Talk:Hawaiian language

Questions related to Hawaiian language (see also Glottal section below)

Miscellaneous questions

I finally got around to looking at this page and I have some questions.

No 't' sound in Hawaiian? As I understand it, the t and k sounds blur into each other, with a t pronunciation being more common on Kaua'i and a k pronunciation on the Big Island. Which is why some explorers wrote about Tamehameha, etc. Ditto r and l, which is why we see Honoruru in older books. The reduction of the language to written form and then the drastic reduction in Hawaiian speakers has meant -- so I'm told -- that more Hawaiians speak a Hawaiian that's artificially shaped by reduction to writing, as well as by the English language environment and teachers who learned it as a second language.

The situation is much more complex than that. Simple explanations: 1. It used to be /t/ everywhere. Changed to /k/. 2. The l/r sound was probably something like the Japanese sound; the missionaries who standardized Hawaiian spelling had a vote on l versus r, and l won. 3. Just about the only native speakers of Hawaiian are on Ni'ihau; the "Hawaiian" spoken elsewhere is heavily influenced by English, Tongan and Samoan. Squidley 17:53, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Actually, there are more native speakers from off of Ni'ihau combined than there are people on Ni'ihau. Also, even Ni'ihau Hawaiian is influenced by English. They say "i to" instad of just "i;" they say "paha" to mean "but," taken from English "but" rather than Hawaiian "perhaps," among other things. But how exactly is spoken Hawaiian "heavily influenced by [...] Tongan and Samoan?" What attributes of spoken Hawaiian have been heavily influenced by Tongan and Samoan. I highly suspect this to be bullshit. --Kainulama 04:55, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually again, the situation is more complex then Squidley's simple explanation. For example, how does Squidley figure that /t/ (sic) was used everywhere, then changed to /k/ (sic)? I.e., why would those who first developed the orthography (viz. the Missionaries) organize a vote between <t> and <k> if no Hawaiian speaker ever used [k]? That would have been silly! (Yes, the missionaries voted on <t> versus <k>, too.) If you doubt me, check out the early word lists. Hawaiian [k] is not some "degraded" [t]. [k] was, and remains, as valid an allophone as [t]. Voltaire3001 05:26, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I'll put that into the article, if no one has any objections.

Also, the 162 possible syllables figure seems too low. Is that counting all the possible variations with long and short vowels? It's late and I'm too tired to drag down my concrete math text and think about combinations and variations ...

Other interesting features of Hawaiian aren't mentioned. It has two forms of possessive, right? Like Tongan? A and o? A dual? Extensive use of possessives? Inclusive and exclusive we?

One final thing -- at least in Tonga there are alternate words for speaking to or about people of different status. An arm is nima, but God's arm (or the king's arm) is a to'ikupu. I've always thought that there must be something equivalent in Hawaiian, common and elegant words, but I've never seen any mention of it.

Oh, and we should probably mention kaona, yes?

Zora 09:51, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Kia Ora. Unlike Tongan (and other Western Polynesian languages), Eastern Polynesian languages lack 'respect' vocabularies

Maori rahi

Actually, I'm not sure where the 162 came from. I count 90: 9 initials (h, k, l, m, n, p, w, 'okina, plus no consonant) by 10 finals (5 long vowels, 5 short vowels) = 90. But then there might be more if you include diphthongs like ai, ae, ou, etc. KeithH 02:36, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

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What about japanese? Does it have more syllables than hawaiian? Also, I have heard about one obscure language with very few syllables/phonemes somewhere.

Yes, Japanese has many more syllables than Hawaiian. Yes, there are languages with fewer consonants, fewer vowels, and even fewer phonemes than Hawaiian. Squidley 17:53, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

For a language that is claimed to have fewer consonants (and phonemes) than Hawaiian, check out Rotokas. Voltaire3001 05:27, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Babel Templates for Hawaiian

Please check out the following Wikipedia link: [1] I have created the proper templates related to the Hawaiian language, for Wikipedia:Babel. However, my Hawaiian is only at a novice level. Please check the following for correctness:

1. HAW-1 : Hiki mea ‘akahi akahi ke hā‘awi ‘ōlelo Hawai‘i. (This user is able to contribute with a basic level of Hawaiian).
2. HAW-2 : Hiki mea mawaena ke hā‘awi ‘ōlelo Hawai‘i. (This user is able to contribute with a intermediate level of Hawaiian).
3. HAW-3 : Hiki mea kahuna ke hā‘awi ‘ōlelo Hawai‘i.(This user is able to contribute with a advanced level of Hawaiian).
4. HAW-4 : Hiki mea kokoke kama‘āina ke hā‘awi ‘ōlelo Hawai‘i. (This user speaks Hawaiian at a near-native level).
5. HAW-N : Hiki mea kama‘āina ke hā‘awi ‘ōlelo Hawai‘i. (This user is a native speaker of Hawaiian).

Thank you very much.--Endroit 02:56, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

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You got sort of close, but the constructions above are ungrammatical in Hawaiian. The following expressions get the point across, in a Hawaiian manner:

1. HAW-1 : Aia ka poeko i ke kūlana ha`aha`a. (The fluency is at a low rank.)
2. HAW-2 : Aia ka poeko i ke kūlana ma waena. (The fluency is at a rank in between.)
3. HAW-3 : Aia ka poeko i ke kūlana ki`eki`e. (The fluency is at a high rank.)
4. HAW-4 : Kokoke ka poeko i ko ka mānaleo. (The fluency is near a native speaker's.)
5. HAW-N : He mānaleo kēia. (This is a native speaker.)

If you want to parallel the English as closely as possible, then it goes like this:

1. HAW-1 : Hiki i kēia kanaka ke hā`awi me kahi kūlana ha`aha`a ma ka `ōlelo Hawai`i. (This user is able to contribute with a basic level in the Hawaiian language.)
2. HAW-2 : Hiki i kēia kanaka ke hā`awi me kahi kūlana o waena ma ka `ōlelo Hawai`i. (This user is able to contribute with an intermediate level in the Hawaiian language.)
3. HAW-3 : Hiki i kēia kanaka ke hā`awi me kahi kūlana ki`eki`e ma ka `ōlelo Hawai`i. (This user is able to contribute with an advanced level in the Hawaiian language.)
4. HAW-4 : `Ōlelo Hawai`i kēia kanaka ma kahi kūlana kokoke i ko ka mānaleo. (This user speaks Hawaiian at a level near to the native speaker's.)
5. HAW-N : He mānaleo kēia kanaka ma ka `ōlelo Hawai`i. (This user is a native speaker in the Hawaiian language.)

A translation that most closely parallels the original in syntactic structure and word-for-word correspondence is sometimes NOT the "best" translation, because different languages can have major differences in the normal way of expressing the same idea. For that reason, the first set of Hawaiian expressions I suggested above is better than the second, in my opinion, even though the second set is a "closer" or "tighter" translation. Agent X 16:44, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

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Possible Hawaiian term in Chinook Jargon?

Hi. I'm wading into deep water here, but hopefully someone in this group has heard of the Chinook Jargon, which was the trade language of the old Pacific Northwest. Current scholarship dictates that only the word kanaka entered the Jargon from Hawaiian, but contemporary records indicate that the Hawaiians in service to the fur companies spoke their own brand of the Jargon, peppered with Hawaiianisms and mixed with the peculiar French-ScotsEnglish-Native argot of the fur entrepots and their crews. The non-native variants of the Jargon all went unrecorded (e.g. there's also known Scandinavian, Chinese and Japanese variants, but again unstudied and, unless there are documents in private archives somewhere, undocumented).

Recently I was reading Kanaka by Tom Koppel, which is a history of the Hawaiians in the Pacific Northwest. Towards the end of the book, discussing the Mahoy family of the Gulf Islands, their family variant of the Chinook Jargon word for "spirit" or "magic" shows up as tamanos, which Koppel cites without mentioning the Jargon, as if it were a word inherited from the Hawaiian language; he also uses it as a plural, suggesting tamano as the singular. The meaning here is something like "guardian spirit" but the wider meaning of tamanass or tamahnous or tamanawaz (all variations within the Chinook Jargon) also includes all forms of supernatural power; the powers/worldview describec by the term was demonized by the church, of course, and it became associated with only dark magic - a tamanassman was a witch doctor, a tamanasswind a hurricane.; which isn't to say it didn't already have that connotation in addition to patron spirits and animal guides and stuff; it's all of that. The spirits alluded to by Koppel's Kanaka informants are those of their ancestral heritage - sort of, given that long residence in the Pacific Northwest as well as intermarriage with local native people and others indicate that this wasn't a purely Hawaiian-flavoured spirituality.

So here's my question - is tamano or tamanos a word in Hawaiian? With this meaning, or something like it? If it is, it's a bit of a breakthrough in CJ studies; or it could just be that Koppel didn't realize the word's purely Chinook origin when he cited it in his book, assuming it was Hawaiian in origin because it was a Kanaka he was talking to. Thoughts?Skookum1 21:45, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with that word in any context, but it can conceivably be Hawaiian if it is a word from Kauaʻi or from any other of the T dialects in the language. Words from these dialects penetrated even the standard language of the big island, retaining T pronunciations. Standard Hawaiian is conventional big island language with only K and not T, but the surviving community of Niʻihau speaks with T instead of K. On the other hand, it is possible that "tamano" is Portuguese, as immigrants settled all over the archipelago's mountain valleys. - Gilgamesh 04:46, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

References

Although some given information in reference publications can be actually wrong, people interested in knowing the truth can use reference works as a starting point.

The article currently has only 3 references listed. The year of publication and ISBN information was lost, apparently on 23 February 2006, in association with a switch to the use of a new(er) template. The ISBN's are not all correct anyway. I will correct the ISBN's, but I don't know how the template works, so somebody who knows that will have to fix it in order to make the ISBN and year of publication show up in the article. Agent X 13:25, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, Jere Krischel, for fixing the "cite book" template. I've added Lyovin 1997 to the references, and appropriate citations to Lyovin in the article. Agent X 19:05, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Editing the article

Wikipedia style guidelines

• The lead section should be a summary of the article. It should NOT contain citations.

I rewrote the lead (a while back) to take care of this. However, updates to the article may motivate updates to the lead. Agent X 05:22, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

• Only make links that are relevant to the context.

I'm removing some links, like "Pineapple", that have nothing to do with Hawaiian language. Agent X 19:12, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

• Resist making red links.

President of the Republic of Hawaii has been red for some time now, so I'll remove the square brackets. If an article on that is eventually written, the link can be put back. I would like to link to shared innovations, for explanation relating to the comparative method, but have not yet found good info to link to, so I'll remove that too. Agent X 23:08, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

• Explain jargon. Make technical articles accessible.

Suggestion for organizing article material

Because Hawaiian language can be related to many various other topics, please consider implementing a nice method of organizing such topics, in a way that allows wikipedia users to easily navigate to particular topics relating to Hawaiian language.

For example, there could be an initial division between: (1) the language itself, and (2) other topics in connection with the language. Division 1 could include stuff like: Orthography, Phonology, Morphology, Syntax, Semantics, Discourse, Hawaiian Linguistics. Division 2 could include stuff like: Hawaiian-language literature, Hawaiian-language history, Hawaiian-language revitalization, Hawaiian-language politics, Hawaiian-language learning, Hawaiian-language teaching, etc., etc.

A user bored by politics but thrilled by grammar could enjoy Division 1 without the distraction of info on politics. A user bored by grammar but thrilled by politics could enjoy Division 2 without the distraction of info on grammar.

Now, before anybody says "Sounds OK, why don't YOU do it?!", let me acknowledge my lack of knowledge on how to make the kind of edits that would do the trick. Also, do such changes require some pre-approval by a wiki-wizard of sorts?

Agent X 21:50, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Deleted/suspended material

Woo-woo interpolation

Someone new to Wikipedia spent some time working on the Hawaiian alphabet section, adding some completely inaccurate info claiming that Hawaiian used to be written with symbols (as in petroglyphs) which no one now can read, and then segued into a bizarrely off-topic addition about missionaries destroying Hawaiian culture and killing off Hawaiians. I have deleted all this. A severe reaction, to be sure. If the person who added the bit about petroglyphs wants to do some real research and contribute an article about petroglyphs, we may find room for that POV there, as in "some people claim that these petroglyphs have meanings now lost". Zora 08:36, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Diachronic phonology

I removed this from the sub-subsection on glottal stops:

The k and t underwent a consonant shift in Hawaiian. Most Polynesian languages use these two consonants, but in Hawaiian, t has generally shifted to the k-sound and k has been dropped and is replaced by the glottal stop. Thus, Polynesian te/ta (the) = Hawaiian ke/ka and Polynesian Hawaiki (homeland) = Hawaiian Hawai`i. See next section for more on allophonic variation.

The T-to-K shift does not explain Hawaiian glottal stops. Hawaiian K was not "dropped" and replaced by glottal. Rather, the K "transforms" or "phonologically decays" into a glottal. At the time when diachronic (historical) sound shifts are actually in progress, they can result in temporary allophonic variation which can eventually disappear at the time when the change is completed. I have not read any published theory that "Polynesian te/ta" became ke/ka in Hawaiian. The split of inherited te into Hawaiian ke and ka is conditioned by factors in Hawaiian which did not necessarily exist in "Polynesian". For example, the common article in Samoan is le, not te/ta, nor ke/ka. Samoan has T-to-K shifting, but its motivation is different from that in Hawaiian. Older forms of Hawai`i probably begin with an S rather than an H. Agent X 04:06, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Hawaiian Creole English

I deleted the small section on HCE. It is not Hawaiian, and it has its own article. No need to redundantly discuss it in this article. I gave it a mention (and link) near the end of the lead section. Agent X 15:42, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Learning Hawaiian as a second language

• Stubby, no citations. If/when improved, it can be put back in the article. Agent X 21:02, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

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

• Stubby, no citations. If/when improved, it can be put back in the article. Agent X 21:02, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

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.

