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The Hawaiian language takes its name from that of the largest island in the tropical North Pacific archipelago where it developed.
It originated as the Marquesan or Tahitian of the era 1000 A.D., when the Polynesian speakers of that language made the first Polynesian discovery of Hawaii and colonized the archipelago, establishing permanent settlements. Upon the permanent separation of those Polynesian colonists from their foreign homelands, their language began to gradually change, thereby developing into one that is distinct from the centuries old Marquesan or Tahitian.
Before being the Marquesan or Tahitian of 1000 A.D., the language was various stages of Proto Polynesian. Going back farther in time and space, the language is that of the Philippine Islands, and it is ultimately descended from an ancient Austronesian language spoken in Taiwan about 6000 years ago. The geographically most distant relative of Hawaiian is Malagasy, spoken on the big island (Madagascar) off the east coast of Africa, nearly at the opposite point on the globe from Hawaii.
The old Marquesan or Tahitian developed into Hawaiian in isolation from the rest of the world, for approximately 700 to 800 years. In 1778 A.D., British explorer James Cook made the first European discovery of Hawaii, and that marked a new phase in the development and use of Hawaiian. During that period, up to 1820, 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. 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.
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 (‘Ōpūkaha‘ia), 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.
Besides that, they introduced newspaper publishing in Hawaiian and in English, and played a significant role in publishing a grammar (1854) and dictionary (1865) of Hawaiian. They also influenced King Kamehameha III to establish the first Hawaiian-language constitutions in 1839 and 1840.
Hawaiian-language newspapers were published during a 115-year period, from 1834 to 1948. However, for various reasons, the number of native speakers of Hawaiian gradually dropped during the same period (except on Niihau), to the point that Hawaiian was essentially displaced by English on six of the seven inhabited islands. As of 2000 A.D., native speakers of Hawaiian amount to under 0.1% of the statewide population. Nevertheless, the language is not "endangered" because it can continue indefinitely on Niihau (Ni‘ihau, the smallest inhabited island, privately owned for over 100 years, residence of about 200 native speakers).
From about 1949 A.D. to the present, there has been a gradual increase in attention to, and promotion of, the language. 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. Public Hawaiian-language immersion schools were started in 1987.
Details on the language's orthography (writing system) and phonology (system of language sounds and processes that affect them) are given in dedicated sections of this article.
Hawaiian, along with English, is an official language of the State of Hawaii. The ISO language code for Hawaiian is haw.
Wiki (as in Wiki-pedia) is a Hawaiian word meaning "quick".
Name
The Hawaiian language is so named from the name of the largest island, Hawaii (Hawai‘i in 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 Kotzebue (1821) also used that spelling (Schütz 1994:44, 459).
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 (Carter 1996:144, 174). Thus, in Hawaiian, the name of the island is expressed by saying ‘O Hawai‘i, which means "* is Hawaii" (Carter 1996:187-188). Note that the Cook expedition also wrote "Otaheite" rather than "Tahiti" (Schütz 1994:41).
The spelling "why" in the name reflects the pronunciation of wh in 18th-century English. Why was pronounced . The spelling "hee" or "ee" in the name represents the sounds , , or (Schütz 1994:61-65).
Putting the parts together, O-why-hee reflects , a reasonable approximation of the native pronunciation, .
American missionaries bound for Hawaii used the phrases "Owhihe Language" and "Owhyhee language", in Boston prior to their departure in October 1819 and during their five-month voyage to Hawaii (Schütz 1994:304, 475). They still used such phrases as late as February 1822 (Schütz 1994:108-109). However, by July 1823, they used the phrase "Hawaiian Language" (Schütz 1994:306).
In Hawaiian, ‘ōlelo Hawai‘i means "Hawaiian language". (The adjective follows the noun (Carter 1996:3 Figure 1).)
Family and origin
Hawaiian is a Polynesian member of the Austronesian language family (Lyovin 1997:257-258). It is closely related to other Polynesian languages (e.g., Marquesan, Tahitian, Maori, Rapa Nui (the language of Easter Island), Samoan), distantly related to Fijian, and more distantly to Malay, Indonesian, Malagasy, and the indigenous languages of the Philippines (e.g., Tagalog, Ilokano, Visayan) and Taiwan (e.g., Paiwan, Rukai, Thao, Babuza, Saaroa, Yami).
Obviously, no language could be correctly called the Hawaiian language until humans inhabited the Hawaiian archipelago. Foreign immigrants, i.e., Marquesans or Tahitians, colonized the archipelago in roughly 1000 A.D. (Schütz 1994:334-336, 338 note 20). By residing in Hawaii and raising families there, these originally foreign colonizers in effect became the Hawaiian people, and their originally foreign language in effect became the Hawaiian language (Elbert & Pukui 1979:35-36). Thus, the genesis of Hawaiian (as a language distinct from Marquesan or Tahitian) was approximately ten centuries ago.
