A Brief
History
It is believed
that the first settlers of Hawaii arrived from Hiva in the southern
Marquesas Islands around 400 A.D. These settlers brought with them
their gods, their plants, their culture and their language.
The `Ôlelo
Hawai`i, (the Hawaiian language) belongs to a family of languages
from central and eastern Polynesia, which includes Hawaiian,
Tahitian, Tumotuan, Rarotongan and Maori.
The arrival of
Captain James Cook in 1778 marked not only the beginning of major
changes for the people of Hawaii, but also changes in their
language. Following Cook, other Westerners arrived, including
missionaries from New England around 1820.
The missionaries
were determined to educate the Hawaiians, including teaching them to
read and write. In order to do this, they needed to give the
Hawaiian language a written form.
The
missionaries, who were untrained in linguistics, were unable to
distinguish between many of the sounds in the Hawaiian language.
They could not distinguish between t and k, l
and r, or b and p. When they were
finished, the alphabet for the Hawaiian language consisted of just
12 letters found in the English alphabet and the `okina, (a
symbol that looks much like a backwards apostrophe). The new
alphabet consisted of the vowels a, e, i, o
and u, and the consonants h, k, l, m, n, p and w.
When Hawaiian
names and words were given written form, many appeared quite
different from their original spoken form. For example Honoruru
became Honolulu. Ranai became Lana`i,
Mauna Roa became Mauna Loa and taboo became
kapu. The language was changed forever.
The Hawaiians
were voracious learners. In a very few years they became one of the
most literate people on earth. By the mid-to-late 1800s, Hawaiian
became the language used in the courts, school system, the
legislature and in government offices.
When the
Hawaiian monarchy was overthrown in 1893, however, things again
began to change for the language. The new, predominantly white,
provisional government had, by 1896, prohibited the speaking or
teaching of the Hawaiian language in any public school in Hawaii.
This suppression of the Hawaiian language would continue following
U.S. annexation in 1898 and last for most of the twentieth century.
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