How To Speak Hawaiian

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 . . .Of Humuhumunukunukuapuaa's and . . . other fancy hawaiian words.

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I know it got your attention. You see that word in a lot of places here in the islands. In fact I have even seen it on the mainland, usually on the t-shirt of some fisherman. What it is, is a fish. Yes, it is a real fish. It is called a trigger fish for short but why shorten it's name? I kind of like it the way it is. I was told that it is the Hawaiian State Fish, but even that is questionable.  Even more questionable is how to pronounce it which brings me to the real reason for this particular post. I figure that since you have had to put up with trying to pronounce the              
Hawaiian names I have been printing for the last three weeks, the least I can do is give you a "crash course" on how to speak  Hawaiian. It will certainly help you when you come here for a visit!

 

The fish in the title is pronounced Hu-mu-hu-mu-nu-ku-nu-ku-a-pu-a-a. All the vowels are short . . . at least in this case. I was told 20 years ago on my very first visit to the islands that if you pronounce all the vowels short you will be 95% correct in your pronunciation of the            
Hawaiian language. Well, that is almost correct. Let me explain further.
 

Hawaiian, like every other language, is more than just a tool for communication. It is a window that lets us look at the culture - one that may have changed dramatically with the introduction of so many competing ones, but one that still lives.  Many parts of this culture are reflected by the language - how people deal with each other, what they eat, what they ear, how they spend their leisure time, what they name their children, how they celebrate special occasions, how they campaign for political office, what kinds of arts and crafts they create - all these things and many more.

 

If your a visitor to this culture, it's often hard to participate in it, because you don't usually stay long enough to find out how things work. Even if you're kama'aina (born here, or long-term resident), there's so much outside influence that the real Hawaiian culture is sometimes hard to find. But the language is a starting point.

 

Lets start with the vowels. Here are the closest equivalents in English:
        a : as in "ah!"

        e : as in "bait"

         i : "beet"

        o : "boat"

        u : "boot"

These English examples are only a rough guide. Actually, Hawaiian has "pure" vowels - without the "w" or the "y" sounds that end some of the English vowels.   
an has pure" vowels - without the w or y 
 

Some vowels fit together as units - or diphthongs:

     ai; ae; au; ao; ei; eu; oi; ou and iu
 

Each vowel can be either long or short. A long vowel is marked with the first of the extra symbols as a line over the vowel. (I am unable to show it exactly in this post) As you would expect, a long vowel lasts longer than a short one. This is important as it can completely change the meaning of a word. For example, kane (kah-nai with a short a) is a skin disease but kane (ka-nai with a long a) is a male.
 

Consonants:
     h : house

     k : skin

      l : lead

    m : mat

     p : spin

     n : no

     w : wear

     very : oh-oh (as in the sound made between the oh's)

This is called the 'okina (glottal stop), which is the second symbol that was later added to the alphabet. It isn't written as a letter as we know it but rather with a backward apostrophe: ' (again unable to show in post) Just like any other consonant, the 'okina' keeps pairs of words from being confused. For example, it's the only difference between kou (koa-oo) which means 'your' and ko'u (koa'oo) which means 'my'.
 

Next, 'w' ranges from a 'w' to a 'v' sound, sometimes sounding like something between the two - rather like a "v" made with both lips (try it!) Example: a lot of time you will hear "Hawai'i as (Hah-wah-ee) or (Hah-vai-ee). In cases like these you have to listen to how native speakers pronounce this sound.
 
Hawaiian words are put together very differently from English words. You can never find two or more consonants together, and every syllable (and thus, every word) ends in a vowel. A syllable can be made up of just one vowel, and so some Hawaiian words can consist of vowels alone. An example is ua (oo-ah) which means 'rain' (2 syllables) or uia (oo-ee-ah) which is a kind of taro plant (3 syllables). However, it's more cmmon for a syllable to begin with a consonant. Example: ma-ha-lo (mah-hah-loa) 'thank you' or ka-na-ka (kah-nah-kah) 'person'

How do diphthongs fit into syllables? They make up just one syllable, not two. As you just saw, ua 'rain' is two syllables. But the same vowels in the reverse order form a diphthong: au (ahoo) 'I' which is one syllable.  It's occasionally been suggested that because Hawaiians have a relatively small alphabet (five vowels and eight consonants), it couldn't have a very large vocabulary. Well, including long vowels, dipthongs, and long diphthongs, the language has a 
potential for 225 one-syllable words. If we add two-, three-, and four-syllable words, the figure rises to 2,574,332,100 different words that are possible in the Hawaiian language. That is more than enough for any language.

 

Well, that's the basics. If it is written correctly, then using the guides I gave you above, you should have a pretty good idea how to pronounce the words.  I will list the eight island names (and their pronunciations) to give you a start.
        Hawai'i (Hah-vai'ee)</p>
        Maui (Mahoo-ee)</p>
        Kaho'olawe (Kah-oa'oa-lah-wai)</p>
        Lana'i (Lah-nah'ee)</p>
        Moloka'i (Moa-loa-kah'ee)</p>
        O'ahu (O'ah-hoo)</p>
        Ni'ihau (Nee'ee-hau)</p>
        Kaua'i (Kah-wai'ee)</p>
        Have fun trying it out! If you want to learn more go to this website (without the quotes):
 

                 "http://www.instantHawaii.com/cgi-bin/ Hawaii?Language"        
 

The best place I have found to learn the language

 

AND of course, to continue on our journey of Molokai, click on the button below and then scroll down to just below the "How To Speak Hawaiian button and start at July 25th . . .

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