External links

Deleted because it's dead.

• Information and a resource link on Hawaiian. Deleted by Agent X 23:00, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Deleted because the linked page contains misinformation.

• Omniglot Hawaiian article Deleted by Agent X 23:17, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

• Ask Yahoo!: How many people still speak Hawaiian? Deleted by Agent X 23:27, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

• The Hawaiian Language Website Deleted by Agent X 23:48, 19 July 2006 (UTC). The site admits to being non-professional, "Created by volunteers who do not feign to be experts". It models some examples of incorrect Hawaiian, not knowing that it's incorrect. It has some correct information that might be of some value to beginners. The problem is that beginners are not likely to be able to distinguish the correct from the incorrect information.

• Aha Punana Leo Deleted by Agent X 01:02, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Use of scare quotes

In reference works on languages, such as Schutz 1994, SCARE QUOTES are used to point out IRONY. The Wikipedia stub on scare quotes, which is linked in the Wikipedia Manual of Style, is partially quoted here.

In journalism, scare quotes are quotation marks used for any other purpose than to identify a direct quotation, such as for emphasis or irony. [italic added]

In spite of their pejorative label, such quotes may be used legitimately. An author who uses quotation marks in such a manner may do so in order to disclaim responsibility for the words, or to emphasize that a specialized, narrowed or historical sense of the quoted material is being suggested. [italic added]

Thus, my use of scare quotes to emphasize a narrowed, metaphorical use of the quoted material, such as "dead consonants", etc., is legitimate, and scare quotes are acknowledged in the Wikipedia Manual of Style. Agent X 10:38, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Language politics

Hawaii talk page archives

POLITICS BEHIND LANGUAGE POLICIES

1. I just visited your Hawaii Talk Page and reviewed your archived stuff --- 1, 2, 3, 4 --- ALL of it. Wow! So much tension! But I understand it. People care about what's being done here, and they want to put in their two cents, as do I.

2. Regarding a purported movement away from "Hawaii" and toward "Hawai`i", and toward use of Hawaiian spellings (with macrons and glottal stop symbols), I believe that those who see such a movement are themselves proponents of such a movement, and they are viewing the world through movement-colored glasses. Hawaii's population is over one million, but only one thousand or so are native speakers of Hawaiian, only about 0.1%. The percentage of part-racial Hawaiians is much higher, but is not close to being a majority. It's fact that some state government organizations and officials have endorsed the promotion of Hawaiian language, through various means, and it's a somewhat popular cause. However, politicians are doing it largely out of self defense. It would be political suicide to appear to be anti-Hawaiian, or un-Hawaiian, due to the loud and publicly made complaints that would be made by Hawaiian activists. Politicians want to get the Hawaiian vote, just as they want to get every other vote. Many businesses, also, want to project a Hawaiian image, even when their business has no necessary relation to "Hawaiian-ness". Every given place on Earth is subject to the effects of LOCAL PRIDE, but in Hawaii it's nearly an obsession for many people, no doubt exacerbated by living on rather small geographically isolated islands. Here, being "local" means being "Hawaiian", by race, by residence, by name, by pronunciation, by spelling, or by something. In spite of --- (a) Hawaiian being an "official" language; (b) any government office using "Hawai`i" in their seal; (c) a newspaper using Hawaiian spellings; (d) some newscasters using Hawaiian pronunciations; (e) the existence of some immersion schools; or (f) Governor Lingle using a "v" when she says "Havai`i" --- the vast VAST majority of Hawaii residents will not become fluent in Hawaiian. If you got a random sample of 10,000 Hawaii residents (1% of our population), gave them a pen and blank piece of paper, and let them freely write "the H-word" on their paper, without trying to influence their action, most people would write "Hawaii", NOT "Hawai`i".

3. Regarding the use of the words "`okina" and "kahakoo", as if they need to be, or should be, used, that is a choice which will lead to lots and lots of unnecessary confusion for readers. "`Okina" is nothing more than a Hawaiian word for a symbol to represent a glottal stop. Various symbols have been used for this purpose in written Hawaiian. None of them are actually Hawaiian by origin. All of them were described with English words before ever being called an "`okina". The "apostrophe", "single quote", "back tick", "U+02BB" --- all of these have served as the "`okina". But it is not at all necessary to use the Hawaiian name "`okina" for this letter, any more than it would be necessary to use the Hawaiian name "muu" for the letter "M". Likewise, "kahakoo" is nothing more than a Hawaiian word for "macron". In fact, it was generally called "mekona" (Hawaiianization of the word "macron") before "kahakoo" became more used. There is no need at all, in English writing, to use the names "`okina" and "kahakoo" instead of "glottal stop" and "macron". Many readers of English do not know the terms "macron" and "glottal stop". But you can bet your buns that far FAR fewer readers of English will know the terms "kahakoo" and "`okina".

Agent X 09:13, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Reasons for decline of Hawaiian language

I'm a haole living in Hawaii (near Keola's place of employment) and was a little surprised to see that the article, along with mentioning people voluntarily teaching their kids English instead of Hawaiian, doesn't make any mention whatsoever of any official discouragement of the use of Hawaiian, particularly the law prohibiting use of Hawaiian as the primary language in schools from 1896 to 1987. While official discouragement may very well not have been a primary factor in the decline of the language (it has been pointed out elsewhere that by the time of the 1893 overthrow, there were only 28 schools statewide using it as a primary language), it seems disingenuous to entirely omit mention of this.

Dan 22:39, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Good point. Can you do the edits? I'm swamped. Zora 09:43, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

NO SUCH THING AS "OFFICIAL DISCOURAGEMENT" OF HAWAIIAN LANGUAGE

1. Hey Dan and Zora, check this out: http://www.angelfire.com/hi2/hawaiiansovereignty/hawlangillegal.html

Dr. Kenneth Conklin, a prolific writer, has a webpage that focuses on "Hawaiian Sovereignty" and other Hawaiian-related matters, including Hawaiian language. Conklin skillfully debunks the preposterous lie that Hawaiian language was made "illegal" from 1896 to 1987. Don't worry if you have been DUPED into believing that lie. You weren't the first and you won't be the last. This sort of thing happens all the time, 365.25 days per year.

2. As Conklin points out, there was an 1896 law which guaranteed that children in Hawaii would have equal access to an English-medium education. It accomplished that by requiring the use of English as the main language of instruction in government-certified schools. English-medium education was the most popular and most desired educational mode of the time, not only for racially Caucasian kids, but for racially Hawaiian kids as well. Witness the fact that in 1885, eleven years BEFORE the 1896 law, the prospectus of the Kamehameha Schools announced that instruction will be given IN ENGLISH (not Hawaiian).

3. The 1896 law specifically PROVIDED for the teaching of languages other than English in the English-medium government-certified schools, and specifically PROVIDED for such teaching to be specifically approved under the relevant law. Thus, it was 100% LEGAL to have the teaching of Hawaiian (or any other language) specifically approved under the 1896 law.

4. The 1896 law DOES NOT say anything like "Teaching in Hawaiian is hereby outlawed" or "hereby made illegal" or "hereby officially discouraged". That law does not even mention Hawaiian language at all.

5. One might complain that the 1896 law, while allowing Hawaiian as a SECONDARY avenue for education, "prevented" Hawaiian-medium instruction as the PRIMARY avenue. This complaint is totally false, because residents of turn-of-the-century Hawaii were free to set up and run non-government schools which could use any desired language, including Hawaiian, as the PRIMARY medium of instruction. Racially Japanese residents of Hawaii in fact did just that. They established Japanese-language schools for their kids. Many Japanese kids attended BOTH a government-based English-medium school, AND a community-based Japanese-medium school. Those kids were certainly immersed in bi-lingual educational opportunities and activities. Any residents of Hawaii, whether racially Hawaiian or otherwise, could have chosen to set up a non-government (community-based) Hawaiian-medium school for their kids. They wouldn't even have to make it a formal thing, if they wanted it to be casual and free. Or, they could make it as formal as they like, and charge tuition as they like. The example of the Kamehameha Schools is again important. They were totally free to choose Hawaiian, but their free choice was English.

6. Another important point highlighted by Conklin is the fact that, around 1925, the U.S. federal courts ruled that schools can use ANY LANGUAGE OF THEIR CHOICE as the PRIMARY MEDIUM OF INSTRUCTION. There was a Hawaii case that was decided in favor of this freedom. It started in the district court, went to the 9th circuit court, and went to the supreme court. At all three court levels, the courts ruled in favor of language freedom. So the claim that Hawaiian language was "officially discouraged" from 1896 to 1987 can be described, perhaps, as "disingenuous".

7. Dan expressed surprise at the fact that most native speakers of Hawaiian eventually made the free choice to NOT pass on the Hawaiian language to their own children, with the deliberate hope that withholding Hawaiian would boost their children's abilities in English. Well, the truth can be surprising to some people, but that's no reason to hide the truth. I personally interviewed a woman whose parents were native speakers of Hawaiian and friends of Queen Liliuokalani. She told me that her parents spoke Hawaiian to each other, but never to her. There's nothing detrimental about being bi-lingual, so the withholding of Hawaiian language by native-speaking parents was not justified. Their intentions were good (to help their kids), but their appraisal of bi-lingualism (or mono-lingual Hawaiian ability) was bad.

8. A FINAL POINT --- Living, natural, human languages do NOT originate in schools, and they are NOT perpetuated by schools. Living languages are perpetuated by being transferred from parent to child. The transfer process essentially takes place in the home during the first four or five years of the child's life. The child's brain automatically and subconsciously analyzes and acquires the vast majority of the subconscious language skills and subconscious language knowledge from the speech behavior and speech content of the parents. So, by the time children are old enough to attend grade one in primary school, they already "have" their native language. A school CANNOT take away a child's native language or replace it with another. A school CAN help a child to acquire an additional (second) language, but it cannot subtract, delete, nor erase any native-language abilities. Thus, there is no way that a law requiring English-medium education could cause the decline of the Hawaiian language. Also, there is no way that Hawaiian-medium education, per se, could create native speakers of Hawaiian. Granted, some children might develop excellent abilities in Hawaiian language, but true native-speaker ability requires native-speaker parents from birth through age five.

Agent X 21:58, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Someone who writes diatribes on a free website isn't "prolific". You obviously don't know his true background and most importantly intent. Mamoahina 21:04, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

AMENDMENT TO (8):

Hey! From reading these pages, I gather that language is a very political topic in Hawai'i. I'd like to note, however, that from a logical and linguistic point of view, "A FINAL POINT" is not true. Imagine you lived outdoors all your life; could you learn a native language? Of course! So, in a physical sense, there's nothing crucial about the language of your "home" over the language of your "school" or whatever. Also, consider children raised without parents; can THEY acquire a native language? Yes! So, the native language your parents speak is not a necessary condition on the native language your speak. In fact, to argue otherwise is circular and ridiculous! And I do mean RIDICULOUS -- in a logical sense, not personally. If you believe that being a native speaker of X requires your parents to be native speakers of X, and if your parents became native speakers of X because their parents were native speakers of X, and so on, then you get an infinite regress. Either (1) there have never been any native speakers of X, or there have ALWAYS been native speakers of X (which is preposterous). What matters for one to develop a native language is sufficent contact at a crucial age (i.e. before and through puberty). This criterion could certainly be provided by a school. I don't see why you would argue otherwise. Language transmission might OFTEN happen through parents and home, but these are not necessary. So, again, I don't understand why you would try to use these as limiting factors for how a native language might be transmitted, unless (1) you have political reasons or (2) you just didn't think it through. Anyway, I hope this helps. Kids can develop native language abilities in schools. If you like, I've seen research on this from Canada.

P.S. One may, of course, have more than one native langauge.

--163.1.87.11

Moved decline of Hawaiian language lower down in the article and removed POV language

I'm not quite sure when all that stuff was added, but it was POV as heck. Language like "Conklin demonstrates that whining Hawaiian activists are completely wrong" -- or something like that -- has no place in an Wikipedia article. Plus whoever did this huge dump of material from Conklin's website concentrates all of his/her fire on the clearly mistaken claim that the government banned Hawaiian. I'm not sure how widespread this belief is now, and we need cites for it. But ... that doesn't begin to deal with claims which I'm sure I've read, though I don't have cites at hand, that prohibiting the use of Hawaiian in schools (along with Japanese, Chinese, Tagalog, etc.) contributed mightily to the decline, as did the general social prejudice against Hawaiians. People were not anxious to take up a stigmatized identity.

I'm going to ask some other editors to help. We may also want to move this controversy to a breakout article. Surely the Hawaiian language article ought to be about language, not Hawaiian politics. Zora 07:23, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Hey Zora, I tried to take a stab at reducing the political nature of the cite of Conklin's stuff - we might just be able to cite the law Conklin cites, and remove the pro/anti-sovereignty antagonism entirely...referencing Reinecke instead might also be useful (John E. Reinecke, "Language and Dialect in Hawaii: A Sociolinguistic History to 1935." Edited by Stanley M. Tsuzaki. Honolulu: Universiry of Hawaii Press, 1969. Reprinted 1988. Paperback edition February, 1995.).

