Hawaiian language
| Hawaiian (‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i) | |
|---|---|
| Spoken in: | Hawaii |
| Total speakers: | ~1,000 native ~15,000 total |
| Ranking: | not in top 100 |
| Genetic classification: | Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Central Eastern Malayo-Polynesian Eastern Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Central-Eastern Oceanic Remote Oceanic Central Pacific East Fijian-Polynesian Polynesian Nuclear Polynesian Eastern Polynesian Central Eastern Polynesian Marquesic Hawaiian |
| Official status | |
| Official language of: | Hawaii (with English) |
| Regulated by: | - |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | |
| ISO 639-2 | haw |
| SIL | HWI |
Hawaiian is a member of the Austronesian language family, most closely related to Polynesian languages like Marquesan, Tahitian, Sāmoan;, Māori;, and Rapanui (i.e., the language of Easter Island), as well as to other languages in the Pacific, like Fijian, Indonesian, and the indigenous languages of Taiwan and the Philippines.
Hawaiian is an endangered language. On most of the islands, Hawaiian has been displaced by English and is no longer used as the daily language of communication. An exception is Ni‘ihau;, where Hawaiian is still used in daily communications, because it is a privately owned island and visitation by outsiders is strictly controlled. For a variety of reasons starting around 1900, the number of first-language speakers of Hawaiian diminished from 37,000 to 1,000; half of these remaining are now in their seventies or eighties (see Ethnologue report below for citations).
Efforts by Native Hawaiians to revive their ancestral language have increased in recent decades. Hawaiian language "immersion" schools are now open to children whose families want to retain (or reintroduce) Hawaiian language back into the next generation. The local NPR station features a short segment titled "Hawaiian word of the day." Additionally, the Sunday editions of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, one of Honolulu's two major daily general circulation newspapers, feature a section called Kauakukalahale written entirely in Hawaiian.
Those learning Hawaiian as a second language, without Native Hawaiian speakers as constant models, have a tendency to pronounce Hawaiian words as spelled, with English values for the letters, and to use English word order in sentences. There is also a certain tension between those who would revive a purist Hawaiian, as spoken in the early 19th century, and those who grew up speaking a colloquial Hawaiian shaped by more than one hundred years of contact with English and pidgin.
Hawaiian Pidgin (also known as Hawaiian Creole English) is a local language, based on English but with its own unique syntax. Its vocabulary comes from English, Hawaiian, and Asian languages, predominantly Japanese and Chinese introduced by immigrants hired to work at sugar and pineapple plantations, but Philippine languages have made contributions as well.
The ISO language code for Hawaiian is haw.
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2 See also 3 References 4 External links |
Hawaiian alphabet
The Hawaiian alphabet, called ka pī‘āpā Hawai‘i in Hawaiian, is a variety of the Latin alphabet created in the 19th century and used to write the Hawaiian language. It consists of 12 letters and a symbol, making it one of the shorter alphabets in the world (the Rotokas alphabet has one letter fewer; the Pirahã language, two fewer). Its inventory consists of the consonants /p/, /k/, {
The ‘okina is officially written as an opening single quote ‘ with the Unicode value ‘ (decimal ‘), which appears either as a left-leaning quote or a quote with greater thickness at the bottom than at the top) or alternatively written as with the Unicode value ʻ (decimal ʻ), which although always having the correct appearance is not supported in some fonts/browsers.
For examples of use of the ‘okina consider the word "Hawaii", in its proper form appearing as Hawai‘i, or "Oahu", which is O‘ahu. The words are actually pronounced (using IPA): and , with a glottal stop where the ‘okina is written.
There are only 162 possible syllables in Hawaiian. Most languages have a much larger syllable repertoire.
See also
- The and at Wiktionary, the free dictionary and Wikipedia's sibling project
- Languages in the United States
References
Schutz, Albert J. 1994. "The Voices of Eden: A History of Hawaiian Language Studies." Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. ISBN 0824816374External links
- Ulukau - the Hawaiian electronic library
- Hawaiian Dictionary
- Ask Yahoo!: How Many People Still Speak Hawaiian?
- Ethnologue report for Hawaiian
- The Hawaiian Language Website
- Information and a resource link on Hawaiian.
- Ka Haka ‘Ula O Ke‘elikōlani, College of Hawaiian Language
- Omniglot Hawaiian article
- Kamehameha Schools
- Aha Punana Leo
- Kauakukalahale
