Category Archives: Language

He Aupuni Palapala project at Bishop Museum, 2021.

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Did you see the latest Nūhou Monday post from Bishop Museum? It mentions Ka Nūhou, the Hawaiian language newsletter put out by the club, Hui Aloha ʻĀina Tuahine at University of Hawaii at Mānoa. That was 49 years ago! Click here for the Nūhou Monday post from He Aupuni Palapala!

E na makua Hawaiʻi me na kupuna Hawaiʻi

…ʻO ʻoukou no na kumu helu ekahi o ka ʻolelo Hawaiʻi. Ka ʻolelo i aʻo ʻia mai ka puke mai, oʻohe no e like me ka ʻolelo mai koʻoukou waha mai.

Hawaiian parents and grandparents, you are the best teachers of the Hawaiian language.
The language taught from books is not like the language that comes from your mouths.
—A plea written by Haunani Bernardino, editor of Ka Nuhou, an English-Hawaiian newsletter.

Haunani Bernardino

Nuulani Atkins

Lurline Naone

Bill Wilson

By Arlene Lum
Star-Bulletinn Writer

Hawaiian is a living language and NOT a foreign one. And if a group of University of Hawaii students had their way, Hawaiian youngsters would be bilingual.

There are only 5,000 people in the State now who can speak the beautiful, musical language and only 150 at the University are trying to learn.

The reason?

“We were brought up feeling ashamed of our heritage,” according to Nuulani Atkins, a senior in his third year of language study. “I hated myself. I hated the Hawaiians. I felt inferior.” Continue reading →

Edwin M. Desha fights for Ka Hoku o Hawaii, 1938.

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Eddie Desha is Trying All Means to Save “Ka Hoku o Hawaii”

An effort to perpetuate the Hawaiian language and a Newspaper published in that language is being made in Hilo.

Eddie Desha, the nephew of the late Senator Stephen L. Desha Sr., is making this determined effort, with the courage and persistence which characterized his uncle, one of Hawaii’s noted orators and legislators.

Besides a small monthly magazine published by the Hawaiian Board of Missions [Ka Hoaloha], there now remains only one weekly newspaper printed in the native Hawaiian language of Hawaii. It is Ka Hoku o Hawaii (Star of Hawaii), published in Hilo by the Star of Hawaii Publishing Co., Ltd., of which W. H. Beers, Hilo attorney, is president, and Edwin M. Desha is treasurer and manager. Continue reading →

Plea for explanations of Hawaiian terms, 1899.

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HAWAIIAN WORDS

Under this heading [Huaolelo Hawaii], desired are native words of all sorts, and also the descriptions of those words, but send them to the Office of “Ka Loea Kalaiaina” in Honolulu. Being that amongst the Learned Nations of this world, cared for by them are numerous Books explaining their Language [Olelo Kumu], and Thus this effort is asking of the intimates and friends living all over the Archipelago, Continue reading →

On the state of the Hawaiian Language, 1920.

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101 years ago…

nupepa

PERTAINING TO THE HAWAIIAN LANGUAGE.

Mr. Editor of the Nupepa Kuokoa, Aloha oe:—In the Kuokoa of Friday, May 21, 1920, I saw your thoughts supporting Mr. Coelho on the Hawaiian Language, and about the lack of use of the Hawaiian language in some churches and Hawaiian organizations when they meet; English is what is spoken in meetings; not because Hawaiian is not understood, but because of their great embarrassment in speaking Hawaiian; there is English and it is attractive to speak, yet all the while they understand that it is not appropriate at all to be speaking in English.

It isn’t in some churches and Hawaiian associations that it is not spoken, but in markets, on streets, in homes in which true Hawaiians live, and all around this island of Oahu, only a very tiny fraction of true Hawaiians speak the Hawaiian language; most of the men, women, and children…

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Passing of Charles Pelenui Mahi, 1944.

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Passed On, He has Gone

We had no clue that the Angel of death was so close to the door of the bodily home of one of the finest fathers, that being our friend, Charles P. Mahi. The English messenger of Hilo announced that he left this worldly life.

Because of our fondness for the character of this fine father, we therefore publish a little thing so that the multitudes may know of the true nature of this father. Continue reading →

Things were looking grim for Hawaiian language, 1906.

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Do Not Forsake Your Mother Tongue

The native language of a people, like the Hawaiian Language for the Hawaiian lahui, is called the mother tongue of the Hawaiians. From what we know, how many Hawaiian youths educated in our High Schools and outside as well are truly well-supplied in knowledge and are skilled in the mother tongue of their land of birth?

We see these days that are going by, the children are grasping English, while they really have no desire to seek out the native tongue of their land of birth. It is very clear that because the Hawaiian language government schools have been put to an end, the large water sources [poo wai] that fed into all the water ditches [auwai] of knowledge in that language for the youth of Hawaii nei have closed up.  Continue reading →

Death of Lorrin Andrews, 1868.

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Hon. Lorrin Andrews.

The Honorable Rev. Lorrin Andrews, member of His Majesty’s Privy Council of State, expired at his residence yesterday, Tuesday the 29th, in the 74th year of his age. He has been confined but little over a week, having been seized with what appeared to be an attack of pleurisy, but which soon became complicated with other symptoms,and made it evident that death would ensue. Last Saturday he fell into a comotose state, which continue up to the extinction of life. Continue reading →

Mary Kawena Pukui, 1983.

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KAWENA

Guardian of the Hawaiian Language

By Helen Altonn, Star-Bulletin Writer

SAMUEL H. Elbert vividly recalls the first time he met Mary Kawena Pukui. “She had a flower in her hair and she just captivated me.”

That was in 1937, on the top floor of the Bishop Museum. Pukui, affectionately called Kawena, had just joined the staff as a translator. She was working with E. S. C. Handy, an ethnologist, on a book entitled “Polynesian Family System at Kaʻu,” the Big Island home of her Hawaiian mother’s family. Continue reading →

Traditions taught by Fred Malulani Beckley Kahea, 1922.

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Hawaiian words often do not equal English words. For instance, just because we say “sew” net and “sew” clothes in English, that does not mean Hawaiians used the same word for both. To sew clothes is “humuhumu,” but to sew a net is “kā.” Why try to make Hawaiian the same as English? What other words do you see being interchanged this way today?

nupepa

[Found under: Nuhou Kuloko”]

To teach mat weaving, feather lei making, sewing net, and some other Hawaiian skills, Fred Malulani Beckley Kahea opened up

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