You're absolutely right, it seemed of a tone and tenor entirely out of proportion to the mild mention of claims that it was banned...hopefully M.ana will join in and help out too. --JereKrischel 08:44, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Recent political edits

I've taken out the reference to alleged colonialism, as well as the assertion that a Republic of Hawaii law was overturned in the 1980s without a citation - perhaps a more specific reference would be helpful, since I would be surprised if Republic laws stayed on the books much past the Organic Act of 1900. Also, uncited "small bilingual communities" seems to be a stretch to describe anyone not on the island of niihau. I like to POV removal of the Conklin material, but it seems that the pendulum swung the other way a bit.

--JereKrischel 17:19, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I would guess that "small bilingual communities" refer to Kaiapuni families, specifically on the islands of Hawai'i, Maui, O'ahu, and Kaua'i (I think). These people have created living and working environments in which Hawaiian is the dominant medium for communication; go check it out. But since they all live in a second society of English and Pidgin speakers, they speak those languages too. So rather than cut out "small bilingual communities" someone should add "small multilingual communities", since "Pidgin" is a language (I mean linguistically, not politically).

--163.1.87.11

Hawaiian not endangered, according to Wikipedia criteria

Umm......the endangered language page doesn't consider Hawaiian an endangered language. It actually state's that it's not one.CharlesMartel 04:38, 24 March 2006 (UTC)CharlesMartel

HAWAIIAN IS NOT AN ENDANGERED LANGUAGE

1. Excellent point, well taken (above) by CharlesMartel on 24 March 2006. Hawaiian is definitely NOT on the Wikipedia "Endangered language" page. The page states that an endangered language has "so few surviving speakers that it is in danger of falling out of use". Thanks to the Niihauans, Hawaiian is NOT endangered (and NEVER has been). The page explains a scenario where a language with not that many speakers is not in danger --- "In contrast [to an endangered language], a language with only 100 speakers might be considered very much alive if it is the primary language of a community, and is the first (or only) language of all children in that community.". That statement fits Niihau quite well (although Niihau has closer to 200 residents).

2. While Hawaiian is correctly NOT ON the list, Maori is oddly ON the list. Use of Maori is stronger than use of Hawaiian.

3. The Wikipedia "List of endangered languages" page also does NOT list Hawaiian as endangered, and this is the page which specifically points out that Hawaiian "has school instruction ... from kindergarten through college".

4. Hawaiian is ON the Wikipedia "List of revived languages" page. Well, again, Hawaiian has never been "revived" on Niihau because it was never endangered in the first place.

5. One might claim that Hawaiian WAS "partially endangered", and then "partially revived", on SOME of the islands, but it does NOT currently meet the Wikipedia criteria to be an endangered language. At any rate, the article needs to be edited so that it no longer makes the incorrect statement that "Hawaiian is an endangered language".

Agent X 17:54, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

A professional linguist dissents

Sure, Wikipedia knows all. NOT. Professional linguists affirm that Hawaiian is endangered. How do I know? I am one of them! What a blissfully naive individual you are, if you believe that Hawaiian is NOT in immediate danger of extinction, even within a few generations. Sure, Ni'ihau is quarantined off from the rest of the islands. But for how long? That population is extremely small and, as its members may move between Ni'ihau and the rest of the islands, the community is not impervious to the effects of English. The Ni'ihauans basically live there by the grace of that Haole family who own their island. Really, it's ridiculous to conceive of Hawaiian as "safe". If NOTHING changes, well, the language would never die. Sure. People could go on speaking it on Ni'ihau, as you suggest. But what is history if not a record one upheaval after another? The world is changing PROFOUNDLY and Hawaiian has very little stored away for a rainy day. Gosh, it must be such bliss to be so ignorant! Are you daft?? Why would you try to brush off the threat of extinction? Could it be to muffle the cries of death? One only imagines your motivation. Do you honestly think that ignoring the problem will solve it? Something must be done! Open your eyes. Much is being done, yes. But this is LIFE SUPPORT! Furthermore, the Wikipedia "Endangered language" page doesn't hold much water for me. For instance, how do I know that you didn't edit it? How do I know that you don't have some nefarious agenda? If I were Wikipedia's designers, I'd be angry. Your misleading sophism damages its credibility. Voltaire3001 06:34, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Hinton and Hale do not speak for all linguists. Neither do you. You might or might not be a "professional linguist" as you claim. In the field of linguistics, there tends to be disagreement on nearly every conceivable point. If Hawaiian is endangered, what are you going to do about it, that is, besides despairing and worrying, and throwing insults at people whose views are different from yours? Are you going to have children and raise them as native speakers of Hawaiian? Or are you going to insist that others must do that even if they don't want to? You are failing to admit the validity of AgentX's point regarding the free will of the people of Niihau. Perpetuating Hawaiian is a free choice to be made by them --- not imposed by you or any other self-proclaimed professional linguist.

At any rate, compare how easy it is to speak your own first language with your own children in your own home, as opposed to deliberately stifling yourself and speaking only a foreign language in your own home to your own kids, 24/7. And what motivation would a resident of Niihau have for speaking all English and no Hawaiian to her kids? They don't have to speak English there. But they can if they want to. It's not your place to decide. Voltaire3001 is not the King of Niihau.

Another point is that people who advocate the view that Hawaiian is endangered can seek money, in the form of grants and/or donations, for projects to "save" or "perpetuate" the language. But if people acknowledge that Hawaiian is not endangered, then the sympathy money will not be available for the personal projects (pockets) of the self-appointed saviors. There is monetary motivation for perpetuating the notion (scam?) that Hawaiian is "endangered". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.248.10.61 (talk) 00:55, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

It's true! Linguists are in the business for the money. It is *very* lucrative. Personally speaking, I own five yachts, a million billion jets, and Ni'ihau. ;-)

Seriously, though, I don't contest the rights of Ni'ihauans. If they want to stop speaking it, fine.

You want to say that Hawaiian is *not* endangered. You presume it in the way you write, for example when you say "if people acknowledge that Hawaiian is not endangered." I don't understand why. Maybe you're angry. Write a biography or something!

I want to say that Hawaiian *is* endangered, because I was surprised to see that someone had said it wasn't. I bet that most other linguists would be too, not just Hale (were he alive), Hinton, Nettle, Romaine, Crystal, etc., etc., etc.

Think of it this way. What if the Ni'ihauans wanted to preserve their language? What if by some strange PR campaign, no one would believe that their language was under threat? Now, wouldn't *that* be a terrible slight to the Ni'ihauans? Why not tell it like it is and give them a choice? Why deprive them of that?

So, if either of us is disrespecting the Ni'ihauans' free choice, I think it's you. And I bet you're not "King of Ni'ihau" either (even though you didn't sign your post...). Voltaire3001 09:46, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

You are missing the point, or evading it. And thereby, you are disrespecting the Niihauans. Just in case you really don't get it, I'll make it clear for you ---

Your writing ("Think of it this way") above suggests that if Hawaiian language were "under threat" on Niihau, then the Niihauans would need to cry to others in order to get linguistic help and be linguistically saved by outsiders. You suggest that a "strange PR campaign" could cause outsiders to regard Niihauans as liars (people who cried wolf), with the result being that the outsiders would not rush in and gallantly save and perpetuate the Hawaiian language on Niihau. Then you try implying that I lie ("Why not tell it like it is") and that I deprive Niihauans of some unspecified choice.

The falsehood (and absurdity) of your suggestions is transparent to the intelligent reader. The main point that you fail to get is that it is not the kuleana of outsiders to rescue the Hawaiian language on Niihau (or anywhere else). You imply that they might become unable to care for themselves, linguistically. You imply that they may require "linguistic rescue" by outsiders due to being incompetent to take care of themselves. That is how you are disrespecting and insulting them. You are suggesting that they may become intellectual weaklings and/or helpless victims who cannot manage their own linguistic affairs.

Contrary to your suggestions, the truth is that Niihauans, including the Robinson family, have been independently and successfully managing their own affairs for over a century now. They do not need to be saved, in any way, by any outsiders. They have their own ship, helicopter, businesses, etc. In addition, there are many Niihauans who reside off Niihau. Some Niihauans are quite annoyed by misguided do-gooders who constantly, and wrongly, presume that they are in some kind of "danger" and need to be "saved" by some outsiders. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.248.1.18 (talk) 17:42, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I think you're reading into my words something that isn't there. If Ni'ihauan is going to survive, it is going to survive because of the Ni'ihauans. They are necessary. It is the outsiders who are powerless to save the language without the Ni'ihauans' help. But I think we agree on this.

You seem offended by the suggestion that Ni'ihauans "might" need help, if they decide to preserve their language. Note: I don't know whether they will *actually* need help. The point is hypothetical -- both because the Ni'ihauans might not want to preserve their language, and because there's some chance that the language might survive on its own.

But what if the Ni'ihauans do want to preserve their language? What if they also want to improve its chances of survival (for example, by seeking outside help)? Would you deny them that? I put this question to you. And I would challenge you to justify how denying them that option is not itself disrespectful.

Anyway, the point under discussion, in case *you* forgot is endangerment. Is Ni'ihauan endangered? Yes. As best as the experts can forecast, the probability of the language surviving (even just a few more generations) is slim. And I am very sad to say this.

But I feel it would be disrespectful to hide this fact, precisely because it might reduce the options available to the Ni'ihauans. Voltaire3001 22:34, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Please argue your case sine ira et studio. As a professional linguist you must be used to doing so. Of course, the fact that Hawaiian is missing on some obscure Wiki list does not prove anything. Of course, a language with only one hundred odd speakers is in a precarious situation and quite obviously potentially endangered. But as long as on one island intergenerational transmission is uninterrupted, the language is not in immediate danger of falling out of use and finally dying out. I grant you that one tsunami or one outbreak of influenza may push it over the brink. But as of now it seems to me that the danger is not an immediate but only a potential one.

But then, of course, I may be wrong. In that case all you need to do is name a reliable source to back up your claim. Unoffensive text or character 16:26, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Dear "Unoffensive text or character", thanks for your reply! Incidentally, you assume too much about linguistics (and academics in general); there's actually a lot of anger and fondness in professional linguistics (as evidenced by the Semantic Wars). Furthermore, *shouldn't* people sometimes get mad in academic discussions? For example, when the Holocaust is denied?

Still, I'll take your point about heckling. I'll also take your challenge to produce a citation; there are many! Pick up any popular book on language death and you'll probably find Hawaiian. Romaine and Nettle's (2000) "Vanishing Voices" comes to mind (from Oxford University Press, no less ;-). Voltaire3001 23:28, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

P.S. "as long as on one island intergenerational transmission is uninterrupted, the language is not in immediate danger of falling out of use".... Note: strictly speaking, your point is tautological. Uninterrupted intergenerational language transmission *is* linguistic survival. So, if the language survives, it survives. Obviously. The point is that survival itself is in question. It relies on a lot of things staying the same, when there is no guarantee that they will and no recourse if they don't. Greater trends suggest that the present balance is fragile. Voltaire3001 00:26, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Here are some revealing quotations from the Ni'ihau page; do you still think that Ni'ihau's "isolation" makes Hawaiian safe?

"Many residents of Ni'ihau had been employees of the Ni'ihau Ranch until the Robinson family finally shut down the operation in 1999; it had not been profitable for most of the 20th century. Many of the residents ended up on federal welfare, although these benefits will expire soon. The Robinson family has been considering alternative economic options to keep their residents employed, such as an increased economic role for the U.S. military (an earlier 1999 proposal to establish a missile testing program on the island fell by the wayside), or increased tourism. Either of these would erode the relative isolation that the residents currently enjoy.

"The Native Hawaiians are not isolated from the outside world, however: Ni'ihau is subject to regular droughts that occasionally force the population to evacuate to Kaua'i temporarily, until their fresh water supply is replenished by rainfall." Voltaire3001 01:45, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Dear Voltaire, thanks for your reply. Point (sine ira et studio) well taken.

I think we are in agreement on the status of the Hawaiian language, we just use different terminology. I regard a language as endangered when intergenerational transmission is no longer taking place in all or most of the families. In languages like Yucatec, you will find communities where Yucatec is moribund, as only elderly persons have any knowledge of the language, and you will find places where everybody uses the language on an everyday basis, and then there are communities where some of the younger people speak Spanish but most still use Yucatec. So on a whole, I would call Yucatec endangered.

With Hawaiian (please correct me if I am wrong), the situation is that the language is moribund or even extinct everywhere but on Ni'ihau, where it is very much alive and thriving. So where does that leave us?

I, personally, would call Hawaiian only potentially endangered, as there seems to be no sign yet of beginning abandonment of the language. But I can see your point, of course. The danger, so to speak, is somewhere out there, it has not yet reached the island, but it may do so every day. Unoffensive text or character 12:19, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Huh? You would call Yukatec (with 800,000 speakers) "endangered", but Hawaiian (with only 200 speakers on Ni'ihau) "potentially endangered"?

Yukatec is also spoken in both Mexico and Belize. You can learn to speak it at Harvard. On the other hand, 200 speakers is almost nothing no matter how secure the Ni'ihau culture might be.

But of course, you may call Hawaiian whatever you like. In a sense (and maybe this is your point of view?), I guess that any language is only "potentially endangered" until it's gone. Voltaire3001 09:32, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

I would call any language potentially endangered where intergenerational transmission is still taking place in all or most communities. In the case of Hawaiian, there seems to be only one community: Ni'ihau.

