Category Archives: Language

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 →

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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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On Hawaiianization of foreign words, 1869.

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The Hawaiian language, when the Islands were first discovered by Europeans, was of course adapted only to the simple wants of the people. With the introduction of new facts to the knowledge of the people and the development of new ideas, it was necessary to get words to express them—as for instance, pepa, was merely the word “paper,” spelled on the phonetic plan. Continue reading →