Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 22, Number 10, 1 October 2005 — Unique language [ARTICLE]

Unique language

This is in regards to Havaii Ta-Umu-Arii's letter to the editor (lune 2005). I love the sound of the Hawaiian language. It is, to me, the most lovely and soft sounding language in the world. Even if I cannot understand all the words in a melody, a song will still move me. I need more information before I would so easily give up the Hawaiian sounds that speak to my soul. I know that Hawai'i was isolated for a long time. The Hawaiian language would have evolved over time, and one would expect variation from the original source. Asking Hawaiians to go back to the original Tahitian/Hivan root language seems to me like asking English-speaking people to go

back to Latin. I wonder if early Europeans simply substituted familiar, previously interpreted, Polynesian languages (Tahitian) in early recordings of the Hawaiian language because they were already familiar with the Polynesian languages and did not appreciate the uniqueness of Hawai'i. It certainly would have sufficed to bridge the communication gap. I do not know linguistics, but it makes no sense to me that English speaking missionaries would have "dropped" the b, r, d, v and t letters that are part of their own Latin-based alphabet if they were "hearing" them from the Hawaiian speaking people. Perhaps, at that point in history and for the first time, the unique language of Hawai'i was finally interpreted correctly? iune Tavares Waimānalo, O'ahu