But let's not waste time or energy with discussing labels that will never be fit to describe reality. Every language is different and every possible system of classifying them falls short of reality. Unoffensive text or character 07:30, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Clarification

I don't meant o be pushy or anything; I'm really just curious. I'm having a very hard time buying this "Hawaiian is not an endangered language" thing, even with all this criterion you give. So experts on the Hawaiian language are really quite confident that it will be around as a thriving community language in 100 years? With 200 bilingual native speakers, who could easily choose at any time to let go of the language within a generation, I don't understand the lack of concern. By saying it's not endangered, you feel sure you can leave the language in it's present condition and it will not diminish? I'm also curious about the kind of service provided through Hawaiian. Can you get medical care, testify in court etc. in Hawaiian? Andrew 01:27, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, it went through a period of decline in the early 20th century, but I think the numbers clearly show a significant rebound, and a healthy future for the language. There may never be a Hawaiian only community ever again (just as there may never be a Latin only community ever again), but the future of olelo Hawaii seems quite bright, amongst the entire community of Hawaii, regardless of race.

It is currently one of the two official languages of the State of Hawaii, and its use and study continues to grow year by year.

That being said, the specific "manner of speaking" Agent X mentions amongst people from Niihau may very well be endangered as that island's isolation diminishes. Perhaps that's what you see as "endangered"? --JereKrischel 02:41, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

There's currently a vogue for learning Hawaiian in school, but it's not clear to me that Hawaiian is out of danger. Unless it is being USED, and is a mother-tongue for children, it is merely a curiosity -- like the Latin that British schoolboys had to learn, and then promptly forgot when they left school. Latin was a dead tongue, even though millions of schoolboys were learning it. Zora 04:44, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

So does that mean that Latin is an endangered language, or an extinct language? I guess what I'm trying to understand is whether or not a curiosity can be considered as "extinct" just because it isn't a mother-tongue for children. I remember hearing on NPR recently about a latin rap group (as in classical latin language rap), and I find it difficult to reconcile the widespread, albeit secondary use of a languge, with the thought of it being endangered or extinct. --JereKrischel 05:08, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

NO NEED WORRY ABOUT "DANGER"

1. Regarding medical care "in Hawaiian" --- if there are any medical doctors who speak it, and patients who need/want the service "in Hawaiian", then of course it's possible. As of today's date, I don't personally know of any M.D.s who speak Hawaiian, but there might be some. Would anyone actually die or suffer because a doctor didn't speak Hawaiian? I doubt it. Have any such cases ever been reported? None that I've seen.

2. Regarding court testimony "in Hawaiian" --- courts in Hawaii use court interpreters, but only when necessary. Court proceedings are conducted in English, not in Hawaiian, nor in all of the other languages that are spoken in Hawaii. Potential jurors who lack sufficient competence in English will be disqualified by court clerks, judges, or attorneys. These circumstances are a matter of practicality under today's conditions. Since monolingual speakers of Hawaiian are very rare (probably some young kids on Niihau), the actual need to testify in court in Hawaiian is very Very VERY rare. If there actually were a real, significant need to testify in Hawaiian (i.e., a crucial witness who is truly a monolingual speaker of Hawaiian), then a court interpreter could be obtained, and yes, one could testify in Hawaiian.

3. Some people (not all) who worry about "endangered" languages are guilty of ignoring certain prime motivators of human behavior --- convenience and practicality. Consider the court scenario. In complete fairness to the equal rights of all citizens, regardless of the languages which they speak or don't speak, should courts be expected to conduct proceedings in ALL languages that are spoken in the geographical area under their jurisdiction? For Hawaii, that would be theoretically possible, but PRACTICALLY, impossible. More than twelve different languages are spoken in Honolulu (English, Japanese, Ilokano, Tagalog, Korean, Cantonese, Samoan, Tongan, Vietnamese, Spanish, German, Indonesian, Marshallese ...). Should we have to build 12 different courthouses, and procure 12 different sets of clerks and judges, and find attorneys and juror pools, for 12 different languages? (The court system is already inadequate with only one language in use.) It's clearly IMPOSSIBLE to have ALL services available in ALL languages --- especially court proceedings. The obvious solution to the obvious problem is to use a lingua franca. Today, that's English. (In the far future, it might be Mandarin.) Remember, courts do provide interpreters when they are truly needed.

4. The naming of Hawaiian as an "official language" in Hawaii does NOT require that all or any government services be available "in Hawaiian". It merely makes it clear that Hawaiian CAN be used, NOT that it MUST be used. No lack of services "in Hawaiian" has ever diminished the use of Hawaiian on Niihau.

5. Regarding this question from Andrew (above): "By saying it's not endangered, you feel sure you can leave the language in it's present condition and it will not diminish?" --- this leads to related questions:

• (A) Can anyone predict the future?
• (B) Does anyone have the right to require others to perpetuate a given language?
• (C) What is "extinction", or "death", for a language?
• (D) Can a dead language be "revived"?

As for (A), of course nobody can be sure that Hawaiian (or English) will not diminish, as that would require fortune-telling. As for (B), the answer is no. Language perpetuation is a natural matter which cannot be forced on speakers of Hawaiian, or of any other language. As for (C), different points of view (or definitions) can be taken. In general, linguists call a language "dead" when it has no living native speaker. As for (D), again there are different points of view. One is "once dead, always dead". Another is "if it has a living native speaker, it is not dead now, even though it may have been dead previously".

6. Here's another dimension to the issues --- Proto Indo-European, the ancestor of all Indian and European languages, is "dead". Old English is "dead". Middle English is "dead". But Modern English is "alive". Likewise, Proto Austronesian, the ancestor of all Polynesian languages, is "dead". Proto Polynesian is "dead". But Hawaiian is "alive". Here I'm referring to the existence of living native speakers.

7. What this shows is that living languages are constantly "dying", and constantly being "re-born". The VESSEL and VEHICLE of human language is the human being. Every language dies as its speakers die, and is reborn (re-analyzed and re-learned) with every child who acquires it as first language. (That's the primary reason why languages gradually change over time.) As long as native speakers of Hawaiian continue to make babies who acquire Hawaiian first, as has always been the case on Niihau, Hawaiian will continue to live, forever.

8. We should not worry over what they do, because it's their business, not ours. If they keep Hawaiian, fine. If they abandon Hawaiian, fine. We have no right to tell them what language they can, or should, speak and pass to their children. It's a free choice for them to exercise. Personally, I think they will keep Hawaiian going for a very long time. In fact, I hope they will incorporate Hawaiian language lessons into their current tour business. I would much prefer to visit their island to take language lessons from them, rather than to shoot an animal. We've heard of "eco-tourism", how about "edu-tourism"? Agent X 03:12, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Canadian user dissents

I find the author's claim that Hawai'ian is not endangered to be highly suspect. The fact is that practically every indigenous language across the first world is in decline, (strike one); the United States has a miserable track record when it comes to protecting and sustaining its minority languages (strike two); and Hawai'i itself is less racially/culturally Hawai'ian today than it has ever been in its history (next batter).

The repeated use of Allcaps and the emphatic (read: fanatical) denials of the language's current state are misleading, and cannot be considered NPOV. Upon further reading, one discovers that the only island where Hawai'ian is spoken by the majority of residents is home to only 160 people. The reason for the language's health on that island was due to enforced isolation --- which was recently repealed. The economic future of the island will likely rely on tourism, which will doubtlessly weaken the language's stability as it did with each of the six other Hawai'ian islands.

But even ignoring this fact, how can the fluency of 160 islanders speak to the so-called health of the Hawai'ian language, when 100 years ago it was spoken by 37 000 people? This has to be more than naïveté. This language is in serious trouble, like every minority language on the planet, and something to that effect should be visible in this article. Muckapædia 6h25, 16e Avril 2006 (EST)

I hadn't heard of any repeal of the Robinson's ownership and forced isolation of Niihau - do you have a reference for that?

To respond to your question regarding the language being in trouble, I think that although hawaiian language has suffered a cycle of decline and resurgence, thanks to the isolation of Niihau, and the work of missionaries to develop an alphabet for it and preserve it, it was never endangered. It is especially not endangered today, given the wealth of olelo hawaii resources available.

I also wonder, what do you mean by "minority language"? It seems to be a loaded phrase, indicative of perhaps a bias you feel against english? The fact that other indigenous languages around the world are in decline does not make olelo hawaii in decline (ball one), the United States, and specifically the State of Hawaii has done a great deal to preserve olelo hawaii (ball two), and your implication that an ideal Hawaii must be racially pure is contradicted by the Hawaiian Kingdom constitution of 1840 declaring us humans of one blood (ball three), and culturally, with projects like the Hokulea, which revived a celestial navigation tradition THAT HAD BEEN FORGOTTEN SINCE BEFORE WESTERN CONTACT, we are all more Hawaiian in Hawaii, regardless of our race (walk the batter).

I think perhaps some of your problem is that you categorize kanaka maoli as "indigenous" when in fact they have a history of relatively recent immigration to the islands, do not have a history comparable to Native Americans, and have exhibited voluntary adaptation and integration with every culture they have come in contact with. The hallmark of Hawaiian culture really has been its ability to evolve and change, and its significant lack of "us" versus "them" (with the exception of modern day ethnic nationalists who repudiate the culture of their ancestors). --JereKrischel 19:33, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

The Robinsons shut down their ranch in 1999. More on the Ni'ihau article.

The criteria for a language to be considered endangered are outlined here. Generally, every language in the world save the most-spoken ten percent (of which Hawai'ian is not) is endangered and expected to decline drastically within the next fifty years (read more here). This is a general trend however, and as widespread as it is says nothing specific about the challenges facing Hawai'ian. But it is important to remember that a "wealth of resources" bears no reflection on a language's health.

The statistics show there are 1000 mother tongue speakers of Hawai'ian left in the world. Ethnologue claims that 500 of these speakers are members of the community on Ni'ihau (which is 340 more than the Ni'ihau article estimates but let's leave that alone) and the other 500 are speakers in their 70s and 80s on the main island. The world total for speakers is given as 8000, when one includes second-language learners. While that may seem encouraging, it shouldn't do; Second-language learners have little impact on alleviating the endangered status of a language. The main identifier of a moribund language (according to linguist Michael Krauss and the SIL) is when it is "no longer being learned as mother-tongue by children." That is the current situation with Hawai'ian.

A secondary criteria for endangered languages is an absence of "domains of use." Are there any Hawai'ian immersion schools? Are there Hawai'ian-speaking communities, other than on Ni'ihau? Is it possible to work in Hawai'ian, order food in a restaurant in Hawai'ian, flirt with a local in Hawai'ian, represent oneself in a court of law in Hawai'ian, receive medical attention in Hawai'ian or do {insert completely mundane activity here} in Hawai'ian? I don't know these things, but answering these questions is a good step towards getting an accurate read on the current state of Hawai'ian.

With regard to your post, the phrase "minority language," loaded or not, is used by the United Nations to describe a language spoken by a minority of the population in a given region (like Hawai'ian is in Hawai'i). As for my alleged implication that "an ideal Hawai'i must be racially pure", I said no such thing. What I said was that never before has the population of Hawai'i been less composed of ethnic Hawai'ians (a statistical fact). My purpose in pointing this out is to show that the culture to which the language has traditionally belonged is not dominant in its own territory, and that this is a significant external factor in assessing the long-term health of the Hawai'ian language.

Finally your last paragraph is interesting (despite your reference to "my problem") but is not about the Hawai'ian language.—Muckapædia 9h40, 17e Avril 2006 (EST)

A couple of answers - yes there are Hawaiian immersion schools. Yes there are hawaiian speaking communities outside of niihau, although probably not in the traditional sense - that is to say, they are geographically dispersed, and the language is not a primary one. Hawaiian is an official language of Hawaii (along with english), but the fact that all native speakers of Hawaiian are bi-lingual makes it difficult to address working, flirting, etc...certainly Hawaiian words permeate pidgin english in Hawaii, but I guess that's not what you're talking about.

Regarding your criteria for endangered languages, there seems to be a gap between 2 & 3 (endangered/safe) of Krauss. Although hawaiian does not have a large number of speakers, it does have official state support, and if current conditions continue, it will survive into the next century.

Regarding your statistical fact that the population of Hawaii hase never been less composed of ethnic Hawaiians, I think you're mistaken, but it really depends on how you count. Most self-identified ethnic hawaiians are only part kanaka maoli, and if you exclude them, you are correct. Otherwise, the current percentage of population that is ethnic Hawaiian is slightly more than it was during the last days of the 1800s. U.S. Census statistics differ slightly from Hawaii Health Survey statistics, but are in the general range of 20% (see OHA 2002 Databook). --JereKrischel 16:09, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

One last thing - the Niihau article mentions the ranch closing in 1999, and welfare benefits running out in 5 years (2004), but I haven't been able to find any news references on google past 1999...does anyone know what the current status of travel restrictions to Niihau are? --JereKrischel 16:19, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Kia Ora koutou. Hawai'ian is an endangered language because the language can easily be lost in a generation if an epidemic hits the kanaka Māoli who speak the Hawai'ian language. The Hawai'ian language is also dominated by English - even though it is an official language equal in status to English legally, in reality, it is not equal in being used as an ordinary day to day language. For the majority of the residents of Hawai'i, it is not a normal occurence to use the Hawai'ian language for mundane topics.

As a tangata Māori, it is my duty to try and help promote normal Māori language use amongst other Māori as well as the wider population of New Zealand and the Cook Islands. I'm so thankful for the fact that me and some of my relations have the choice of speaking Māori to each other when ever we want - and talk about what ever we want to talk about in the Māori language.

