Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 27, Number 8, 1 August 2010 — Hot off the presses [ARTICLE]

Hot off the presses

Here is an excerpt from Section 'ekahi (one), Chapter 9, "Riding a New Path." I had īeameā the Hawaiian īanguage essentially on my own, although there were lucky breaks and help along the way. For instance, I had the opportunity to take over ajobfrom a Hawaiian friend who was assisting Kulamanu WUliams to write a book entitled, Teach YourselfHawaiian. Kulamanu was a memberofa kama'āina (long time) missionary fami.ly who had 110 Hawaiian blood, but she was extremely interested in the language. I went to her lovely home at the seashore every week davfor almost a year to typefor her. Unfortunately, Kulamanu had very bad eyesight and wore thick glasses whi.eh di.dn 't help her very mueh. She i.nsi.sted 011 doi.ng the proofreadi.ng of thefinal copy; the resultwas that some typographi.cal errors crept i.n whi.eh, ofcourse, I di.d not see. She went ahead and had the book printed at her own expense and, when she di.scovered the errors, she had the enti.re issue destroyed. And that was the end of a year in whi.eh I leamed enough so that Dr. Sam EIbert aIIowed me to audi.t hi.s advanced class in Hawaiian li.terature at the University of Hawai 'i. He knew me because ofmy work on the Engli.shHawaiian Dictionary and he di.dn 't care that all I had was a hi.gh school di.ploma. At that ti.me there werefive ofus i.n hi.s class. Nowadavs, hundreds ofyoung people are Iearni.ng the language. It has been a remarkable eomehaek ofa language that almost di.ed. Copyri.ght 2010 Frances N. Frazier Trust (Mav 3, 1982) All ri.ghts resetved.