Prior to becoming Hawaiian around 1000 A.D., the language was essentially the Marquesan or Tahitian of that era. Continuing back in time, and back up the Austronesian family tree, the language was various stages of Proto Polynesian (Schütz 1994:334). Going much farther back in history, the language is that of the Philippine Islands. The linguistic evidence, with the methodologies of lexicostatistics and comparative reconstruction applied, takes the language back to Proto Austronesian, spoken in Taiwan (Schütz 1994:325; Pukui & Elbert 1986:ix; Dyen 1965). (See below, Methods of proving Hawaiian's family relationships.) In recognizing the "Austric dispersal", Li (2001:271-272) stated that Reid "firmly established" a genetic relationship between the Austronesian family and the Austroasiatic family, and that Blust proposed that the Austronesian people migrated from mainland China to Taiwan around 6000 B.P. (i.e., 4000 B.C.). Thus, the ancient ancestors of the Hawaiian language, culture, and people, are traced back to the mainland of Asia, at least 5000 miles and 6000 years away from today's Hawaiian in Hawaii.
Methods of proving Hawaiian's family relationships
The genetic history of the Hawaiian language (and race or ethnic group) is demonstrated primarily through the application of (1) lexicostatistics, and (2) the comparative method (Lyovin 1997:1-12; Schütz 1994:322-338).Lexicostatistics is a way of quantifying an approximate evaluation of the degree to which any given languages are genetically related to one another (Lyovin 1997:8; Schütz 1994:331). 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 (Lyovin 1997:8). The so-called "basic vocabulary" (or "Swadesh list") amounts to about 200 words (Schütz 1994:332-333), having meanings such as "eye", "hair", "blood", "water", and "and" (Lyovin 1997:3). The measurement of genetic relationship is expressed as a percentage (Lyovin 1997:8; Schütz 1994:331-333). 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 (Schütz 1994:333 citing Elbert (1953a)), according to the lexicostatistical method (152 ÷ 200 = .76).
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 (Lyovin 1997:1-12; Schütz 1994:332-335). For a given meaning, the words of the languages are compared (Lyovin 1997:2-3). Linguists observe: (1) identical sounds, (2) similar sounds, and (3) dissimilar sounds, in corresponding positions in the words (Lyovin 1997:3, 11-12). In this method, the definition of "identical" is clear, but those of "similar" and "dissimilar" are based on phonological criteria which require professional training to be fully understood, 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 (Lyovin 1997:2; Schütz 1994:324-325).
In both methods, it is very important to exclude loan words from the analysis (Lyovin 1997:3-5, 8, 10).
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 (Elbert & Pukui 1979:xvii). 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 2000 A.D. 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 B.C. | ||||||||||
| Tagalog, 2000 A.D. | ||||||||||
| Tongan, 2000 A.D. | ||||||||||
| Hawaiian, 2000 A.D. |
Note 1. For the number "10", the Tongan form in the table is part of the word "ten". The Hawaiian form is part of the word "ten days".
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 (Schütz 1994:333). 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 (but without bothering to express them numerically as percentages). It will point out sound changes (Lyovin 1997:8-12), such as: (1) the loss of all PAN word-final consonants in Tongan and Hawaiian; (2) lowering of PAN to Tagalog in word-final syllables; (3) retention of PAN in word-initial and word-medial position in Tagalog and Tongan, but shift to in Hawaiian; (4) retention of PAN in Tagalog, but shift to in Tongan and 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's also notable that the Hawaiian words for "5" and "8" have remained essentially unchanged for 6000 years.
History of use
Before 1820
- In Hawaii.
- Abroad.
1820 to 1887
- Abroad.
1834 to 1948
- In Hawaii.
The increase in human travel to and from Hawaii 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 Hawaii. 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 Hawaii 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 2nd 2005).
For a variety of reasons 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. 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.
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 (kanakas) discouraged the use of the language. (See below, "Banning" of Hawaiian)
"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 Hawaii: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. * June 8 A.D., 1896 Sanford B. Dole, President of the Republic of Hawaii
This law established English as the main medium of instruction for the government-recognized schools, but it did not ban nor make illegal the Hawaiian language in other contexts. The law specifically provided for teaching languages "in addition to the English language".
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.
1949 to present
In 1949, the legislature of the Territory of Hawaii commissioned Mary Pukui and Samuel Elbert to write a new dictionary of Hawaiian, either revising the Andrews-Parker work, or starting from scratch (Schütz 1994:230). 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 (Warner 1996). The local NPR station features a short segment titled "Hawaiian word of the day" and a Hawaiian language news broadcast. 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 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. Even so, Hawaiian is not an endangered language and never has been. This is because the native speakers of Hawaiian who live on the island named Ni‘ihau have remained fairly isolated and have continued to use Hawaiian almost exclusively (Lyovin 1997:258) (See below, Niihau.)