Maori rahi

Actually, Hawaiian *is* endangered, even according to Wikipedia's criteria

It has been observed above (by CharlesMartel on 24 March 2006) that Hawaiian does not show up on Wikipedia's "Endangered language" page. This appears to be true. But rather than regarding this an unfortunate oversight for that page, this omission has instead been marshaled as evidence that Hawaiian is not endangered. Dear reader, this is untrue. Hawaiian *is* endangered. How do I know? I wish it could suffice to say that I am a linguist, and you should just trust me. But I appreciate that this is unsatisfying. Instead, you might want to ask yourself, if Hawaiian were not endangered, why would there be such an impassioned preservation movement to save it? As evidence of this movement, observe the Hawaiian immersion schools. Of course, contributors like Agent X don't seem to dispute the grave danger of Hawaiian surviving on anywhere in the entire universe EXCEPT for Ni'ihau. Ni'ihau, they suggest, is supposed to be an unassailable fortress of linguistic preservation. I repeat, this is the crux of Agent X's dissent: Hawaiian is supposed to be safe on Ni'ihau, never in danger of extinction. But I object! I would put it to you that this is misplaced, naive, and dangerous optimism.

Happily, there is a lot of airy solipsism to enjoy in Agent X's posts. :-) But who has time to dissect it all? Here's one representative example. Agent X's rhetorical question

• (A) Can anyone predict the future?

can be turned against his/her argument. Of course, no one can predict the future; does Agent X honestly think this was ever in question?? ;-) It's hard enough to predict the present! But that shouldn't stop us from making educated guesses. No, 200 speakers on Ni'ihau is NOT a secure future for Hawaiian. This is especially true as these speakers can leave Ni'ihau to experience the 'modern world' on Kaua'i, O'ahu, etc. Moreover, the preservation of this community depends on the grace of a Haole family who owns their island. So far, the family has tried to keep outsiders off of Ni'ihau. But there is nothing to guard the Ni'ihauans from a whimsical change of heart. I find it dumbfounding that anyone would proclaim Hawaiian as "safe". If history teaches us anything, it is that things change. And Hawaiian has no insurance against a disruption of the status quo. The survival of the language, even on Ni'ihau, is in an EXTREMELY fragile situation.

As for the Wikipedia criterion that keeps getting quoted, the "Endangered language" page states that an endangered language has "so few surviving speakers that it is in danger of falling out of use". This is crude, but it gets to the point. Indeed, Hawaiian *is* in danger of falling out of use. I can vouch for the linguistics community when I say that we are desperately worried about languages like Hawaiian disappearing, because it is a tragic reality that we witness every day. To its credit, the present movement to preserve the Hawaiian language has been remarkably successful so far. But this success should be seen in a global perspective. The language remains in danger of extinction. The question now is how many more generations will it continue. One? Two? More? Perhaps 10% of the world's languages are "safe", and Hawaiian is NOT one of them. I hope this gives some idea of how dire the Hawaiian situation is.

Now, dear friends, I am going to ask you for a favor. Would you please keep vigil over the Hawaiian page against vandalism from characters like Agent X? When I have tried to edit it to affirm Hawaiian's endangered status, others have unceremoniously edited it back. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to keep up with their reversions. Personally, I would guess that these vandals are Wikipedia hobbyist, who have idiosyncratic personal agendas which Wikipedia lets them broadcast. This is unfortunate both for Wikipedia's users and creators, since it damages Wikipedia's credibility. So, again, I humbly ask any and everyone who reads this to make sure that the Wikipedia page correctly displays Hawaiian as endangered, because it most certainly is.

Mahalo for your help! :-) Voltaire3001 22:35, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

olelo Niihau

Mamoahina mentions that the differences between Hawaiian spoken on Niihau are only, "orthography/pronunciation & vocabulary". Can we get some references on the actual differences, and whether or not such differences are slight, significant, or unintelligible? Is it as different as Spanish and Italian (which seem significant, but not necessarily unintelligible)? I'll change the wording to just "different" for now, since altered pronunciation and vocabulary seem more than "slight", but some references would be appreciated one way or another. --JereKrischel 17:50, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

As for the references, I'll recommend 2 sources. Hawaiian Grammar by Samuel H. Elbret and Mary Kawena Pukui and Olelo Oiwi Ke Kahua by Hokulani Cleeland. This is not to say that these sources cover all the differences in the Niihauan dialect. In Hawaiian Grammar, Section 2.8.1 on page 23 you have a whole section on the Niihau dialect and some of the examples given are the dropping of the h and the 'okina, the difference in pronunciation of stressed and unstressed vowels, and the use of K and T in the same word versus exclusive use of T. There are other parts in the book that will mention vocabulary differences. In Hokulani Cleeland's book, in certain chapters he will touch on differences of words compared to other words used throughout the islands as well as differences between other islands like the island of Hawai'i versus Maui and/or O'ahu and Kaua'i (and Ni'ihau). Puka is a word commonly used to graduate, or more specifically puka kula. On Niihau they use hemo (hemo kula) instead of puka but I've noticed that on Molokai they've used that. I'm guessing the use on Molokai is a Niihau influence. Kuikui is the Niihau word for kukui, and 'aha'aina which in the rest of the islands pa'ina may be used instead. Other non-Niihauan differences, the word he'i may be papaya for most of the islands but certain parts of the island of Hawai'i will use mikana instead. And on Molokai, the use of na'e is used to mean east, whereas all other islands will use hikina. Also, I recently came across Keao NeSmith's paper on Neo-Hawaiian vs. Traditional Hawaiian.

[2] He explains more on Niihauan words and uses in the language being that he grew up around the Niihau community in Kekaha and his wife is from Niihau. Mamoahina 21:30, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

BE CAREFUL WITH STATEMENTS ABOUT LANGUAGE WHEN YOU ARE NOT A SCHOOLED LINGUIST

I never claim to be one and you don't have to be a linguist to understand how the mechanics of the language. If you are referring to how to define each term, then I can understand. Or perhaps you'd like to take that up with my linguistic professors? Mamoahina 21:38, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

1. I made the following contribution to the article on 2005 December 27th: "Native speakers of Ni`ihau Hawaiian are able to use a manner of speaking among themselves which is significantly different from the Hawaiian of the other islands, so different that it is unintelligible to non-Ni`ihau speakers of Hawaiian." BOLD ITALIC ADDED FOR EMPHASIS.

(A) My statement is based on my first-hand personal experiences with a number of different native speakers of Niihau Hawaiian. I carefully chose the words that are emphasized in bold italic. Note that I did NOT use the term "dialect". I wrote "manner of speaking". Such words should not be recklessly altered by people who are insensitive to their linguistic significance. "Dialect" and "manner of speaking" are NOT interchangeable.

(B) The term "dialect" describes a SHARED way of speaking a language, which is NATIVE AND INALIENABLE to the speakers who SHARE it. In most traditional cases, dialects are directly linked to geographically defined SUB-AREAS of the total area where the language is spoken. For example, speakers of American English have heard a "Southern accent", or a "New York accent", etc.

(C) The phrase "manner of speaking", in CONTRAST to "dialect", can describe language-use behaviors which are NOT INALIENABLE WAYS OF SPEAKING, and which are NOT NECESSARILY SHARED. For example, a certain individual speaker of American English can choose to pepper his speech with "the f-word". He may do it constantly from age 13 to age 19, but only with his friends, in an effort to be "cool". He does NOT share this behavior with his grandparents. Such behavior is NOT linked to any geographic SUB-area. It can occur anywhere in the total language area. It is NOT inalienable, because he may outgrow it and he uses it consciously, by choice (with his buddies), rather than subconsciously without any choice.

(D) A "dialect" kicks in automatically. A "manner of speaking" is used ONLY BY CHOICE.

(E) The things stated so far apply to mono-dialectal speakers. Now we have to think also about multi-dialectal speakers. It is possible for a given speaker to be natively multi-dialectal. Such a speaker can consciously choose between his native dialects. However, he cannot "outgrow", cannot "renounce", and cannot "destroy" his native ability in any of his dialects. Once it's in his brain, nobody can take it away --- not even himself.

(F) In paragraph 1 above, I carefully chose the phrase "are able to use". That's because I was NOT describing a "dialect" UNLESS it is the case of a choice made by natively multi-dialectal speakers.

(G) I also carefully employed the words "among themselves". That's because the speech behavior being described is NOT SHARED WITH NON-NIIHAU SPEAKERS OF HAWAIIAN.

(H) Niihau speakers are able to IMITATE and ADAPT TO the Hawaiian spoken by non-Niihau speakers of Hawaiian. That constitutes a "manner of speaking" for them. It is NOT their own native dialect of Hawaiian, but they can "put it on". A speaker of non-Niihau Hawaiian who is exposed ONLY TO THAT behavior of a Niihau speaker could easily, and WRONGLY, jump to the conclusion that "Niihau dialect" is nearly identical to other Hawaiian and that it is easily and generally understandable to speakers of non-Niihau Hawaiian. BIG MISTAKE.

(I) It is NOT at all normal for a Niihau speaker to use the native Niihau dialect with a non-Niihau speaker. Native Niihauan is significantly different from "non", most especially in its phonology. Niihau dialect makes extensive use of palatalizations, and truncations, such as are NOT found in the speech of "non" speakers. Diphthongization, vowel raising, and elision also occur in ways that are entirely bewildering to one who is not accustomed to it. Niihau intonation and rhythm range far beyond what is found in so-called "standard Hawaiian", which is like a tame sine wave in comparison to Niihauan. Even so, GIVEN STRETCHES of Niihauan CAN BE readily understood by "non" speakers, but it is definitely FALSE to claim that Niihauan overall is only slightly different from "non", or that Niihauan overall is easily/generally understood. Any "non" speaker who happens to hear and understand a Niihau speaker should be aware that such understanding is likely to be due to the Niihau speaker deliberately slowing down, in order to make it easy for the "non" speaker to catch.

(J) Now, I have observed Niihau speakers using THREE DIFFERENT "MODES" of speaking Hawaiian ---

MODE 1. imitating and adapting to so-called "standard Hawaiian";

MODE 2. native Niihau dialect;

MODE 3. the "manner of speaking" I described in paragaph 1 above.

(K) A speaker of "standard Hawaiian" who hears only Mode 1 (the most likely scenario) is likely to WRONGLY conclude that Niihauan is essentially the same as "standard Hawaiian". A speaker of "standard" who hears Mode 1 AND Mode 2, only, will likely realize that true Niihau dialect is significantly different from "standard", but will still not know what I described in paragraph 1 above. Mode 3 is NOT the imitation of "standard" (Mode 1), and is NOT the "ordinary" Niihau dialect (Mode 2). Rather, Mode 3 is a unique "manner of speaking" which Niihau speakers "are able to use" (by choice) "among themselves" (not with others). It is exceedingly rare for any non-Niihau speaker to EVER even hear Mode 3 --- forget about understanding it.

2. Zora distorted my statement on 2006 March 13th: "Native speakers of Ni`ihau Hawaiian speak a dialect which is significantly different from the Hawaiian of the other islands, so different that it is unintelligible to non-Ni`ihau speakers of Hawaiian." BOLD ITALIC ADDED FOR EMPHASIS. A "manner of speaking" is NOT a "dialect". Zora made the mistake of PRESUMING that Niihau speakers have ONLY ONE MODE of speaking (Mode 2?). Zora removed the important element "are able to use" which indicates choice, and the important element "among themselves" which indicates that this is NOT used with "standard" speakers.

3. Mamoahina altered and truncated Zora's distortion on 2006 March 17th: "Native speakers of Ni`ihau Hawaiian speak a dialect which is slightly different from the Hawaiian of the other islands." BOLD ITALIC ADDED FOR EMPHASIS. Mamoahina made the mistake of PRESUMING that Niihau speakers have ONLY ONE MODE of speaking (Mode 1).

4. JereKrischel tried to fix Mamoahina's version on 2006 March 17th: "Native speakers of Ni`ihau Hawaiian speak a dialect which is different from the Hawaiian of the other islands in pronunciation and vocabulary, but still generally understandable." BOLD ITALIC ADDED FOR EMPHASIS. JereKrischel made the mistake of PRESUMING that Niihau speakers have ONLY ONE MODE of speaking (Mode 1).

5. JereKrischel did the scholarly thing of calling for actual citations to information in authoritative publications. However, no such publications exist regarding Niihau Hawaiian. There's probably one paragraph, or a few at the most, on Niihau dialect in Elbert and Pukui 1979 (Hawaiian Grammar). But from my personal knowledge of Sam Elbert and his publications on Hawaiian and other languages, I can tell you that phonology was definitely not his forte, and Mary Pukui had no training at all in any branch of linguistics.

6. Note for JereKrischel --- "Niihau olelo" suggests "Language Niihau". If you want "Niihau language", then it's "Olelo Niihau". Or with full-on Hawaiian spelling, "`Ōlelo Ni`ihau" (just like "`Ōlelo Hawai`i").

Agent X 19:08, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Well since you want "academic" sources discounting Elbert and Pukui, would you consider yourself one? I mean, I do prefer scholarly sources over anything else however we are talking about Wikipedia here, not your academic arena. I think you can save that for that place. I'm not disagreeing at all with what you had to say, but do realize that this is Wikipedia and citing of academic sources is best, but don't be surprised to find people here like Zora or Jeremy or even myself who tend to give differences on opinions either based on personal experience or fact based on sources we know of. Mamoahina 21:38, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you Agent X, I'll try and incorporate your detailed insights here into the article directly! --JereKrischel 21:19, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

For JereKrischel --- I found some statements in Elbert and Pukui (1979:23-25) that may serve as the kind of "references" that you called for, regarding Niihau dialect. Elbert more or less corroborates what I have observed in person, as to what I labelled "Mode 1" (shifting to "standard Hawaiian") and "Mode 2" (Niihau's own way). I doubt that Elbert was ever exposed to "Mode 3", because if he had ever heard it, I'm certain that he would have at least mentioned it briefly in his writing. If you ever actually overhear Mode 3 in person, it is VERY VERY striking. I will never forget it, and I hope I (over)hear it again sometimes. Agent X 18:23, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

LIKE "HAWAIIAN", "NIIHAUAN" IS AN ENGLISH WORD

1. The debate over "Hawaiian" versus "Hawai`ian" has resolved in favor of "Hawaiian". Clearly, there is no "-an" suffix in Hawaiian language, no word-final consonants, no dictionary entry, and no tradition of using "Hawai`ian" as a word of the language. By contrast, there IS an "-an" suffix in English language, word-final consonants, you may find "Hawaiian" in an English dictionary, and the tradition of using "Hawaiian" as a word of English goes back to the 19th century.

