It’s All Hawaiian to Me
Although Hawai’i is one of the United States, it comes with its own, native history and language. Hawaiian is a beautiful language, full of syllables and nuances that are easy to miss, if you’re not paying attention. Here’s how it all works:
The Hawaiian alphabet uses only 12 Roman letters ( a, e, i, o, u, h, k, l, m, n, p, w). And those apostrophes are not really apostrophes; they’re what’s called an ‘okina, a diacritical mark that indicates a shortening, or sudden stopping of sound. (Called a glottal stop.) An ‘okina is a special character that Internet browsers don’t recognize, so an apostrophe is used in its place. Between the ‘okina and its cousin, the kahakô (a diacritical mark represented as a horizontal line over a vowel to signify elongation of its sound) those 12 letters become a beautiful language that flows like lava.
How?
Read longer words slowly, and you’ll notice that syllables are often repeated, sometimes with the glottal stop between them. Try sounding things out, and you’ll learn to lose yourself in the scenery instead of the print. Things are pronounced just as they look; there are no silent letters in Hawaiian. Try the state fish, for example:
humuhumunukunukuapua’a
Because we’ve practiced it, and broke down the word for her, my three year old can say it like a pro. So can you. Here’s how it goes:
Humu
humu
nuku
nuku
apu
a
a
And although English and Hawaiian are the official languages of Hawai’i, the only place where Hawaiian is spoken as an everyday language is on Ni’ihau, a private island that is inaccessible to just about everyone. So as long as you’re traveling with a healthy dose of aloha, all those “apostrophes” will pose no threat. (Confidentially, it’s the dipthongs you have to watch out for, but that’s another post.)
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