Niihau (Ni‘ihau)
Ni‘ihau 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, Ni‘ihau people, when visiting or living in Honolulu, substitute the O‘ahu dialect * for their own --- apparently easy to do --- saying that otherwise people in Honolulu have trouble understanding them. Ni‘ihau people speak very rapidly; many vowels and entire syllables are dropped or whispered. (Elbert & Pukui 1979:23)
The island named Ni‘ihau, off the southwest coast of Kauai (Kaua‘i), is the one island where Hawaiian is still spoken by the entire population as the language of daily life (Lyovin 1997:258). Reasons for the persistence include:
- Niihau has been privately owned for over 100 years;
- visitation by outsiders has been only rarely allowed;
- the Caucasian owners/managers of the island have favored the Niihauans' continuation of their language;
- and, most of all, because the Niihau speakers themselves have naturally maintained their own native language, even though they sometimes use English as a second language for school.
Native speakers of Niihau Hawaiian have three distinct modes of speaking Hawaiian:
- an imitation and adaptation to "standard" Hawaiian;
- a native Niihau 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-Niihau speakers of Hawaiian.
The last mode of speaking may be further restricted to a certain subset of Niihauans, and is rarely even overheard by non-Niihauans. In addition to being able to speak Hawaiian in different ways, most Niihauans can speak English too.
Elbert & Pukui (1979:23) wrote that "in Hawaiian dialects have not been systematically studied", and that "[the dialect of Ni‘ihau is the most aberrant and the one most in need of study". They recognized that Niihauans 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.)
Learning Hawaiian as a second language
When trying to learn Hawaiian as a second language, without a competent teacher and without native speakers of Hawaiian as models, English-speaking learners might mispronounce Hawaiian words by using English values for the letters. Also, learners might not be aware that one cannot simply replace the English words in an English sentence with Hawaiian words as a way to create a Hawaiian sentence. Hawaiian and English have important differences in the order of words in a phrase, and the order of phrases in a sentence.Reviving Hawaiian as a first language
There is a certain tension between those who would revive a purist Hawaiian, as spoken in the early 19th century, and those who grew up speaking a colloquial Hawaiian shaped by more than one hundred years of contact with English and pidgin.Hawaiian Creole English
Hawai‘i Pidgin English, Hawai‘i Creole English, HCE, or simply Pidgin, is a creole language based in part on English sometimes used by residents of Hawai‘i ("Hawaiian Pidgin English" is considered an inaccurate label). Although English and Hawaiian are the co-official languages of the State of Hawai‘i, Pidgin is used by many locals in everyday conversation and is often used in advertising toward Hawaii residents. The new ISO/DIS 639-3 language code for Hawai‘i Pidgin (Hawai‘i Creole English) is HWC.Pidgin English originated as a form of communication used between native and non-native English speakers in Hawai'i. It supplanted the pidgin Hawaiian used on the plantations and elsewhere in Hawai'i. It has been influenced by many languages, including Portuguese, Hawaiian, and Cantonese, one of the Chinese languages. As people of other nationalities were brought in to work in the plantations, such as Japanese, Filipinos, and Koreans, Pidgin English acquired words from these languages. Japanese loanwords in Hawaii lists some of those words originally from Japanese. It has also been influenced to a lesser degree by Spanish spoken by Mexican and Puerto Rican settlers in Hawaii.Orthography (writing system)
The Hawaiian alphabet, ka pī‘āpā Hawai‘i, is a variety of the Latin alphabet. The Hawaiian alphabetical order has all of the vowels before the consonants (Schütz 1994:217, 223), as in the following chart.
| Aa | Ee | Ii | Oo | Uu | Hh | Kk | Ll | Mm | Nn | Pp | Ww | ‘ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Origin
This writing system was developed by American Protestant missionaries during 1820-1826 (Schütz 1994:98-133). It was the first thing they ever printed in Hawaii, on January 7th 1822, and it originally included the consonants B, D, R, T, and V, in addition to the current ones (H, K, L, M, N, P, W), and it had F, G, S, and Y, for "spelling foreign words". The initial printing also showed the five vowel letters (A, E, I, O, U) and seven of the short diphthongs (AE, AI, AO, AU, EI, EU, OU) (Schütz 1994:110 Plate 7.1).In 1826, the developers voted to eliminate some of the letters which represented functionally redundant allophones (called "interchangeable letters"), thereby enabling the Hawaiian alphabet to approach the ideal state of one-symbol-one-sound, and thereby optimizing the ease with which people could teach and learn the reading and writing of Hawaiian (Schütz 1994:122-126, 173-174). For example, instead of spelling one and the same word as pule, bule, pure, and bure (because of interchangeable p/b and l/r), the word is spelled only as pule.
- Interchangeable B/P. B was dropped, P was kept.
- Interchangeable L/R. L was kept, R was dropped.
- Interchangeable K/T. K was kept, T was dropped.
- Interchangeable V/W. V was dropped, W was kept.