2. I doubt that "Niihauan" is in any English dictionary, but its form and use is clearly parallel to that of "Hawaiian". So it is an English word, and should not be spelled with any symbol for a glottal stop. Likewise for the plural form "Niihauans", possessive forms "Niihauan's" and "Niihauans'", and the form "non-Niihauan", etc., etc.

3. The same logic applies for stuff like "Kauaian", "Oahuan", "Molokaian", and "Lanaian", although I don't recall ever seeing any of those forms in print.

4. The logic extends to any Hawaiian language form that is used with an English possessive suffix. The apostrophe-"s" and the "s"-apostrophe are English usage, but not Hawaiian usage. So any word with an English possessive suffix should not be spelled with glottal stops nor macrons. On television you can see and hear stuff like "Hawai`i's keiki", which is incorrect as English, and also incorrect as Hawaiian. The correct English version is "Hawaii's keikis", and the correct Hawaiian version is "ko Hawai`i mau keiki". The Hawaiian "ko" functions similarly to the English apostrophe-"s", and the Hawaiian "mau" (or "po`e") functions similarly to the English plural-"s".

Agent X 20:42, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

That's one position. Another position is to ask how people *actually* say these words. As you suggest, the debate between "Hawaiian" and "Hawai`ian" has been resolved (for the moment, at least) in favor of "Hawaiian". Who knows why! There are counterexamples to your numbered claims. For example, English is full of productive morphology for words that never used to be "English words", like "garage-s" [garage-PL] from the French word "garage" (see your point 1 above). To me, real speech seems like a much better criterion for spelling these questionable words (rather than ponderous guess-work). In any case, this explains why "Hawaiian" has trumped "Hawai`ian" -- who says "Hawai`ian"? Here, then, is another way to frame the question: do you pronounce the glottal stop in "Ni`ihauan", or do you (somehow manage to) say "Niihauan"? Personally, I can barely even say "Niihauan"! It's the same for the others you mentioned; all the people I speak with say "Ni`ihauan", "Kaua`ian", "Moloka`ian", "Lana`ian", and "Hawaiian". My point is just the usual one from linguistics: description, not prescription. I would think this would be all the more pressing in matters that pertain to an endangered language like Hawaiian. Voltaire3001 10:08, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Glottal stop

What is it?

What is the consonant [']? It is not on the consonant page. And how does it relate to the spelling Hawai'i? --rmhermen

Glottal stop, should be /?/. Also, that should be a backtick `, not apostrophe ' if I'm not mistaken. (Unfortunately I'm mislaid my "Let's learn Hawai`ian!" book for the moment...) Brion VIBBER 2002/03/14

Actually it should be a single opening quote ‘

But because the quote is a punctuation mark and computers don't like ambiguity, Unicode also provides similar-looking marks which count as actual letters ʻ. It's Unicode U+02BB, you can use &#699; in HTML.

Because of a lack of either of these characters in the past, the backtick has been used on typewriters and computers. Note, however, that the Wiki software doesn't like backtick characters in links.

Please see Kualono

— Hippietrail 03:32, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

Looks like someone got a bit overzealous and 'okina'd everything in sight.  :) The main consensus is that Hawai'i the place name is correct, but Hawai'ian the derived English adjective is not (technically, it would then be pronounced "hah-WEYE <pause> yun"...doesn't sound right). It's been discussed at length on Talk:Hawaii. Hope this helps. KeithH 06:31, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

HEY!! I say "havai‘ian"! :P There's no such thing as being overzealous in respecting ones birthplace. :) - Gilgamesh 09:01, 18 June 2004 (UTC)

The word "overzealous" presupposes that zeal is worth evaluating relative to other considerations. Gilgamesh's statement implies that nothing can be as important as "respecting ones [sic] birthplace". If he truly believes that, i have a certain respect for his PoV, and don't think it necessarily makes him a bad person.

That being said.... He may just be temporarily posturing for the sake of whatever that does for him. If not, he doesn't think the WP project is important enough to respect NPoV, and his editing of articles related to either Hawaii or Hawai‘i to avoid being a waste of his and others' time.

--Jerzy(t) 18:50, 2004 Jul 15 (UTC)

To be truthful, I don't give a damn if "Hawaii" gets more Google hits than "Hawai‘i". "Hawai‘i" is correct both as a noun and as a stem. I will not tolerate the irresponsible anglo-centric degradation of the Hawai‘ian language and its phonology. I really don't care how arrogant it sounds. To be brutally honest, I feel that it is POV to impose English habits on Hawai‘ian words just because the islands are under American sovereignity; I think it's perfectly NPOV to present words specific to a language in that language's most widely-accepted phonology, rather than in English. - Gilgamesh 09:19, 18 June 2004 (UTC)

Don't get me wrong...I know the ‘okina and kahakō have their place in Hawaiian. Notice that when I edited I left all the instances of "Hawai‘i" alone. But, WADR, what I submit is you're doing the opposite...imposing Hawaiian orthography on an English word. Yes, Hawai‘i is the proper way of rendering the name in ōlelo Hawai‘i. But if it were as simple as tacking on a suffix to the native language form of the name to form Hawai‘ian, then we should be eating sashimi at Nihonese restaurants, kalbi at Hangukian restaurants...etc. There's a gray area in the case of Hawaii since the English form "Hawaii" and the proper Hawaiian form "Hawai‘i" differ only by the ‘okina. (Blame Captain Cook for his poor spelling, I guess.) Again, I have no problem of using the glottal stop in spelling Hawai‘i. But if you were going to form an adjective form in English, I submit you would add the suffix to the English form, not necessarily the native language form. One thing to note is that the Honolulu Advertiser is diligent in using ‘okina and kahakō where appropriate in Hawaiian words and names, but still spells the word "Hawaiian" as such. Food for thought.  :) - KeithH 21:33, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I think Keith is right. I've never seen Hawaiian as "Hawai'ian" here in Hawai'i. It is certainly never pronounced that way - Marshman 17:52, 26 Jun 2004 (UTC)

BORROWED WORDS --- ALSO KNOWN AS LOAN WORDS

1. KeithH made a very good point, above, regarding Hawai`ian versus Hawaiian, etc. There is an English word "Hawaii" and a Hawaiian word "Hawai`i". But it doesn't stop there. The same logic applies to ALL words that are used in the context of English writing. Writers of English should not be forced to use non-English spellings, nor non-English characters, any more than writers of Hawaiian should be forced to use non-Hawaiian spellings or non-Hawaiian characters.

2. These points have parallel application to pronunciation. In the context of communication in English, it is not necessary, and is not appropriate, to expect speakers of English to use non-English pronunciations. Likewise, don't expect speakers of Hawaiian to use non-Hawaiian pronunciations in the context of communication in Hawaiian.

3. Virtually ALL known living human languages today make use of at least a few words that were "adopted" or "taken" from a different language. In linguistics, these are called "borrowings" or "loans" from another language. A borrowed word can be a name, such as the name of a person, a place, a nation, or a god. I would not be surprised if the words that are borrowed most often are words for food items. Word borrowing is completely natural, normal, and ordinary. It's been going on all over the world, for as long as speakers of different languages have been contacting one another. (N.B. --- "borrowing" a word does NOT "delete" the word from the source language. Hopefully nobody out there is doofus enough to think that! The word is "copied" but not "stolen".)

4. When foreign words are adopted, they are also ADAPTED. They are "nativized". Native speakers of English have naturally "English-ized" (Anglicized) words borrowed from Hawaiian, just as native speakers of Hawaiian have naturally "Hawaiian-ized" words borrowed from English. A Hawaiian word borrowed into English becomes an English word. The rules of English are applied to the word. It is spoken with English pronunciation, and is written with English spelling. Likewise, English words borrowed into Hawaiian have become Hawaiian words. Hawaiian rules have applied to the words. They are spoken and written with Hawaiian pronunciation and spelling.

5. The adopting and adapting do not occur with every speaker of a language simultaneously. The spread of a borrowed word among speakers of a language is a gradual process that occurs in a random, non-linear manner. A loan can retain some of its original "foreign-ness" for a time. Even after all native phonological rules have applied to a loan, it can still have morphological characteristics that betray its foreign origin.

6. Some English words borrowed from Hawaiian include "lei" and "luau". The correct English plurals of these English words are "leis" and "luaus". Contrary to what was written by Donaghy, below, there is nothing "nasty" about the legitimate use of the English plural suffix "-s" by users of English. It is 100% natural and correct to use the "-s" plural suffix on Hawaiian words borrowed into English. That's exactly why people in Hawaii have already been doing it for DECADES.

7. Hawaiian place names have been borrowed into English. It is not appropriate to expect users of English to use Hawaiian pronunciations and spellings of Hawaiian place names.

8. Make a comparison to Japanese, like KeithH did, above. Users of English have the word "Tokyo", the place name of the capital of Japan. But we don't write this loan word by using Kanji, nor Hiragana, nor Katakana. We use English spelling. We don't utter "Tokyo" using Japanese pronunciation. We use English. In Japanese, "Tokyo" has 2 syllables (To-kyo). In English, it has 3 syllables (To-ky-yo). In Japanese, the "o"-s are long (Tookyoo), but in English they are short (Tokyo).

9. How about a comparison to French? How many users of English pronounce "Paris" with a French trilled uvular "r", no final "s", and accent on the second syllable?

10. If users of a language had to pronounce all borrowed words in the original "native foreign" way, then we would all have to know the phonology of every living human language on Earth. Of course that's impossible as well as unreasonable.

11. In written English communication in general, Hawaiian spellings should NOT be used. The main exception is when the topic of the English communication is the Hawaiian language, and examples of actual Hawaiian language are given and discussed.

Agent X 03:49, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Screen appearance of font character

Is this right (from article)?: "...actually pronounced (using IPA): /ha.ˈvai.i/ .." I do not see a glottal stop? Actually, those unicodes just appear as empty boxes on my browser (IE). - Marshman 17:52, 26 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, my mistake. Fixed. But you know, there are plenty of good Unicode fonts with IPA support. - Gilgamesh 00:56, 27 June 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure what your saying. I assume that the fact I see only an empty box is a failing of either Wikipedia or my browser. - Marshman 03:01, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)

---

Material removed from Hawaii#Language, where it was excessive detail. Perhaps should be integrated in this article:

The ‘okina represents a glottal stop (written as Unicode character $2018). The kahakō stresses the sound of certain vowels.

---

I added a table representation of the characters so readers get a clearer picture of what the letters look like using the okina and kahako. --Gerald Farinas 18:15, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

‘okina [ ‘ ]

kahakō variants [ ā ] [ ē ] [ ī ] [ ō ]  [ ū ]

Unicode clarification

Regarding the discussion of the ‘okina, we consulted with the Unicode consortium back in 1998 before determining that U+02BB was the correct character for two reasons - 1) it will not allow a break after the character (you cannot hypenate a Hawaiian word after a consonant, and the ‘okina is considered a consonant) and 2) it is generally accepted by spell check dictionaries which will not accept similarly shaped characters which are considered punctuation marks. After much discussion with members of this group, they strongly urged us to use this character and lobby for its broader inclusion in fonts. Those are also reasons we chose to replace ÿ with the ‘okina in the custom 8 bit "HI" fonts which we used for many years. It had the added benefit of alphabetizing correctly (the ‘okina being the final consontant of the Hawaiian consonants).

I tend to use the single left curly quote in web pages for display. As was mentioned in a previous posted - many fonts do not have a character at U+02BB and will display a box within the web browser.

I should not that in Apple Computer's built-in Hawaiian support for OS X, most of their fonts have the correct character at U+02BB, and this is the character generated by the Hawaiian Unicode keyboard included with OS X (see this page for information on Mac OS X support for Hawaiian).

Regarding Hawai‘ian, Keith is correct. Hawaiian words do not end with consonants, so this is not a Hawaiian word, and the glottal is not written in English. We could get into the nasty habit people have of adding 's' to Hawaiian words (leis, keikis, wahines), but don't have time for a discussion of that at the moment.

As for the single "straight" apostrophe vs. a back tick, both are wrong but are deemed acceptable when the correct character is unavailable. We (Hawaiian Language Center, UH-Hilo) don't consider either to be preferred over the other. For non-speakers it might be easier for them to differentiate the the 'okina and apostrophe with text that contains both English and Hawaiian words, but for those who can speak and read the language, either is readable.

Keola Donaghy, Asst. Professor of Hawaiian Studies, University of Hawai‘i at Hilo

A word of warning: there are Unicode fonts out there which don't support the 'okina. E.g. I'm using "Arial Unicode", and although Chinese, Japanese, Farsi, etc all show up fine, I get a little box in all the Hawaiian words that include the 'okina. I imagine the same will be true for many unsophisticated users of Wikipedia (i.e. the majority of our readers). So: do you want to be absolutely correct for the specialists, or mostly correct for the average person? Purity has its price... Noel (talk) 04:47, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

WRITTEN FORM OF GLOTTAL STOP PHONEME IN WRITTEN HAWAIIAN

1. Spoken Hawaiian has a history. It has changed over time. Written Hawaiian also has a history, and has changed over time. Hawaiian was first represented in writing by people who did not know the language. The earliest known written representations of Hawaiian are those made by the men aboard Captain Cook's ships in 1778. Those men had some familiarity with Tahitian, and reportedly had some Tahitians on board. At least some of their spoken Tahitian expressions contained words which were close enough to cognate words in Hawaiian that, with the benefit of the situational context (including gestures, facial expressions, voice intonation, use of objects, miming, etc.), there were some significant successes in communicating. Nevertheless, the glottal stop was not successfully (consistently) represented in the earliest written Hawaiian.

