Hawaiian alphabet
| Hawaiian alphabet |
|
|---|---|
| Type |
Alphabet
|
| Languages | Hawaiian language |
| Creator | American Protestant missionaries |
|
Time period
|
1822-present |
The Hawaiian alphabet (in Hawaiian: ka pīʻāpā Hawaiʻi) is an alphabet used to write Hawaiian. It was adapted from the English alphabet in the early 18th century by American missionaries to print a bible in the Hawaiian language.
Contents
Origins
In 1778, British explorer James Cook made the first reported European discovery of Hawaiʻi. In his report, he wrote the name of the islands as "Owhyhee" or "Owhyee". In 1822, a writing system based on one similar to the new New Zealand Grammar was developed and printed by American Protestant missionary Elisha Loomis.[1] The original alphabet included five vowels and twelve consonants:
- A, B, D, E, H, I, K, L, M, N, O, P, R, T, U, V, W[citation needed]
and seven diphthongs:
- AE, AI, AO, AU, EI, EU, OU
In addition, the letters F, G, S, Y, and Z were used to spell foreign words.
In 1826, the developers voted to eliminate some of the letters which represented functionally redundant interchangeable letters, enabling the Hawaiian alphabet to approach the ideal state of one-symbol-one-sound, and thereby optimizing the ease with which people could teach and learn the reading and writing of Hawaiian.[2][3]
- Interchangeable B/P. B was dropped, P was kept
- Interchangeable L/R/D. L was kept, R and D were dropped
- Interchangeable K/T. K was kept, T was dropped
- Interchangeable V/W. V was dropped, W was kept
ʻOkina
Due to words with different meanings being spelled alike, use of the glottal stop became necessary. As early as 1823, the missionaries made limited use of the apostrophe to represent the glottal stop, but they did not make it a letter of the alphabet. In publishing the Hawaiian bible, they used the ʻokina to distinguish koʻu ('my') from kou ('your'). It was not until 1864 that the ʻokina became a recognized letter of the Hawaiian alphabet.[2]
Kahakō
As early as 1821, one of the missionaries, Hiram Bingham, was using macrons in making handwritten transcriptions of Hawaiian vowels. The macron, or kahakō, was used to differentiate between short and long vowels.
Modern alphabet
The current official Hawaiian alphabet consists of thirteen letters: five vowels (Aa, Ee, Ii, Oo, Uu) and eight consonants (Hh, Kk, Ll, Mm, Nn, Pp, Ww, ʻokina).[2] Alphabetic order differs from the normal Latin order in that the vowels come first, then the consonants. The five vowels with macrons – Āā, Ēē, Īī, Ōō, Ūū – are not treated as separate letters, but are alphabetized immediately after unaccented vowels. The ʻokina is ignored for purposes of alphabetization.
Pronunciation
The letter names were invented for Hawaiian specifically, since they do not follow traditional European letter names in most cases. The names of M, N, P, and possibly L were most likely derived from Greek, and that for W from the deleted letter V.
| Letter | Name | IPA |
|---|---|---|
| Aa | 'ā | /a/ |
| Ee | 'ē | /e/ |
| Ii | 'ī | /i/ |
| Oo | 'ō | /o/ |
| Uu | 'ū | /u/ |
| Hh | hē | /h/ |
| Kk | kē | /k ~ t/ |
| Ll | lā | /l ~ ɾ ~ ɹ/ |
| Mm | mū | /m/ |
| Nn | nū | /n/ |
| Pp | pī | /p/ |
| Ww | wē | /w ~ v/ |
| ʻ | ʻokina | /ʔ/ |
Diphthongs
| Diphthongs | ||
|---|---|---|
| Diphthongs | Pronunciation | Examples |
| ai | i in ride | kai = sea water |
| ae | I or eye | Maeʻole = never-fading |
| ao | ow in how
with lower offglide |
Maoli = true
Kaona = hidden meaning |
| au | ou in loud or out | Au = I, I am |
| ei | ei in eight | Lei = garland |
| eu | eh-(y)oo | ʻEleu = lively |
| iu | ee-(y)oo
similar to ew in few |
Wēkiu = topmost |
| oe | oh-(w)eh | ʻOe = you |
| oi | oi in voice | Poi = a Hawaiian staple |
| ou | ow in bowl | Kou = your |
| ui | oo-(w)ee in gooey | Hui = together, team, chorus |
See also
References
This article incorporates material from the Citizendium article "Hawaiian alphabet", which is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License but not under the GFDL.