However, hundreds of words were very rapidly borrowed into Hawaiian from English, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, Syrian, and Chaldean (Lyovin 1997:259; Schütz 1994:223; Elbert & Pukui 1979:27, 31-32). Although these loan words were necessarily Hawaiianized, they often retained some of their "non-Hawaiian letters" in their published forms. For example, Brazil fully Hawaiianized is Palakila, but retaining "foreign letters" it is Barazila (Pukui & Elbert 1986:406). Another example is Gibraltar, written as Kipalaleka or Gibaraleta (Pukui & Elbert 1986:450). While and are not regarded as Hawaiian sounds, , , and were represented in the original alphabet, so the letters (b, r, and t) for the latter are not truly "non-Hawaiian" or "foreign", even though their post-1826 use in published matter generally marked words of foreign origin.
Glottal stop (‘okina)
- Main article: ‘okina
For examples of the okina consider the Hawaiian words Hawai‘i and O‘ahu (simply Hawaii and Oahu in English orthography). In Hawaiian, these words can be pronounced (using IPA): and , and can be written with an okina where the glottal stop is pronounced (Pukui & Elbert 1986:62, 275). (In English, the glottal stop is omitted, or is replaced by a non-phonemic glide, resulting in or , and or . Note that the latter two are essentially identical in sound.)
As early as 1823, the missionaries made some limited use of the apostrophe to represent the glottal stop (Schütz 1994:143), but they did not make it a letter of the alphabet. In publishing the Hawaiian Bible, they used it to distinguish ko‘u "my" from kou "your" (Elbert & Pukui 1979:11). In 1864, W.D. Alexander published a grammar of Hawaiian in which he made it clear that the glottal stop (calling it "guttural break") is definitely a true consonant of the Hawaiian language (Schütz 1994:144-145). He wrote it using an apostrophe. In 1922, the Andrews-Parker dictionary of Hawaiian made limited use of the opening single quote symbol, called "reversed apostrophe" or "inverse comma", to represent the glottal stop (Schütz 1994:139-141). Subsequent dictionaries have preferred to use that symbol. Today, many native speakers of Hawaiian do not bother, in general, to write any symbol for the glottal stop. Its use is advocated mainly among students and teachers of Hawaiian as a second language, and among linguists (Schütz 1994:146-148).
Macron (kahakō)
A modern Hawaiian name for the symbol (not a letter) which is the macron is kahakō (kaha "mark" plus kō "long") (Pukui & Elbert 1986:109, 110, 156, 478). It was formerly known as mekona (Hawaiianization of macron). It can be written as a diacritical mark which looks like a hyphen or dash written above a vowel, i.e., ā ē ī ō ū, and Ā Ē Ī Ō Ū. It is used to show that the marked vowel is a "double", or "geminate", or "long" vowel, in phonemic terms (Elbert & Pukui 1979:14-15).As early as 1821, at least one of the missionaries, Hiram Bingham, was using macrons (and breves) in making handwritten transcriptions of Hawaiian vowels (Schütz 1994:139, 399). The missionaries specifically requested their sponsor in Boston to send them some type (fonts) with accented vowel characters, including vowels with macrons, but the sponsor made only one response and sent the wrong font size (pica instead of small pica) (Schütz 1994:139-141). Thus, they could not print ā, ē, ī, ō, nor ū (at the right size), even though they wanted to.
Pronunciation of the letters
In general, each Hawaiian letter can be pronounced with the sound value of that same letter in the IPA alphabet. However, if one were to converse in Hawaiian with only 13 phones, the result would sound definitely foreign to the ear of a native speaker. See Phonology, below, for details on the ranges of actual allophones used.The letter ‘, the ‘okina, does not have any IPA value because it is not an IPA symbol. The IPA symbol for glottal stop is (Elbert & Pukui 1979:11). Since the Hawaiian letter ‘ stands for the IPA symbol , in effect, the phonetic value of ‘ is (Lyovin 1997:259).
The macron, or kahakō, is not a letter, and is not an IPA symbol. It has no sound of its own, and is not used alone. Although it marks phonemic vowel length in Hawaiian, long vowels are not always pronounced long by native speakers of Hawaiian in actual Hawaiian communication (Elbert & Pukui 1979:14-15). The macron does not represent stress, although under the rules for assigning stress in Hawaiian, a long vowel will always receive stress (Pukui & Elbert 1986:xvii-xviii; Elbert & Pukui 1979:14, 20-21).
Phonology (system of sounds and processes that affect them)
In discussing phonology, it is always important to distinguish clearly between: (1) written forms, (2) phonological forms, and (3) phonetic forms. For a particular word, it's possible for all three representations to be identical as to the written letters that are used. So for precision and clarity in writing, it is conventional to write phonological forms enclosed in slashes, and phonetic forms enclosed in square brackets. Ordinary (not phonological, not phonetic) forms may be cited in slanted font (italic), and printed forms in double quotes (Schütz 1994:xix).
For example, the Hawaiian word meaning "brain" is ordinarily written as "lolo". Its phonological representation is and its phonetic representation can be . But it is also possible, for a particular word, to have all three representations using some different written letters. For example, the Hawaiian word meaning "this" is ordinarily written as "keia" or "kēia". Its phonological form is and its phonetic form can be . Another example is the (borrowed) Hawaiian word for Bethlehem. Its ordinary written form is "Betelehema" or "Pekelehema", its phonological form is , and its phonetic form can be .
