Филологические науки/ 3.Теоретические и методологические проблемы исследования языка.

Канд. філол. наук Бідасюк Н.В., канд. філол. наук Кучман І.М.

Хмельницький національний університет, Україна

The Hawaiian language. The past and the present

The Hawaiian language (ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi) is one of the oldest living languages in the world. The Hawaiian language has had a tumultuous history and was at one point even expected to be extinct by the end of the 20th century. However, a Hawaiian language “renaissance” has occurred over the past 40 years, and today more people are interested in learning the language again. Hawaiian is being taught in language immersion schools, and one can even obtain a Master's degree in the Hawaiian language from the University of Hawaii. Nevertheless, only about 0.1% of the people who live in Hawaii speak its native tongue today.

Hawaiian belongs to the Eastern Polynesian branch of the Oceanic subgroup of the Austronesian language family, its nearest relatives being Tahitian and Marquesan. Until the early 19th century it was spoken by the entire population of the Hawaiian islands, and it remained the main language for most of that century. However, the decline of the indigenous population, massive immigration, educational policies, and annexation by the United States (in 1898) have taken their toll, and Hawaiian was replaced by Hawai’i Creole English in the early 20th century as the main language of the native Hawaiian population. It is now estimated to have less than 1000 first-language speakers, mostly elderly individuals and the residents of the small island of Ni’ihau, out of a total population of over one million. Given the popularity of Hawaiian music among tourists, it could be said that Hawaiian is a language more sung than spoken.

Over the past 30 years grassrootsmoves to revive and revitalize the language, particularly through Hawaiian medium education from preschool (punana leo) totertiary level, have had considerable success, and the number of speakers is increasing. Critics, however, point out that the style of Hawaiian spoken by this new generation who learned it in school is rather different from that of native speakers. It is now estimated that there are 3000 fluent speakers of Hawaiian. There is very little Hawaiian-language radio and TV programming, and no newspaper.

Before Captain Cook's arrival in Hawaii in 1778, Hawaiian was strictly an oral language. Cook and his men recorded the Hawaiian language for the first time in 1778. They noticed that the language was similar to Tahitian and Maori. When the first missionaries arrived in Hawaii in 1820, they converted the oral Hawaiian language to a written language so that they were able to convey the messages of the Bible to the Hawaiian people. By 1826, the missionaries had created a Hawaiian alphabet which has remained in use relatively unchanged. They also taught Hawaiians to read and write the language and translated the Bible into Hawaiian. In the 19^th century, Hawaiians developed a high level of literacy through Hawaiian medium schools, and there is a large body of Hawaiian language literature from that period.

After the annexation of Hawaii as a territory of the United States in 1898, the language was officially banned from schools and the government. Use of the Hawaiian language was even banned at Kamehameha Schools – a private school system reserved only for children of Hawaiian descent. It is important to note that this ban of the Hawaiian language was not made against the language in general. People were still allowed to speak Hawaiian on a daily basis. In fact, there were fourteen separate newspapers that were printed in Hawaiian. Notables are the Ka Lama Hawaii and Ke Kumu Hawaii, which began as early as 1834 and the Ka Nupepa Kuoka, which had a 66-year-run from 1861 to 1927.

In 1978, the Hawaiian language was recognized as one of the official languages of the state of Hawaii (the other being English). Public Hawaiian language immersion preschools were established in 1984, and other immersion schools soon followed. Today, there are about 1,000 native Hawaiian speakers and around 8,000 people who can speak and understand the language fluently according to the UCLA Language Materials Project. It is a far cry from the estimated 400,000-800,000 native Hawaiian speakers during the time of Captain Cook, but it's a good start at resurrecting a dying language.

The phoneme inventory of Hawaiian consists of eight consonants (h, k, l, m, n, p, w, and glottal stop (called ʻokina) and 10 vowels (a, e, i, o, u, ā, ē, ī, ō, ū). There are no consonant clusters and syllables are open. In writing, vowel length and glottal stop have often not been marked systematically. Most modern writers and publishers use a macron to indicate a long vowel and an inverted apostrophe (or apostrophe) to indicate the glottal stop. The reason why the ʻokina is considered a consonant is because an ʻokina that is missing can change the meaning of a word, as the following example illustrates: kai = sea; kaʻi = to lead. An ʻokina indicates a break in the sound when a word is spoken. It is written with a backward apostrophe (ʻ). When saying a word that has an ʻokina the symbol indicates a slight pause, similar to when one says “uh-oh” to show concern.

There is very little morphophonemics, and most grammatical functions are performed by affixation or the use of pre- and postposed particles. Pronouns distinguish four persons (including first person inclusive and exclusive) and three numbers (singular, dual, plural). There are two categories of possession, depending largely on whether or not the possessor has control over the fact of possession. In noun phrases, the order is headþattribute. The basic word order is VSO:

ua inu au i ka wai wela

asp. drink I obj. the water hot

‘I drank the hot water’

There are four basic rules in the Hawaiian language: 1. All words end in a vowel. 2. Every consonant is followed by at least one vowel. 3. Every syllable ends in a vowel. 4. Two consonants never appear next to each other.

Bibliography:

1. Elbert S. H/ & Pukui M. K. (1979). Hawaiian grammar. Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii.

2. Pukui M. K. & Elbert S. H. (1986). Hawaiian dictionary. Revised and enlarged edn. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.

3. Schutz A. J. (1994). Voices of Eden. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.