use 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 take form as a written language, but largely restricted to isolated names and words, and word lists collected by explorers and travellers.[34]
[ | Tags: Abroad |
The people responsible for "importing" those languages were also responsible for "exporting" the Hawaiian language into new territory, because there were some adventurous native speakers of Hawaiian who opted to do some exploring of their own by leaving Hawai'i and sailing off to "see the world" aboard the wooden ships of the Caucasian explorers.[35] Although there were not enough of these Hawaiian-speaking explorers (and apparently no females) to establish any viable speech communities abroad, nevertheless, there were a few here and there, in various parts of the world, who may be said to have spread the use of the language, at least a little bit. One of them, a male in his teens known as Obookiah (ʻŌpūkahaʻia), had a major impact on the future of the language. He sailed to New England, and 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.[36] Some adventurous native speakers of Hawaiian worked aboard American and/or European ships of that period, thereby expanding, albeit slightly, the geographical area in which Hawaiian could be spoken. However, no viable Hawaiian speech communities were ever established abroad.
[ | Tags:Native Speakers, In Hawaiʻi |
The arrival of American Protestant missionaries (from New England) in 1820 marked another new phase in the development of the Hawaiian language. Their evangelical mission had been inspired by the presence of several young Hawaiian males, especially Obookiah (ʻŌpūkahaʻia), at the Foreign Mission School in Cornwall, Connecticut. The missionaries wanted to convert all Hawaiians to Christianity. In order to achieve that goal, they needed to learn the Hawaiian language so that they could publish a Hawaiian Bible, preach in Hawaiian, etc. To that end, they developed a successful alphabet for Hawaiian by 1826, taught Hawaiians to read and write the language, published various educational materials in Hawaiian, and eventually finished translating the Bible. Missionaries also influenced King Kamehameha III to establish the first Hawaiian-language constitutions in 1839 and 1840.
[ | Tags:Latin,King Kamehameha Iii,Constitution, Abroad |
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.[37] 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.[38]
[ | Tags:U.s., In Hawaiʻi |
This section needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (July 2008)
Headline from May 16, 1834 issue of newspaper published by Lorrin Andrews and students at Lahainaluna School
This is the 115-year period during which Hawaiian-language newspapers were published. Missionaries introduced newspaper publishing in Hawaiian and in English, and played a significant role in publishing a vocabulary (1836)[39] grammar (1854)[40] and dictionary (1865)[41] 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."[42] In spite of a huge decline in the use of Hawaiian, compared to the era of its peak, those fears have never been realized.
The increase in human travel to and from Hawaiʻi during the 19th century was the means by which a number of diseases arrived, and potentially fatal ones, such as smallpox, influenza, and leprosy, killed large numbers of native speakers of Hawaiian. Meanwhile, native speakers of other languages, especially English, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, and Ilokano, continued to immigrate to Hawaiʻi. As a result, the actual number, as well as the percentage, of native speakers of Hawaiian in the local population decreased sharply, and continued to fall.
As the status of Hawaiian dropped, the status of English in Hawaiʻi rose. In 1885, the Prospectus of the Kamehameha Schools announced that "instruction will be given only in English language" (see published opinion of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Doe v. Kamehameha Schools, case no. 04-15044, page 8928, filed August 2, 2005).
For a variety of reasons including punishment of Hawaiian children who spoke Hawaiian in school[43] starting around 1900, the number of native speakers of Hawaiian diminished from 37,000 to 1,000; half of these remaining are now in their seventies or eighties (see Ethnologue report below for citations). There has been some controversy over the reasons for this decline.
One school of thought claims that the most important cause for the decline of the Hawaiian language was its voluntary abandonment by the majority of its native speakers. According to Mary Kawena Pukui, they wanted their own children to speak English, as a way to promote their success in a rapidly changing modern environment, so they refrained from using Hawaiian with their own children.[44] The Hawaiian language schools disappeared as their enrollments dropped: parents preferred English language schools.
Another school of thought insists either that the government made the language illegal, or that schools punished the use of Hawaiian, or that general prejudice against Hawaiians (kanaka) discouraged the use of the language. (See "Banning" of Hawaiian below.)
A new dictionary was published in 1957, a new grammar in 1979, and new second-language textbooks in 1951, 1965, 1977, and 1989. Master's theses and doctoral dissertations on specific facets of Hawaiian appeared in 1951, 1975, 1976, and 1996.
[ | Tags: Kaona or Hidden meaning |
According to Mary Kawena Pukui and Samuel Elbert in the definitive Dictionary, kaona (kao-na)[45] is a "Hidden meaning, as in Hawaiian poetry; concealed reference, as to a person, thing, or place; words with double meanings that might bring good or bad fortune." Pukui lamented, “in spite of years of dedicated work, it is impossible to record any language completely. How true this seems for Hawaiian, with its rich and varied background, its many idioms heretofore undescribed, and its ingenious and sophisticated use of figurative language.” On page xiii of the 1986 Dictionary she warned: "Hawaiian has more words with multiple meanings than almost any other language. One wishing to name a child, a house, a T-shirt, or a painting, should be careful that the chosen name does not have a naughty or vulgar meaning. The name of a justly respectable children's school, Hana Hauʻoli, means happy activity and suggests a missionary author, but among older Hawaiians it has another, less 'innocent' meaning that should not concern little children. A Honolulu street (and formerly the name of a hotel) is Hale Leʻa 'joyous house', but leʻa also means orgasm."