Another convention is to use C to represent any consonant, and V to represent any vowel. This article uses these conventions, and also D to represent any diphthong.
Phonemes and their allophones (sound symbols and their sound forms)
Hawaiian is known for having a small phoneme inventory, like some of its Polynesian cousins (Lyovin 1997:258). Especially notable is the fact that it does not distinguish between and ; few languages do not make that distinction. The American missionaries who developed written Hawaiian during the 1820s found that a allophone was common at the Kaua‘i (Taua‘i) end of the island chain, and a allophone at the Big Island (island of Hawai‘i) end. They decided to use "k" rather than "t" to represent this phoneme. However, that does not prevent anyone from using the t realization, in speaking or in writing, if they so desire. T is used more than k is, by speakers of Ni‘ihau Hawaiian (Schütz 1994:114-116).The missionaries also found allophonic variation between and (written with d) and (Schütz 1994:116-118), between and (Schütz 1994:119-122), and between and (Schütz 1994:113, 125).
Consonants
According to Lyovin (1997:258):Hawaiian is known for having one of the smallest phoneme inventories in the world, mainly because it has so few consonant phonemes. (Rotokas, a Papuan language, is reputed to have the smallest inventory of consonant phonemes --- only six.)The eight consonant phonemes of Hawaiian are shown in the following table:
| Consonants | Labial | Alveolar | Velar | Glottal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | ||||
| Fricative | ||||
| Nasal | ||||
| Lateral | ||||
| Approximant |
Allophones of . Free variation of and . Schütz (1994:82) conjectured that is a misinterpretation of unaspirated .
Allophones of . Basically free variation of and . However, since Hawaiian has no affricates, no fricative besides , and no other stops besides and , any non-labial and non-glottal stop, fricative, or affricate, can function as a (Schütz 1994:115). For example, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and , can all "work" as an allophone of . Nevertheless, the main allophones noted by the missionaries in the 1820s, and by linguists, are and . Elbert & Pukui (1979:12, 26-27) pointed out some instances of a allophone. Schütz (1994:77, 79, 116) conjectured that a t-dialect existed in the northwestern islands, and a k-dialect in the southeastern islands.
Allophones of . Always .
Allophones of . Always .
Allophones of . Always .
Allophones of . Always . There is some evidence for instances of free variation with (Schütz 1994:63-64).
Allophones of . Basically free variation of (lateral), (tap), and (retroflex). Elbert & Pukui (1979:25-26) pointed out some instances of and allophones. Schütz (1994:59, 63, 116) conjectured prevalence of in the northwestern islands, in the southeastern islands.
Allophones of . Free variation of and . Pukui & Elbert (1986:xvii) conjectured that there is conditioned variation of and , but their use of "usually" makes their theory an admission of free variation. Schütz (1994:119-122) conjectured that there was neither nor , but rather "something between the two". He further conjectured that it was not , but failed to specify any IPA symbol to identify it. (But see also Schütz's (1994:113) quotes from letter of Artemas Bishop.)
Note 1. Carter (1996:373-374) showed instances of synchronic alternation of every non-glottal Hawaiian consonant with glottal fricative and glottal stop . (See below, Why does Hawaiian have glottal stops?)
Note 2. There are also instances of variation with zero allophones. For example: "turn" (Pukui & Elbert 1986:86); "variety of shark" (Pukui & Elbert 1986:214).
Vowels
Depending on how one analyzes the inventory of Hawaiian vowel phonemes, it has either 5 or 25 phonemes (Lyovin 1997:259). The minimum figure of 5 is reached by counting only , , , , and as phonemes. Diphthongs and long vowels are analyzed as being sequences of two vowels. For example, the written form "ai" is phonemically , and the written form "ā" is phonemically . The maximum figure of 25 is reached by counting separately the 5 short vowels, the 5 long vowels, the 9 short diphthongs, and the 6 long diphthongs. A reason given to support this analysis is that the diphthongs "act as unit phonemes in regard to stress" (Lyovin 1997:259).When Hawaiian is considered to have only 5 vowel phonemes, then the overall phoneme count remains low at 13. But when the long vowels and diphthongs are considered to be separate individual phonemes, then the overall phoneme count reaches 33, and the claim that Hawaiian is notable for having a small phoneme inventory is rendered false (Lyovin 1997:259).
The vowel phonemes are shown in the following tables. The information given on allophones constitutes a basic description, not absolute laws. Native speakers of any language can get away with tweaking their own personal pronunciation any way they like.
=Monophthongs (one sound)
=| Monophthongs | Short | Long | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Front | Back | Front | Back | |
| High (close) | ||||
| Mid | ||||
| Low (open) | ||||
Allophone of . Always .
Allophone of . Always .
Allophone of . Always .
Allophone of . Always .