2. Roughly 90 percent of the development of Hawaiian as a written language was accomplished by Caucasian Americans, Christian missionaries, between 1820 and 1830 or so. A prime focus of their mission was to produce a Bible in written Hawaiian. Granted, it was a collaborative effort of the Americans and the Hawaiians, and it could not have been achieved without the Hawaiians, but it is historical fact that the Americans were the driving force behind the development of written Hawaiian, and they ultimately controlled their final results in terms of the selection of particular letters (visual symbols) to represent particular phonemes (aural symbols).

3. A Hawaiian man, Opukahaia, travelled to America prior to the American missionaries' travel to Hawaii. He apparently lived in or near Connecticutt, learning English and Christianity from the missionaries there. Using a mixed set of letters and numerals, he developed his own written representations of Hawaiian. When he wrote a very brief sketch of some aspects of Hawaiian grammar, he used his "system" or "alphabet" in writing his illustrative Hawaiian examples. His system was not a hit with the missionaries, probably due to its use of numerals as letters. It did not successfully represent the glottal stop. However, he is due some credit for his efforts.

4. The system developed on Hawaii in the 1820s, by the Americans in collaboration with the Hawaiians, had five vowel symbols (a, e, i, o, u) and seven consonant symbols (h, k, l, m, n, p, w). Only two additional symbols are in use today: the macron for vowel length, and a symbol for the glottal stop. So it can be reasonably said that the American missionaries got 86 percent of the work done, in terms of developing 12 out of 14 needed symbols. In fact, they also used an apostrophe to represent the glottal stop in some words. For example, a word meaning "my" was written "ko'u" in order to distinguish it from a word meaning "your" written "kou". (Without the apostrophe, both words are written "kou", resulting in some annoying ambiguity.) If the missionaries are given full credit for using a symbol to represent the glottal stop, then they got 13/14ths or 93 percent of the work done. But they did not use the symbol consistently and for all phonemic occurrences of glottal stop. So if they are given "half credit" for a glottal stop symbol, then they got 12.5/14ths or 89 percent of the work done.

5. Some Hawaiian writers occasionally indicated vowel length by using a hyphen or dash next to a vowel (but not above the vowel like a macron), and they occasionally used a hyphen or apostrophe to represent a phonemic glottal stop. Those occasions were relatively rare compared to what would have been done in correctly representing all occurrences of vowel length and glottal stops in the relevant texts.

6. In 1945, a Hawaiian dictionary was published by Judd, Pukui, and Stokes. They endeavored to address the issue of vowel length in Hawaiian words, but did not achieve a consistent distinction between phonemically long versus phonemically short vowels. They made use of the macron symbol, but also used the breve and acute accent. They made use of the single opening quote (or backquote) to represent glottal stop.

7. In 1951, a second-language textbook was published by Elbert. He used the macron for vowel length and the apostrophe for glottal stop. The year 1957 marked the beginning of publication of the Pukui-Elbert dictionaries. They continue Elbert's use of the macron, and initiate his use of the single opening quote. Over the years, the Pukui-Elbert dictionaries made various changes to their assignment of vowel length and/or glottal stops to particular words.

8. In second-language textbooks published in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, authors like Kahananui and Anthony, Wilson and Kamana, and Hopkins (Anthony) have sometimes differed with one another in their use of vowel length and glottal stops for particular words. In some cases, they have departed from their own usage in a previous edition of their own book.

9. It is clear that the written representation of Hawaiian has changed over time, and changes continue to the present day. Now, some people are debating whether the backquote or a Unicode character should represent the glottal stop phoneme in written Hawaiian. Donaghy stated that use of the apostrophe or backquote is "wrong". Following the logic of that view, the Hawaiian Bibles used for decades by native speakers of Hawaiian are "wrong"; all Hawaiian articles published by native speakers in the foremost Hawaiian newspapers of the 19th and 20th centuries are "wrong"; the writings of native Hawaiian authors such as Kamakau, Malo, Haleole, Nakuina, and Kelekona are all "wrong"; all Hawaiian-language textbooks ever published are "wrong"; and all materials handwritten by native speakers of Hawaiian are "wrong". Why? --- Because they did not use Unicode character U+02BB. People do what they can with what they have. Little or nothing is gained by declaring the use of alternative characters to be "wrong".

10. There's not really ALL THAT MUCH visual difference between a single closing quote, "straight apostrophe", single opening quote (backquote), and whatever U+02BB looks like (besides an empty rectangle). There are SLIGHT visual differences, yes. And consistency of use is NICE, yes. But I really doubt that the entire community of native speakers of Hawaiian gives a _ _ _ _. (The word "hoot" fits into the blank.) In general, people will use whatever is most convenient for them at the moment. For decades, native writers and readers of Hawaiian got by with only the barest minimum representation of vowel length and glottal stops. Splitting hairs over computer representations of glottal stops is not likely to become a popular activity. The "Orthography Police" will never succeed in forcing every person to obey the decrees of the self-appointed "Dictators of the Hawaiian Universe". Try considering this --- Is a webpage with options better than a webpage with NO options?

Agent X 09:53, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

The backquote is a Unicode character. There are things at least as important as visual differences; U+02BB will be treated as a alphabetic character by programs (which means when you select a word, the character will be included instead of excluded), and consistency permits the creation of spellcheckers, grammar checkers, and other programs to handle Hawaiian text. A printed document does not use Unicode characters, so it can not be right or wrong in that sense.--Prosfilaes 15:08, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Why does Hawaiian have glottal stops?

From this section in the article:

There is nothing unique or strange about the glottal stops in Hawaiian. Many languages around the world have glottal stops. In Hawaiian, phonemic glottal stops are sort of like "dead consonants" because they are actually a "phonetically stripped down" final remnant of a "phonetically fuller" consonant that used to be there in an earlier form of the relevant word.

It seems like this "section" is mostly or entirely "original research" and that it takes on too much of a "conversational tone". I am not a "linguist", or else I would try to "improve" it myself.

I wrote the sub-subsection on why Hawaiian has glottal stops. Among people who have professional training in Linguistics and especially the Austronesian language family and Polynesian Linguistics, it is widely known that the consonants of proto-Austronesian forms have more or less gradually merged and disappeared along the phonological road to the Hawaiian language. As a linguist, I inform you, "Grandmasterka", that it is not original research. You are mistaken on that point. As for a "conversational tone", I invite you to specify exactly what you have a problem with, rather than making a vague complaint. Go ahead and suggest, right here on this discussion page, what word or words you would change. Agent X 12:54, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Also, I'm not really sure what this section is trying to accomplish in the first place... Do people wonder why Hawaiian has glottal stops? Why? How is it relevant? If someone could add some context to that sub-subsection, I'd appreciate it. Grandmasterka 04:52, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

It is obviously a sub-subsection under Okina (the glottal stop), and provides information relevant to Hawaiian glottal stops. That is the context, and that makes it relevant. Some people do wonder why Hawaiian has glottal stops. Many local students (in Hawaii) have the misconception that glottal stops and long vowels are something unique to the Hawaiian language. It's good for an encyclopedia article to provide accurate information, and also to address misinformation. Agent X 12:54, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

There's no need to be snippy! I added exactly what you said directly to the article: "Many local students (in Hawaii) have the misconception that glottal stops and long vowels are something unique to the Hawaiian language." That's the sort of context it needs for someone who's totally unfamiliar with the subject (like me) to understand what you're talking about. Also, phrases like "sort of like" and "It's the same story with" are not encyclopedic tone. The latter one could be changed to something like "A similar process occurs with" in that context. Also, the excessive quotation marks should be removed and perhaps that part rephrased (are those commonly used linguistic terms or not?) What you just said about Hawaiian students gives proper context to that part, now it just needs to be cleaned up by you (per my suggestions) or by someone familiar with the subject. Grandmasterka 17:15, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

There's no need to resort to name-calling. I do not agree with your implication that it is my duty to follow your suggestions. I can choose to follow a good suggestion, if one is made. I have no obligation whatsoever to follow your suggestions, and neither does anyone else. You can suggest all you like, and I invited you to do so, but there is no guarantee that any suggestion made by you will be a good one, nor that anyone will choose to follow it.

Your evaluation of the "sort of context it needs" is wrong. The context of a sub-subsection is the subsection under which it occurs, which in this case is, as I previously stated to you, the subsection on Okina. I wrote: "It is obviously a sub-subsection under Okina (the glottal stop), and provides information relevant to Hawaiian glottal stops. That is the context, and that makes it relevant."

Your pretextual effort to require a stated justification or "purpose" as a lead-in line for a sub-subsection is bogus. The article has no such line, and neither does any section, subsection, nor sub-subsection. You are just trying to make trouble, and it shows. Many students in Hawaii have misconceptions about the Hawaiian language, but they are not the only people who have such misconceptions, and are not the only people whose misconceptions can be cleared up by reading an encyclopedia article that has accurate and detailed information. It is not appropriate for you, "Grandmasterka", to try to make it appear as if students in Hawaii should be singled-out as having misconceptions. It is not appropriate for you to try to make it appear as if that is the "context" or "purpose" of the sub-subsection.

The lead-in line that I wrote is: "There is nothing unique or strange about the glottal stops in Hawaiian." That line is for everyone everywhere, not just for students, and not just in Hawaii. It clears up the misconception (whoever has it) that glottal stops, or "okinas", are something unique to the Hawaiian language. It is straightforward and direct, using only 12 words. It does not needlessly draw attention to students in Hawaii having misconceptions.

I see right through YOUR intentions, "Grandmasterka". YOU deleted my lead-in line. YOU took a line that I wrote for the discussion page, out of its context, and YOU put it into the article sub-subsection as the lead-in line. YOU intentionally did that in YOUR intentional effort to sort of "frame me", or intentionally portray me, as some kind of "bad guy" who bashes "Hawaiian students". In YOUR discussion, YOU wrote: "What you just said about Hawaiian students" [red color added, italic added]. Your misrepresentation of my words is obvious. I used the phrase "[m]any local students (in Hawaii)", NOT "Hawaiian students". In case you intend to plead ignorance (apparently your stock pretext), the phrase "Hawaiian students" will be interpreted by most people in Hawaii as meaning "racially Hawaiian students". In contrast, the phrase "local students" will be interpreted as meaning "students who are residents, regardless of race".

Your behavior strikes me as being highly contrary to Wikipedia policy. First, you wrongly suggested that a sub-subsection that I wrote was "original research". Wikipedia policy is NO ORIGINAL RESEARCH, right? Clearly, you were initially floating a false pretext for deleting my contribution altogether. But that did not work. So then, you try to make it appear as if I am a "bad guy" who bashes "Hawaiian students".

Now, as to "encyclopedic tone", if you can substantiate your claim through citations to authoritative publications, so that your claim is not merely your POV, then I might choose to agree. Do you claim that the phrase "sort of like" is never used in the text of encyclopedia articles? How about "kind of like", "something like", and "akin to". Your suggestion to use "A similar process occurs with" is not good, because "similar" does not mean "same".

As for your claim of "excessive quotation marks", it is appropriate to mark with quotes a word or phrase that is being used in a somewhat novel way, or in a way that could be unfamiliar to the audience (the readers). Being a creative person, I enjoy sharing novel ways of looking at things, including things that are not "original research". Novel ways of looking at things are refreshing, for most readers, and a relief from the constant use of stock expressions and cliches. (But a cliche can be refreshing too, when used in a novel way.) Agent X 05:58, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm not a linguist either, but I think the author was comparing Hawaiian to other Polynesian languages. The Tongan faka becomes ho'o, eiki becomes ali'i -- the k drops out and is replaced by a glottal stop. I'd rewrite, but I'd be afraid of messing it up. Zora 05:52, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Not necessarily. By saying that "Tongan faka becomes ho'o, [']eiki becomes ali'i" you are implying that Tongan is Proto Polynesian. You're also ignoring that Hawaiian has ha'a-. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.93.117.149 (talk) 09:27, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Kia Ora

Kia ora koutou katoa. He tangata Māori au nō Aotearoa. Kua ako au i te mātauranga-ā-Wetereo, ā, ko tōku hinengaro he āawhina atu ra i a koutou ki te mārama i te reo Hawaiki hei reo pounamu tuku iho mai i ngā tūpuna. Ka taea hoki e au te kōrero i te reo Māori o Rarotonga, ā, e āhua mōhio ana au ki te pānui i te reo Tahiti. Nō reira, ka whakatakotoria e au tēnei pōwhiritanga ki mua i ngō koutou aroaro ki te tapae i taku ratonga.

Aroha nui! Maori rahi

Greetings to all of you. I'm a Māori from Aotearoa. I am learning linguistics, and, I'd like to help you out with this page on the Hawai'ian language. I can also speak Rarotongan, and I kind of know how to read Tahitian. Therefore, I lay this invitation before you all to offer my services.