Understanding the kaona of the language requires a comprehensive knowledge of Hawaiian legends, history and cosmology.
[ | Tags: "Banning" of Hawaiian |
The law cited as banning the Hawaiian language is identified as Act 57, sec. 30 of the 1896 Laws of the Republic of Hawaiʻi:
The English Language shall be the medium and basis of instruction in all public and private schools, provided that where it is desired that another language shall be taught in addition to the English language, such instruction may be authorized by the Department, either by its rules, the curriculum of the school, or by direct order in any particular instance. Any schools that shall not conform to the provisions of this section shall not be recognized by the Department. [signed] June 8, 1896 Sanford B. Dole, President of the Republic of Hawaiʻi
This law established English as the main medium of instruction for the government-recognized schools, but it did not ban or make illegal the Hawaiian language in other contexts. The law specifically provided for teaching languages "in addition to the English language". However, Hawaiian was not taught in any school, including the all-Hawaiian Kamehameha Schools, and many children who spoke Hawaiian at school, including on the playground, were disciplined. 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.[46] Winona Beamer was expelled from Kamehameha Schools in 1937 for chanting Hawaiian.[47]
Hawaiian-language newspapers were published for over a hundred years, right through the period of the supposed ban. Pukui & Elbert (1986:572) list fourteen Hawaiian newspapers. According to them, the newspapers entitled Ka Lama Hawaii and Ke Kumu Hawaii began publishing in 1834, and the one called Ka Hoku o Hawaii ceased publication in 1948. The longest run was that of Ka Nupepa Kuokoa: about 66 years, from 1861 to 1927.
[ | Tags: 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.[48] 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 introduce Hawaiian language for future generations.[49] The local NPR station features a short segment titled "Hawaiian word of the day" and a Hawaiian language news broadcast. Honolulu television station KGMB includes a Hawaiian language segment during their morning local news program Sunrise on KGMB9.[50] Additionally, the Sunday editions of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, one of Honolulu's two major newspapers, feature a brief article called Kauakukalahale written entirely in Hawaiian by teachers, students, and community members.
Today, on six of the seven permanently inhabited islands, Hawaiian is largely displaced by English, and the number of native speakers of Hawaiian is under 0.1% of the state-wide population. Native speakers of Hawaiian who live on the island named Niʻihau have remained fairly isolated and have continued to use Hawaiian almost exclusively.[51]
[ | Tags: Niʻihau |
Niʻihau is the only area in the world where Hawaiian is the first language and English is a foreign language. Because of many sufficiently marked variations, Niʻihau people, when visiting or living in Honolulu, substitute the Oʻahu dialect [sic] for their own — apparently easy to do — saying that otherwise people in Honolulu have trouble understanding them. Niʻihau people speak very rapidly; many vowels and entire syllables are dropped or whispered.[52]
The island named Niʻihau, aka 'the Forbidden Island' to locals, off the southwest coast of Kauaʻi, is the one island where Hawaiian is still spoken by the entire population as the language of daily life.[51] Children are taught Hawaiian as a first language, and learn English at about age eight. Reasons for the persistence include:
Niʻihau has been privately owned for over 100 years;
visiting by outsiders has been only rarely allowed;
the Caucasian owners/managers of the island have favored the Niʻihauans' continuation of their language;
and, most of all, because the Niʻihau speakers themselves have naturally maintained their own native language, even though they sometimes use English as a second language for school.
Native speakers of Niʻihau Hawaiian have three distinct modes of speaking Hawaiian:
an imitation and adaptation to "standard" Hawaiian;
a native Niʻihau dialect that is significantly different from "standard" Hawaiian, including extensive use of palatalizations and truncations, and differences in diphthongization, vowel raising, and elision;
a manner of speaking among themselves which is so different from "standard" Hawaiian that it is unintelligible to non-Niʻihau speakers of Hawaiian.
The last mode of speaking may be further restricted to a certain subset of Niʻihauans, and is rarely even overheard by non-Niʻihauans. In addition to being able to speak Hawaiian in different ways, most Niʻihauans can speak English too.
Elbert & Pukui (1979:23) states that "[v]ariations in Hawaiian dialects have not been systematically studied", and that "[t]he dialect of Niʻihau is the most aberrant and the one most in need of study". They recognized that Niʻihauans can speak Hawaiian in substantially different ways. Their statements are based in part on some specific observations made by Newbrand (1951). (See below, Processes, under Phonology.)
[ | Tags: Orthography (writing system) |
Hawaiians had no written language prior to western contact, except for petroglyph symbols. The modern Hawaiian alphabet, ka pīʻāpā Hawaiʻi, is a variety of the Latin alphabet. Hawaiian words end only[53] in vowels | Tags: |