The Steel Guitar Forum

Most of us know the common words you learn when you go to Hawai'i like "aloha", "mahalo", "poi", and "kâlua pig". But the last few times I've been, I haven't been lucky enough to hear a full conversation in the Hawaiian language. Whenever I asked any knowledgeable tour guides about this, they said that Hawaiian is taught at the college level, but not in elementary and high schools.

Do any of you current (or ex) residents know how kids there learn the language if it's not in public schools? Is it through parents and grandparents in everyday coversation or are they just not learning it at all until college?

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Matt
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There is a lot of hawaiian being spoken but you have to get off the beatin track to hear it. I go mainly to the big island down at Naalehu( the southernmost city in the US)and go east and west from there and go in the little stores etc where you see the locals and you'll hear plenty hawaiian and you can also hear alot of real hawaiian music sung by the locals. A good spot is a jam at the Dairy Queen in Pahoa or at least it was there last yr.cc

Matt,

A little history regarding the use of Hawaiian language, although this is surely a bit vague and inaccurate as I am certainly no scholar of Hawaiian history or language....

The early missionaries translated the Bible and hymns into Hawaiian and learned the language. But the planters who overthrew Queen Lili'uokalani and sought annexation as a US territory (to escape sugar tariffs) were not so kind. During the early part of the 20th Century, it was illegal to teach or use Hawaiian language in public schools. The result was the growth of Hawaiian pidgin, which is really a creole language. Pidgin languages are temporary mixtures of language used to communicate in mixed situations. Creole languages result where the language becomes the first language (primary or native language) of a person or the community. Hawaiian creole certainly came about as a resistance to the intended eradication of native Hawaiian language and culture.

Following the Civil Rights struggles on the mainland in the '60s, Native Hawaiians began a resurgence of pride in native language, culture, and art in the 1970s that is now known as the Hawaiian Renaissance. In the early 1990s, inspired by Maori language schools in New Zealand, Hawaiian communities began establishing private language schools for pre-school and elementary-aged kids on each of the islands. They are known as Punana leo (language nests) and are immersion schools, where speaking and instruction and reading materials are all in Hawaiian.

What is really interesting about Hawaiian communication patterns is the "talk story" structure. It is common for kids in Hawai'i to speak over the top of each other -- but it isn't just kids being rude and such. It is the community pattern. I've watched videos of Hwaiian elders "talking story" in Hawaiian creole English where several people talk at the same time and yet they are nodding in recognition of what the other person is saying and they respond to the other's comments in a flowing conversational style. They take in multiple verbal stimuli and they create a conversation as a group or community. That's part of Hawaiian "talk story."

Anyway, this may be a bit off-track or more than you were asking, but I will add a couple links to articles about language schools. Larry Kimura has been credited on many Hawaiian language albums for translation to Hawaiian or as a language consultant. When I spoke with him a number of years ago, he was involved with the Punana leo schools on the Big Island in the Hilo area.
http://www.hawaiiislandjournal.com/2003/11a03c.html http://www.coffeetimes.com/language.htm http://outofthejungle.blogspot.com/2006/05/language-nests-nurturing-first-nation.html

Take care, Hal

when i was in elementary public (and private) school there, they did not teach us Hawaiian.
It was probably thought to be difficult enough teaching us English, with pidgin spoken everywhere to begin with. Although they DID go out of their way to make us familiar with a lot of particular words. Like, you can't get through learning "My Little Grass Shack" without learning what a humunukuupuapuapa is.

Hey don't ask me to spell it, but I DO know what that sucka is.

humuhumu-nukunuku-â-pua'a

Jus' call it "da state fish", brah!

Hal,

Thanks for the very helpful links. The first one's author, Kaliko Beamer, has an 8-CD Series that you can buy in the language section at Borders and Barnes & Noble. It helped me a lot with pronunciation, syntax, and spelling.

Here's a link: http://www.topics-ent.com/audioLanguage.asp <font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Matt Rhodes on 12 December 2006 at 01:11 PM.]</p></FONT>

I think it would be possible to ask a question on ANY subject on this forum and to get at least one intelligent, informed answer.

I've been thinking about splitting the atom in my backyard. Can someone email instructions, please?

Matt,
Thanks for the info and link about the immersion Hawaiian language lessons on DVD. I will check it out next time I'm in Barnes & Noble. I would love to learn more about Hawaiian language. Seems like Hawaiian music helps generate a lot of interest in the language. When I first lived in Hawai'i, I wondered how people could listen to Hawaiian music all day when they couldn't speak the language. But it draws you in, and slowly you start picking things up here and there. It always helps to have a little structured instruction though. So thanks for the heads up.
Hal

If you have a dish there is a Hawaiian music channel on with traditional and hapa howle music. I gave my brother in law a VHS tape and he recorded eight hours of it for me. A lot of the traditional stuff knocks me out. Hula chants and love songs. What a beautiful language. How could anyone forbid someone to speak such a beautiful, flowing, spiritual, tongue. We progress to digress. Aloha

Michael,

Is that the same channel that's like the high-numbered Time Warner music channels, where there's always music but no accompanying videos? Or is it like the standard music channels (MTV, VH1, FUSE, etc.) with commercials and video? Please give me the channel #. I'd probably be willing to drop cable for something like that!

Rick, I think you need some plutonium, sunglasses, sunscreen, a big 'ol hammer, and a mighty small chisel to do that!

Naw, just put eleven pounds of U-2 in a bucket and run.