Allophone of . Always .
Allophones of . Stressed: . Unstressed: in a sequence of 2 or more syllables with ; otherwise .
Allophone of . Always .
Allophone of . Always .
Allophone of . Always .
Allophone of . Always .
Note 1. Vowel quality is the same for long and short vowels, except for vs. , and vs. .
Note 2. Vowel quality is the same for stressed short vowels and unstressed short vowels, except for unstressed when not in a sequence of 2 or more syllables with . For example, ‘ele‘ele "black" is pronounced . But ‘ale‘ale "full" is pronounced .
Note 3. There are instances where unstressed short can be raised to . For example, the negating form, or , can be pronounced or (Elbert & Pukui 1979:24).
Note 4. One might argue for free variation of and as allophones of stressed short . However, Elbert & Pukui (1979:22-24) made citations to Kinney (1956) and Newbrand (1951), based on tape-recorded evidence, which specifically noted ("pronounced like u in English cut"), but not . Even so, the pronunciations and , in Note 3 above, show that there are at least a couple of forms where is realized as .
=Diphthongs (two sounds)
=| Short Diphthongs | Ending with | Ending with | Ending with | Ending with |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starting with | ||||
| Starting with | ||||
| Starting with | ||||
| Starting with |
Allophone of . Always . Emphasis on , like .
Allophones of . Free variation of and . Emphasis on or .
Allophone of . Always . Emphasis on .
Allophone of . Always . Emphasis on .
Allophone of . Always . Emphasis on .
Allophones of . Basically , but in rapid speech. Emphasis on or .
Allophones of . Basically , but in rapid speech. Emphasis on or .
Allophone of . Always . Emphasis on .
Allophone of . Always . Emphasis on .
Note 1. Unlike all the others, which are rising diphthongs emphasizing the first sound, is a level diphthong emphasizing the second sound. For example, kiu "spy" is pronounced , sounding just like the English name for the letter Q. Another example is niu "coconut", pronounced (a single syllable).
Note 2. In a pedantic pronunciation, and can be and , respectively, but the and the and are commonly used.
| Long Diphthongs | Ending with | Ending with | Ending with | Ending with |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starting with | ||||
| Starting with | ||||
| Starting with |
Allophone of . Always . Emphasis on .
Allophone of . Always . Emphasis on .
Allophone of . Always . Emphasis on .
Allophone of . Always . Emphasis on .
Allophone of . Always . Emphasis on .
Allophone of . Always . Emphasis on .
Note 1. There is ordinarily no variation in the sounds of the long diphthongs.
Phonotactics (syllable structure)
Hawaiian syllables may contain one consonant in the onset, or there is no onset. Syllables with no onset contrast with syllables beginning with the glottal stop: "front, face" contrasts with "to dodge, evade". Codas and consonant clusters are prohibited in the phonotactics of Hawaiian words of Austronesian origin (Lyovin 1997:260). However, the borrowed word Kristo is pronounced (Elbert and Pukui 1979:13). One exception is the Hawaiian interjection kā, because it can be pronounced or (Pukui & Elbert 1986:106; Elbert & Pukui 1979:13).The syllable has a minimum of one vowel, and a maximum of two. A one-vowel syllable has any one of the short or long vowels. A two-vowel syllable has any one of the diphthongs.
The structure of the Hawaiian syllable can be represented as being (C)V or (C)D, where the round brackets around C mean that the syllable-initial consonant is optional, in terms of potential structure (Elbert & Pukui 1979:14). (It does not mean that consonants are optionally deleted when speaking.)
- V syllables. Every theoretically possible V syllable occurs in Hawaiian (Elbert & Pukui 1979:14).
- CV syllables. Every theoretically possible CV syllable occurs, with the single exception of wū (Pukui & Elbert 1986:1-386 Hawaiian headwords). The syllable wu occurs only in borrowed words (Schütz 1994:29 note 4). There are only two such words, with wu, in the Pukui-Elbert dictionary: Wulekake (or Vulegate) "Vulgate", and wulekula (or vuletura) "vulture", the very last Hawaiian headwords listed in the dictionary (Pukui & Elbert 1986:386).
Elbert & Pukui (1979:35 citing Krupa) pointed out that "Certain combinations of sounds are absent or rare." For example, no content word has the form CVV where the first V is long, and the form CVCV, with first V long, "is not common". They also noted that monosyllabic content words are always long.
Prosody (word-stress and intonation)
As shown by Schütz (Lyovin 1997:259; Pukui & Elbert 1986:xvii-xviii; Elbert & Pukui 1979:16-18), word stress (also called "word accent") is predictable in Hawaiian, in certain combinations of syllables. He defines a stressed syllable as one that is "more prominent than those around it" (e.g., louder in volume, longer in duration, higher in pitch). He identified six such combinations, calling them "stress units":- (C)VCV, with both vowels short. Examples: ahi, kahi.
- (C)V(C)VCV, same as 1 but preceded by an unstressed syllable. Examples: uahi, aloha, huali, kakahi.