Aroha nui! Maori rahi

Knowledge of Maori, per se, does not create knowledge of Hawaiian. However, for the purpose of comparing Hawaiian to other, related languages, knowledge of Maori is useful. Bear in mind, though, that this is the English Wikipedia, not the Hawaiian Wikipedia, nor the Maori Wikipedia. There is consensus here that the English spelling Hawaiian is to be used, and not the (non-English) spelling Hawai`ian. Did you learn English before learning Maori? Have you read Tamati Reedy's dissertation on Maori? Agent X 18:55, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Kia Ora,

However, a knowledge of the grammatical rules of NZ Maori, combined with a knowledge of the grammatical rules of Tahitian and Cook Islands Maori certainly does help. Having heard a lot of Hawai'ian, and reading quite a bit, Hawai'ian doesn't fall that far from the tree (in other words it is just another typical Eastern Polynesian language with a few interesting variations but not enough to make it a language isolate).

As for how I spell Hawai'ian, that is something that is left up to the discretion of each user as to how they wish to spell the word. My spelling is not correct because I'm not even using a proper 'okina (or 'amata as they are called in Cook Islands Maori) and spelling it as Hawaiian doesn't reflect the way I do pronounce the word. I don't think it is something to get political about or to jump up and down about - I mean, it is like me hating on people who spell colour as 'color'.

I haven't read Tamati Reedy's dissertation on Maori but I have read a portion of what Bauer has to say, as well as a portion of what Biggs has written, as well as Ray Harlow. However, I prefer speaking and listening to korero about my tupuna, our links in Tahiti, the Cook Islands, Hawai'i and all over the Pasifika region. I also like reading in my own language as well.

Noho ora Maori rahi

Ha-ha! Nice one, Maori rahi. Welcome. I just wanted to interrupt Agent X's premature interjection about there being some alleged "consensus" here about the spelling of "Hawai`ian" or "Hawaiian" (presumably because he or she has decided "on high" for it to be so -- though it is not). I certainly hear more "Hawaiian" than "Hawai`ian" in my conversations. But I hardly think its Agent X's place to tell any of us how to speak; he or she seems to do a lot of that! (Sheesh! Who made Agent X's opinions authority? ;-) As far as I'm concerned, you can say "Hawai`ian" if you please; I still know what you mean. (So much for a "concensus", huh? :-) On the other hand, Agent X's mix of verbose confidence and bullshit naivety strikes me as remarkable. What motivates this need to convince us to respect the linguistic purity of English? It almost sounds like some kind of backhanded cultural imperialism to me, conveyed with the rhetoric of "obvious" reasoning -- it is not. There are numerous counterexamples, if he or she had cared (and been able) to provide a fair account. For instance, learned English writers often use foreign symbols (like the French accent aigu and grave). The simple fact is that people don't always separate their languages in such a thorough and Fascist manner -- much to the chagrin of old fashioned authoritarian types. It rather seems to me that our use of language here is democratic, baby. It might even be anarchistic... Voltaire3001 23:19, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Basic grammar information needed

I hate to say it but this article almost has more history of the language than it has actual information ABOUT the language. We get the phenomes and their development but nothing on grammar at all. According to the article on word order, Hawai'ian is a VSO language. Somehow this detail rates below the history of the language... I'm not trying to say that the history isn't very important, but the structure of the language itself deserves some mention. Unfortunately I don't know Hawai'ian and so am useless as far as writing a grammar section in.--adamatari 06:17, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

The point is well taken that the article will be strengthened with information on Hawaiian syntax. However, the current lack of a Syntax section is not due to any deliberate omission, nor deletion, nor debasement of such a section. The only reason it's not there now is because nobody has yet written it. Most likely, a Syntax section will eventually be added, and a Morphology section too. Certain sub-sections in "History of Use" still need revision though.

Sooner or later, certain sections of the "Hawaiian language" article will need to be made into their own separate articles. This is because the main article eventually becomes "too long" as more and more sections are added to it. For example, the current "Phonology" section is already long enough to be its own "Hawaiian phonology" article. A new "Syntax" section could soon grow big enough to be a "Hawaiian syntax" article. When a satellite article is created by exporting a lengthy section from a main article, there is a subsequent need to write up a suitable summary of the exported section in order to fill the newly created hole in the main article, without needless duplication of information. I will try doing this for the "Phonology" section.

If you examine several Wikipedia articles on languages, you'll see that many or most of them have relatively more on phonology, and relatively less on syntax. Agent X

deleting vandalism on talk page

I read WP:VANDAL and it appears to me that it's OK to delete obvious vandalism from a talk page. Recent edits by 70.149.63.42 seem to qualify. Just to check -- OK to delete?--Ling.Nut 20:28, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Intro too long & missing citations

I agree that the intro is clearly way too long. I'll try to rearrange here & there bit by bit as I have time.

It would be very time-intensive for me to add citations, tho, since I don't know the source of much of the material. Anyone who could help would be deeply appreciated.

Thanks --Ling.Nut 12:26, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

OK, I did some housecleaning. It is not perfect. If you see something that could be improved, please go ahead... --Ling.Nut 12:58, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Imbalance

The current state of the article (Dec 14 2006) is imbalanced. The subsection "Methods of proving Hawaiian's family relationships" is much too general and belongs in the Austronesian languages article, since it is of relevance to many other languages and could be linked to by numerous such articles. Meanwhile, there's nothing on grammar beyond the phonology section.

No offence to all the people who have worked on this, but as I understand the rating system, this article doesn't belong in B-class; it's still Start-class ("it is still weak in many areas, and may lack a key element").

An audio clip would also be nice; could one of you native speakers provide one? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.70.243.126 (talk) 14:35, 14 December 2006 (UTC).

The total amount of speakers is totally off, way more than ~2,000.

Break the page in half

Break this in half like they did with Latin. There's an article for both the history of the Latin language and the Latin language itself. There's way more history than grammar here as it is now. - Christopher 15:04, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I oppose this idea for now. I intend to do a top-down rewrite & reconsider of the content in September... Ling.Nut

Where is Agent X?

I find it very unfortunate that someone who added so much information like Agent X has disappeared. It seems that very little has been done to this Hawaiian language article since then, since he was really the only one competent enough to write so much about it. Granted, his writing came off as harsh and arrogant, but thus far no one has been able to do better. --Kainulama 14:33, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I never realized that person did a lot of the article. But I totally agree with you. He/she was arrogant, but seemed to know what they wrote about. I don't think that was Keola Donaghy because I believe he would've used his real name. Mamoahina 21:42, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Fear not, "competent" (whatever that means) people are watching this article. Ling.Nut 16:15, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Scouting in Hawaii

Can someone render "Be Prepared", the Scout Motto, into Hawaiian? Mahalo! Chris 21:31, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

You might say "Maka`ala" or "E maka`ala". The Hawaiian Dictionary translates "maka`ala" as "Alert, vigilant, watchful, wide awake; to attend to vigilantly." Voltaire3001 23:40, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Pronunciation Question

Can anyone help me with the "correct" pronunciation of the place name "Waikele"? It has always seemed to me that the correct pronunciation should be "why kay lay", but everyone who I have ever heard say it (including on TV, radio, and people who live there!) pronounce it "why kelly". Mahalo Waikele 16:32, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, to put it quite simply, neither is correct. There are two immediate pronunciation mistakes in pronouncing Waikele as "Why kelly": the first is that the "ae" sound from "why" is not the same as the "ai" sound from "wai," and the second is that the "i" sound from "kelly" is not the same as the "e" sound from "kele." Also, "why kay lay" is even poorer pronunciation, but it's only to be expected that you can't pronounce the name correctly because you've had little to no experience with the Hawaiian language, like the majority of people, since there are only a few speakers of the language. But honestly, it doesn't matter. Despite efforts by a handful of speakers and educators, Hawaiian language revitalization is still in its infancy; actually, I'd like to call it a still birth. Although there has been improvement in the number of speakers, their numbers are still pitiful, and when children leave immersion schools they stop speaking Hawaiian as a necessity because their parents can't speak it. If they could, they wouldn't have had to send their children to those schools anyway. Moreover, the elderly native speakers are fast disappearing, and the few who are left speak Hawaiian like babies. Hawaiian is a useless language, and if it disappears, no one will care except for the Hawaiians who don't even speak it in the first place. Screw the Hawaiian language. I'm going to go learn Spanish. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.93.117.149 (talk) 06:37, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Cabron, no puedo comprender porque los pinches gringos como tu quieren aprender español. Mamoahina 21:57, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

The correct pronunciation would be something like "wai-keh-leh." In this case, "ai" sounds like the i in "kite." Oh, and is it our fault that the government banned the instruction of Hawaiian in schools for nearly a hundred years? Kal ^[talk] 03:24, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Wtf are you talking about? You think that the government banned the language "for nearly a hundred years?" You must be smoking crack. Samuel Elbert was teaching Hawaiian at UH in the 1940s, and Punanaleo started in the 1980s. It was not banned for 100 years. Moreover, it wasn't that the language nearly died off completely because of you Hawaiians being oppressed by some enigmatic white man. The language is in the state it is now because all of your native speakers willingly gave up their language and refused to teach it to their children. In turn, the children had no desire to learn the language. It's your own fault for losing the language, so be content withwhat you chose, and don't plague the rest of us with your guilt trip any further. I'd be happy to see the language die off completely, being remembered in only one revolutionary phrase:

E MAKE LOA NO KA OLELO HAWAII! E MAKE NO KA OLELO HAWAII!E MAKE LOA NO KA OLELO HAWAII! E MAKE NO KA OLELO HAWAII!E MAKE LOA NO KA OLELO HAWAII! E MAKE NO KA OLELO HAWAII!E MAKE LOA NO KA OLELO HAWAII! E MAKE NO KA OLELO HAWAII!E MAKE LOA NO KA OLELO HAWAII! E MAKE NO KA OLELO HAWAII!E MAKE LOA NO KA OLELO HAWAII! E MAKE NO KA OLELO HAWAII!E MAKE LOA NO KA OLELO HAWAII! E MAKE NO KA OLELO HAWAII!E MAKE LOA NO KA OLELO HAWAII! E MAKE NO KA OLELO HAWAII!E MAKE LOA NO KA OLELO HAWAII! E MAKE NO KA OLELO HAWAII!E MAKE LOA NO KA OLELO HAWAII! E MAKE NO KA OLELO HAWAII! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.93.117.149 (talk) 00:39, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the replies to my pronunciation question. It motivated me to read all the posts on this Talk page. While doing that I learned something about the current state of the Hawaiian Language. It sure looks like the language is only one or two steps from disappearing. Niihau is apparently the only significant (although tiny and fragile) center of "mother tongue" Hawaiian. And Niihau is such a special case, perpetuated in part by welfare payments, restrictions on residents returning to the island after having had extensive contact off-island, etc. I admire many of the native Hawaiians who I have known and worked with, but I have never envied anyone who is isolated from the world on Niihau. I understand that some prefer the "simple" lifestyle, but it really does not appear to have been their choice. It is the Robinsons who made the choices for them. It also strikes me that there is a significant difference between an endangered species and an endangered language. I do not want to be insensitive, but wouldn't the Niihau residents be better off, and face a better future if they had learned English, rather than Hawaiian? It sounds like they may soon be dropped unceremoniously into the 21st Century. I know that other may have a different opinion, and I do not want to argue with anyone, but that is the way it looks to me now. Waikele 19:28, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, it's good that you acknowledge the importance of speaking English. It is THE language to know. But the people on Niihau would not "be better off, and face a better future if they had learned English," because what you are implying is that they speak only Hawaiian and not English. The fact is that they are bilingual in Hawaiian and English - no one is monolingual in it, unless they are small children. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.93.117.149 (talk) 09:12, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

If I am not mistaken in my instruction, children on Niʻihau learn English in school beginning in the third grade or something like that. Kal ^[talk] 06:05, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Reference to Lemuria in History of the Language

It seems that there is some spurious research cited here, as evidenced by mention of the fictitious continent of Lemuria (continent). Can someone who knows about this topic please clean up this paragraph, or remove it, please? Thanks --Chekaz (talk) 08:04, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Even if the "research" is not a hoax, claims that Hawaiian (or any other language) are descended from Lemurian don't belong in a serious article. Well, they might belong in an article about Lemuria in popular culture, but that's about it. I've removed the paragraph, but the section needs some cleanup by someone who actually knows the subject. --Akhilleus (talk) 17:33, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

For a taste of Dr. Morrell's theories, search for her work on Amazon and then do a "search inside" on "Lemuria" in The Hawaiian Oracle. The book also includes a "36-card divination deck"--draw your own conclusions. RLetson (talk) 22:28, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

A bit later: I notice that a reference to Morrell's work remains in the last two sentences of the second paragraph of the "1949 to present" section. It seems off-topic, intrusive, and perhaps promotional in that context. As a non-specialist, I hesitate to remove it myself, but her qualifications as a genuine authority on linguistics seem doubtful, and the whiff of New Age quackery I get from her website and Amazon listings do not inspire confidence. The notion that any natural language is more mystical or metaphoric than any other is one my years-ago linguistics training taught me to be wary of, Sapir-Whorf notwithstanding. 209.188.109.141 (talk) 22:02, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I've taken that out; Morrell's work isn't peer-reviewed, and therefore not appropriate to include here, in my opinion. If someone wants to do some research and find some peer-reviewed literature on the special character of the Hawaiian language, please go ahead. I seem to remember that Marshall Sahlins somewhere talks about punning in traditional song and the high number of double entendres that result. That's not quite as exciting as the removed material, but it comes from a better source... --Akhilleus (talk) 02:27, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Hawaiian language--official language of US?

The first paragraph of this article claims that Hawaiian is an official language of the US, but in the very first sentence of Languages of the United States and in the info box in United States, it is stated that the US has no official language. I move that this be fixed to agree with these pages. Framed0000 (talk) 18:18, 8 February 2008 (UTC)