Hawaiian

Aloha kākou! Mai, mai, mai e aʻo ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi me aʻu! I kuʻu manaʻo, kiʻekiʻe ka nani o ka ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi, a makemake nō au e kōkua e hoʻola kēia ʻōlelo aʻu e aloha nei.

Aloha to us all! Come, come and learn some Hawaiian with me! In my opinion, the beauty of the Hawaiian language is unparalleled, and I want to help to cherish and preserve this language that I love.

And just in case anyone out there is wondering why a kid from Missouri happens to speak Hawaiian, here's my "why Hawaiian?" story.

I've been teaching Hawaiian every bit as long as I've been learning it – what better way to learn, eh? (The Hawaiian word "a'o", conveniently enough, translates as both to teach and to learn – I like it, I like it! The distinction between them can also be made, with directionals) So I want to put up some haʻawina (lessons) here, share the fun, y'know? I really do love this language, and if anybody, anybody at all wants "lessons"/language play on IRC or through e-mail or on some MUCK or even in real life (if you can manage the transportation, heh), I want to hear from you. (e-mail me: julieclipse AT planet-save.com) Or anybody already ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi, maybe I can learn something from you!

Since there's lots of fun, interesting lists of words and dictionaries already out there on the 'net (just see da links below), I'll maybe try to do a little more with the grammar...no, no, no, mai hele aku, don't run and scream when you here that word! There's not an ablative in sight, none of that conjugation nonsense, I promise! That's it, e hoʻi mai, come back.. Hawaiian grammar is different, if you're used to English or the Romance languages. Not necessarily "easier" (although it certainly has been for me), but definitely different. Come, take a look...

(first, a short disclaimer: I'm not proficient in Hawaiian, so there may be some mistakes.. this isn't a definitive thing, just a place to start. It is all my material, and is copyright to me. If you're really interested in learning a lot of Hawaiian, get yourself a good book for it. :) )

You can go to the table of contents, or start with Haʻawina ʻEkahi.

If you're new at the language and having trouble finding things to read in it, or are otherwise desperate, you can go look at my early Hawaiian writings. Simplistic, lots of mistakes, but it sure helped me learn...

I have some other writings in Hawaiian as well.

I can also recommend the Hawaiian language learner's list! To subscribe, just send an e-mail to listproc@hawaii.edu with "Subscribe Haw-l <yourfirstname> <yourlastname>" in the body of the message.

Here are some of the best Hawaiian language pages I've found.. there're more out there, just follow the links! These are the ones that have been most useful to me, however.

Hawaiian

Links