- (C)D, like (C)VV, but the vowels form a diphthong. Examples: ai, wai.
- (C)V(C)D, same as 3 but preceded by an unstressed syllable. Examples: uai, uhai, kuai, wawai.
- (C)V, with a long vowel. Examples: ā, nā.
- (C)V(C)V, same as 5 but preceded by an unstressed syllable. Examples: iā, inā, huā, nanā.
For structures 1 and 2, stress is on the penultimate syllable. For structures 3 and 4, stress is on the diphthong. For structures 5 and 6, stress is on the long vowel.
For any Hawaiian word that consists wholly of one of these 6 stress units, such as the example words given, the word stress is predictable. For all other Hawaiian words, it is not predictable. However, every word can be analyzed as consisting of one or more of these stress units.
Processes (phenomena affecting pronunciation)
In any language natural fast speech is quite different from slow artificial speech, and in Hawaiian there are many changes of vowel values, losses of vowels, and stress changes. (Elbert & Pukui 1979:22)
Phonological processes at work in Hawaiian include palatalization of consonants, deletion of consonants, raising and diphthongization of vowels, deletion of unstressed syllables, and compensatory lengthening of vowels. Elbert & Pukui (1979:22-25) cited Kinney (1956) regarding "natural fast speech" (vowel raising, deletion of unstressed syllables), and Newbrand (1951) regarding Niihau dialect (free variation of and , deletion of consonants, allophone of , vowel raising).
Kinney (1956) studied tape recordings of 13-14 native speakers of Hawaiian. She noted assimilatory raising of vowels in vowel sequences. For example, was very frequently pronounced as , was often , and was often . She cited specific words, such as (directional adverb) as , (plural morpheme) as , and "horse" as . The pronunciation of the island name Maui, Maui, , was , with the quality of compared to that of u in English cut. She observed deletion of unstressed syllables, such as "God" pronounced as , and "go" pronounced as . She also documented pronunciations of "gotten" as , and "pig" as .
Newbrand (1951) found that a Niihauan wrote "t" and "k" interchangeably, and freely varied the pronunciation of both "t" and "k" as or . She found "no" pronounced as , showing vowel raising of to . She documented "staying" pronounced as , showing deletion of the glottal consonants and . The vowel quality of stressed short was noted as , "pronounced like u in English cut".
Palatalization of consonants in Hawaiian is demonstrated by the well known pronunciation of (mood adverb) as (Pukui & Elbert 1986:106; Elbert & Pukui 1979:101).
Why does Hawaiian have glottal stops?
Stranger still, that prevalent Polynesian sound, the so-called catch, written with an apostrophe, and often or always the gravestone of a perished consonant (Robert Louis Stevenson, In the South Seas, 1891 page 12, quoted in Schütz (1994:134))
In spite of the fact that the glottal stop has its own special symbol (a question mark without the bottom dot) in even the most elementary phonetics book, and although it is a phoneme in innumerable of the world's languages, it remains a source of mystery to many, who refuse to think of it as a Hawaiian consonant phoneme. (Elbert & Pukui 1979:11)
Some Hawaiian words have younger variant pronunciations where one or more non-glottal consonants of the older form are replaced by glottal consonants (h or ‘ ). I think that this is a result of a long-standing process that has caused Hawaiian consonants to eventually 'disappear', with the last stop on the road to oblivion being the glottal stop. (Carter 1996:373)
There is nothing strange or mysterious about the glottal stops in Hawaiian, although people often have that misconception. In Hawaiian, a phonemic glottal stop is sort of like a "dead consonant", or as Stevenson put it, "the gravestone of a perished consonant", or as Carter put it, "the last stop on the road to oblivion". This is because it is actually a phonetically reduced final remnant of a "phonetically fuller" consonant that used to be there in an earlier form of the relevant word.
This can be seen in the historical development of the dual personal pronouns (Pukui & Elbert 1986:213, 361; Elbert & Pukui 1979:107-108). As Lyovin (1997:268) stated: "The dual number suffix is derived from lua 'two', and the plural marker is derived from kolu 'three'."
| Dual Pronouns | 1st Person Exclusive | 1st Person Inclusive | 2nd Person | 3rd Person |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Meaning | "we two" | "we two" | "you two" | "they two" |
| Old form | ||||
| "Death" form | ||||
| New form |
The of in the 1st- and 3rd-person forms has "died" or "vanished", resulting in the modern forms māua, kāua, and lāua. The phonological evidence of this "death of a consonant" is: (1) the 2nd-person form, ‘olua, bearing witness to the fact that used to be there, and still is in this "sole survivor" form; and (2) the lingering existence of in place of in the intermediate (or "tombstone") forms, , , and . The presence of the glottal stop marks the absence of a "phonetically fuller" consonant that used to occupy its position in the word.
