Hawaiian (redirected from Hawai'ian)

Hawaiian, member of the Polynesian group of the Austronesian family of languages. Of the fewer than 10,000 people who speak Hawaiian, only a few hundred are native speakers, but the language is taught in some Hawaiian schools and remains important as a symbol of ethnic identity. Proto-Polynesian, the parent language of Hawaiian, was spoken in W Polynesia c.1500–1200 B.C. Hawaiian bears significant phonological similarities to the other Polynesian languages; consonant and vowel correspondences among the languages is common. Hawaiian has five long and five short vowels and eight consonants. It differs from most of the other Polynesian languages by its lack of the consonant t, which became k in Hawaiian as it diverged from the parent language.

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Hawaiian

Any of the aboriginal people of Hawaii. They are the descendants of Polynesians who migrated to Hawaii in two waves: the first from the Marquesas Islands probably c. AD 400; the second from Tahiti in the 9th or 10th century. Without metals, pottery, or beasts of burden, Hawaiians made implements of stone, wood, shell, teeth, and bone. They had a highly developed oral culture and possessed percussion, string, and wind instruments. Their basic unit of land, the ahupuaa, usually extended from the shore to the mountaintop, providing the occupants with the means to grow and gather all they needed. Hawaiians had four principal gods and many lesser deities. Their laws, which included intricate taboos, bore heavily upon the people, especially women. After the arrival of Christian missionaries in 1820, some of the more repressive laws and taboos were abolished, but the native population was devastated by Western diseases. Numbering about 300,000 in 1778, full-blooded Hawaiians today number fewer than 10,000.

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Hawaiian

1. a native or inhabitant of Hawaii, esp one descended from Melanesian or Tahitian immigrants

2. a language of Hawaii belonging to the Malayo-Polynesian family

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Hawaiian 

the language of the Hawaiians, one of the Polynesian languages, which is spoken in the Hawaiian Islands. Hawaiian was spoken by the entire population of the Hawaiian Islands until the beginning of heavy contact with the Europeans and North Americans (early 19th century). Hawaiian had a rich oral literary tradition which gradually began to disappear after the conversion of the population to Christianity (first half of the 19th century), although missionaries managed to transcribe much of it. In the first half of the 19th century the Roman alphabet was adapted to suit Hawaiian, and newspapers in Hawaiian were first published in 1834. After the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands by the USA in 1898, Hawaiian continued to be used by the ethnic group of Hawaiians, which consisted of the descendants of the earlier Polynesian population of the islands, among the prevailing majority of mixed-bloods (total population, approximately 115,000, according to a 1967 estimate). The Hawaiian language is used in everyday life, but many present-day Hawaiians now speak English.

REFERENCES

Blinov, A. I. “Iazyki polineziitsev.” In Narody Avstralii i Okeanii. Moscow, 1956.
Pukui, M. K., and S. H. Elbert. Hawaiian-English Dictionary. [Honolulu,] 1957. (With a brief grammatical sketch.)
Pukui, M. K., and S. H. Elbert. Place Names of Hawaii and Supplement to the Third Edition of the Hawaiian-English Dictionary. [Honolulu,] 1966.
Emerson, N. B. Unwritten Literature of Hawaii: The Sacred Songs of the Hula. Washington, 1909.

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