I thought I’d give y’all a bit of a treat rather than my usual whining. Today I’m going to teach you a little bit of Hawaiian! You’ll learn about the Hawaiian alphabet, and at the end you’ll get to learn a few phrases.

The Alphabet

The English alphabet has 26 letters. The Hawaiian alphabet has less than half of that. There are 12 letters in the Hawaiian alphabet: A, E, H, I, K, L, M, N, O, P, U, and W. There are also two symbols used in the language. An `okina (`) marks a brief pause in the word. A kahakõ (the line over a letter, like õ - it’s actually a straight line, not a tilde, but the macrons don’t show up in some browsers) marks a stress. So if you see a kahakõ over a letter, draw out the sound. Rather than saying “oh”, you would say “ohhh”.

More on `okinas. If you have the word “mãlie” (mah-lee-ay, meaning “calm”), you can just cruise through it without stopping. But if the word changes to “mãli`e”, you need to pause in between the “li” and the “e”. So, it would be “mah-lee (pause) ay”. Don’t pause for too long - a half-second should do it. If there is an `okina at the beginning of a word, pause for a little bit before beginning the word.

The consonants in the Hawaiian language all sound like their English counterparts, with the exception of W. The vowels are a different matter.

The “A” in Hawaiian is not pronounced “Aaaay”. It’s pronounced “Aaah“, like the noise you made as a child when the doctor needed to look in your throat. It’s like the “a” in the word “hate”.

The “E” is not “Eeeee”. It’s “Aaaay“, like the English “A”. Like the “e” in the word “hey”.

The “I” is not pronounced like “eye”. It’s like the English “E”. “Eeeee“! Like the “i” in “sierra”.

The “O” is just like the English “O”. “Oh”. Oh well.

The “U” is not pronounced like “you”. It’s “oooh“, like the noise you make when you see something shiny. Like the “u” in “tube”.

And the “W“. It’s not “wuh”. It’s “vuh“. The “W” is like an English “V”. The word “why” wouldn’t be pronounced “y”, it would be “vy”.

So now for some basics. In Hawaiian, no two consonants can be together. This includes `okinas. The word “foods” would never be found in Hawaiian even if all of the letters existed in the language, because you would have a “d” and an “s” right next to each other. Also, a word cannot end in a consonant.

You will never find a kahakõ over a consonant. They’re strictly for vowels, which makes sense. How would you elongate a “k”?

And Now For Some Words

Everybody knows the word “aloha” (ah-low-ha). But did you know that it means several things? It can be used to say love, hello, goodbye, good night, and good morning, among other things. It’s meant to be used informally in most contexts, though.

Need to thank somebody? Say “mahalo” (mah-ha-low). Whoever you’re thanking should respond with “a`ole pilikia” (ah-oh-lay pee-lee-kee-ah) - no problem.

Should you need to go to the restroom, practice this phrase: “Hiki ia`u ke hele i ka lumi ho`opau pilikia ke `olu`olu” (hee-kee yah-ooh kay hay-lay ee kah loo-mee [pause] ho-oh-pa-oo pee-lee-kee-ah kay oh-loo-oh-loo). It’s a mouthful, but say it to people and look at their expressions.

Got a friend? Call them “hoaaloha” (ho-ah-low-hah).

Do not call your teacher “Miss” or “Mister”. Call them “kumu” (koo-moo) instead. If you really want to be specific, call them “kumukula” (koo-moo-koo-la), or schoolteacher. Hint: the “kula” (koo-la) means “school”.

You likely live in a “hale” (ha-lay), or house. When you go to the store, you go to the “haleku`ai” (ha-lay-koo-eye). And if you’re religious, you probably go to church, or “halepule” (ha-lay-poo-lay).

Let’s count to 10. `Ekahi (ay-ka-hee), `Elua (ay-loo-ah), `Ekolu (ay-koh-loo), `Eha (ay-ha), `Elima (ay-lee-ma), `Eono (ay-oh-no), `Ehiku (ay-hee-koo), `Ewalu (ay-vah-loo), `Eiwa (ay-ee-vah), and `Umi (oo-mee).

In Hawaiian, the days of the week begin with Monday rather than Sunday. To say the days of the week, just take the numbers one through six (`Ekahi, `Elua, `Ekolu, `Eha, `Elima, `Eono), remove the “‘E” from the front of them, and replace it with a “Po’a” (Po-ah). You get this:

Monday: Po`akahi (po-ah-ka-hee)
Tuesday: Po`alua (po-ah-loo-ah)
Wednesday: Po`akolu (po-ah-ko-loo)
Thursday: Po`aha (po-ah-ha)
Friday: Po`alima (po-ah-lee-ma)
Saturday: Po`aono (po-ah-oh-no)
Sunday: Lãpule (la-poo-lay)

Sunday is Lãpule because it is the day of worship. Remember the word for church - halepule? “Pule” means “pray”, and “Lã” means “day”. So, “Lãpule” - “day of worship”.

Hopefully you learned something interesting from this post. Let me know if you enjoyed it - I might do another.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 22nd, 2008 at 6:30 pm and is filed under Fun. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Comments are closed. Deal with it.