A Hawaiian glottal stop represents maximal phonetic reduction of a consonant. It is the minimum possible consonant. It has no voicing (no vocal cord vibrations), no nasality (no airflow through the nose), no frication (no air friction in the throat or mouth), no articulation with the tongue, and no articulation with the lips. It is a stopping of the airflow in the throat. It consists of silence. It is right next to nothing.
Elbert & Pukui (1979:12, 26-27) showed instances of and alternation, such as mukumuku/mu‘umu‘u "cut", and pūliki/pū‘iki "embrace". Carter (1996:373-374) showed examples of all seven of the (other) Hawaiian consonants alternating synchronically with glottal stop:
| P | K | H | M | N | L | W | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Meaning | "ear" | "long" | "circle" | "reddish-brown" | "tern" | "light" | "glowing red" |
| Old form | |||||||
| "Death" form |
The Hawaiian language has glottal stops because, over a period of many centuries, native speakers of Hawaiian (and its pre-Hawaiian stages) have been gradually merging, reducing, and eliminating the consonants of the language. The glottal stop is the final phase of a consonant's "life", before it becomes nothing and ceases to exist.
There is nothing special or unique about the glottal stops in Hawaiian. Many languages around the world have glottal stops, for example, Tahitian (Schütz 1994:146, 151 note 18), Tagalog (Ramos 1971:x, xii), Classical Tibetan (Lyovin 1997:153), Arabic (Lyovin 1997:203), Hebrew (Schütz 1994:142), and Finnish (Lyovin 1997:79). In fact, the same general phonological process that has created glottal stops in Hawaiian is currently at work in certain dialects of English (Schütz 1994:141). In those dialects, is being reduced to in certain phonological environments.
Why does Hawaiian have long vowels (and diphthongs)?
It is not necessary to postulate that the long vowels and diphthongs should be counted as separate single phonemes, because they can be treated as sequences of two vowels. They are in fact historically derived from two-syllable sequences. This is easily seen in the synchronic co-existence of allomorphic pairs of Hawaiian causative prefixes such as ho‘o- with hō-, and ha‘a- with hā- (Pukui & Elbert 1986:44, 73, 80). Another example is the allomorphic pair kolu with -kou, both meaning "three" (Pukui & Elbert 1986:164, 167).Both examples can be analyzed as a four-phoneme CVCV sequence alternating with a three-phoneme CVV sequence, where the CVV form is derived from the CVCV form through loss of the second consonant. In other words, loses the , resulting in (written as "hō"), and loses the , resulting in . Kolu is a root form, while -kou is found in the plural personal pronouns (indicating three or more referents) mākou, kākou, ‘oukou, and lākou (Lyovin 1997:268; Pukui & Elbert 1986:164, 167).
See also
- The Category:Hawaiian language and Category:Hawaiian derivations at Wiktionary, the free dictionary and Wikipedia's sibling project
- Languages in the United States
References
- Carter, Gregory Lee. (1996). The Hawaiian Copula Verbs He, ‘O, and I, as Used in the Publications of Native Writers of Hawaiian: A Study in Hawaiian Language and Literature. University of Hawai‘i Ph.D. dissertation. Ann Arbor: U.M.I.
- Churchward, C. Maxwell. (1959). Tongan Dictionary. Tonga: Government Printing Office.
- Dyen, Isidore. (1965). A Lexicostatistical Classification of the Austronesian Languages. Indiana University Publications in Anthropology and Linguistics. Memoir 19 of the International Journal of American Linguistics.
- Kinney, Ruby Kawena. (1956). A Non-purist View of Morphomorphemic Variations in Hawaiian Speech. Journal of the Polynesian Society 65 (3):282-286.
- Li, Paul Jen-kuei. (2001). The Dispersal of the Formosan Aborigines in Taiwan. Language and Linguistics 2.1: 271-278.
- _____. (2004). Numerals in Formosan Languages. Taipei: Academia Sinica.
- Newbrand, Helene L. (1951). A Phonemic Analysis of Hawaiian. University of Hawai‘i M.A. thesis.
- Warner, Sam L. (1996). I Ola ka ‘Ōlelo i nā Keiki: Ka ‘Apo ‘ia ‘ana o ka ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i e nā Keiki ma ke Kula Kaiapuni. the Language Live through the Children: The Acquisition of the Hawaiian Language by the Children in the Immersion School. University of Hawai‘i Ph.D. dissertation. Ann Arbor: U.M.I.
- Wilson, William H. (1976). The O and A Possessive Markers in Hawaiian. University of Hawai‘i M.A. thesis.
External links
- Ulukau - the Hawaiian electronic library
- Ask Yahoo!: How many people still speak Hawaiian?
- Ethnologue report for Hawaiian
- The Hawaiian Language Website
- Information and a resource link on Hawaiian.
- Ka Haka ‘Ula O Ke‘elikōlani, College of Hawaiian Language
- Omniglot Hawaiian article
- Kulaiwi — learn Hawaiian through distance learning courses
- Aha Punana Leo
- Kauakukalahale
- Was Hawaiian outlawed?
- Examples of published claims that Hawaiian was outlawed
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