Haole, in the Hawaiian language, means "foreign" or "foreigner"; it can be used in reference to people, plants, and animals. It is also used in Hawaiian Pidgin to mean "white" or "Caucasian." Haole is a highly charged word and can be used descriptively or derisively.

In Hawaiian pidgin, local is usually considered the opposite of haole. Local is an omnibus term for any non-white raised in Hawaii, encompassing Hawaiians, part-Hawaiians, Japanese, Japanese-Hawaiians, Chinese, Chinese-Hawaiians, etc. The antonymy reflects a long history of race and class conflict in the Hawaiian islands, in which the upper class (plantation and business owners, professionals) tended to be haole and the working class was local. Hence the descendants of Portuguese imported for plantation work are usually considered local, even though in other parts of the United States they would be considered "white".

Some people say that it makes sense to speak of local haoles -- haoles who have grown up in Hawaii and speak pidgin. Others would say that the term 'local haole' is nonsense. Another term used is kamaāina haole, or 'child-of-the-land' haole. Anyone born and brought up in Hawaii can be a kamaāina.

These various shades of meaning could be debated at length. Malihinis (newcomers) should be careful using such nuanced words.

Origins and etymology

A common popular etymology claims that the word is derived from "hāole", literally meaning "no breath". Foreigners did not know or use the honi, a Polynesian/Hawaiian greeting by sniffing the cheeks of the face, and so they were described as "breathless". The implication is that haoles are aloof and ignorant of local ways - a common stereotype in Hawaii. Linguists believe that this etymology is erroneous, however, for these reasons:

• There are innumerable citations from Hawaiian showing that haole simply means 'foreign'. For example, haole eleele means a dark-skinned foreigner.

• The word 'breath' is hā (with a macron or kahakō over the a), not plain ha. The word 'not' is ole, with a glottal stop or okina, not ole, which means 'fang'. In spoken Hawaiian, vowel length is contrastive, and these are major differences in prononciation. However, they would not appear in Hawaiian dictionaries using the older form of Hawaiian spelling, which did not use kahakō or okina (considered a consonant) to indicate vowel length and glottal stops. Only modern dictionaries show the kahakō and okina. It seems likely that the folk etymology was created by someone with only a dictionary knowledge of Hawaiian, using an older dictionary.

There are no alternate theories of the origin of the word haole. Other Polynesian languages, such as Tongan and Samoan, use the word pālangi or papālangi.

Sources and further reading

• The Mainland Haole: The White Experience in Hawaii. By Elvi Whittaker. 1986. New York: Columbia University Press.
• i | Journal=Social Process in Hawaii | Year=1997 | Volume=38 | Pages=140-161}}

See also

• List of words meaning outsider, foreigner or "not one of us"
• List of ethnic slurs

Hawaiian words