Hawaiian Language
The topic of this paper is the Hawaiian language. This language belongs to the Austronesian languages and its subfamily is the Polynesian languages. The Polynesian languages fall into two categories – the Tongic and Nuclear Polynesian. Hawaiian belongs to Nuclear Polynesian under the Eastern Polynesian family of Marquesic. Hawaiian is very closely related to other Polynesian languages such as Tahitian. There are about 1,000 native speakers of Hawaiian and 8,000 speakers who can fluently understand the Hawaiian language. Hawaiian is spoken is the island of Hawaii.
External History of the Language
The Hawaiian language may have been influenced by from a South Pacific Polynesian language, most likely Tahitian or Marquesan. The Marquesans took over the Hawaiian islands around AD 300, and Tahitian peoples immigrated to Hawaii. The unification of the Hawaiian and Tahitian languages may have resulted into the development of the Hawaiian language. The word “Hawaiian” takes its name from the big island of Hawaii, which was explored by the British settler Captain James Cook. He wrote the name of the island as “Owhyhee.” Upon his arrival in Hawaii in 1778, he hoped to induce linguistic, educational, and cultural influences to the inhabitants of Hawaii. After Captain Cook arrived in Hawaii, others followed him, such as missionaries from the United States. In the early 19th century, the missionaries from the United States wanted to educate the Hawaiians, and had to translate the spoken Hawaiian language into a written form. Hiram Bingham, one of the missionaries that arrived in Hawaii noticed that “Hawaiians struggled with the very different sound patterns of English: a plethora of consonant clus...
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...hich is Austronesian. Also, in Melanesia, which is located in the Southern Pacific, seems to have been explored by missionaries, just as how the missionaries have explored Hawaii. Not only that, they wanted to spread Christianity, which was what happened in Hawaii. Many of the Austronesian languages have the VSO word order. The Polynesian languages also have a split case-marking system, in which some languages take the form of nominative-accusative and the rest take ergative-absolutive. As in Hawaiian, reduplication is common in the Austronesian languages, which results in long words, as in the example humuhumunukunukuapua’a. The Austronesian languages also use first person pronouns, as in Hawaiian, which includes the speaker and who the speaker is talking to. Ultimately, many of the Austronesian languages share the same characteristics, and Hawaiian is one of them.
Languages are formed through a structure of sounds in a way the college structure is formed. By piecing together a sentence, it can form a picture a lot like the collage pieces together to form an idea. From a page of Sista Tongue “Garrans da haole tourist at da haole tourist at da same counta going pay mo money fo rent one car. Despite its widespread use as a marker of local identity, HCE also carries negative connotation.” (Kanae) is on one page next to each other. A person may have trouble forming the words of their mother-tongue and their identity feel weak. The lines that cut through Lisa Kanae’s words can represent that broken identity. This can be shown from a quote “Reinecke points out that the formation of a Creole language met the need for a ‘medium of commu-nication between numbers of non-English speaking groups” (qtd in Kanae), the line cuts between ‘formation of a’ and ‘Creole language’ and the word ‘communication’ is cut in between to fit into another line. This shows the meaning of Lisa Kanae’s message in a visual form that Creole language is made up of different languages: English, Cantonese, and Hawaiian, to make one language. This collage form also emphases certain words and sentences. It is very similar to how bilingual people code-shifts from one language to another. I often switch between English and Cantonese with my parents to convey my message in a way the collage form Lisa
A small company of thirty-four New England missionaries came to Hawaii between 1820 and 1930, were the first modern immigrants. (Lind p.59) Missionaries were powerful agents of cultural destruction, coming to Hawaii to settle and teach their ways and beliefs. Bloodthirsty priests and despotic chiefs had ruled one reason for missionaries arriving and settling in Hawaii, due to the fact that they believed ancient Hawaiians. (Trask p.14) Bringing along cultural havoc by establishing a western style educational system, which included the first textbook as the Bible. The most critical change was in the use of language as a tool of colonization. Language had once been inseparable from the Hawaiians and their history by communicating their heritage between and among many generations, now came to be used as the very vehicle of alienation from their habits of life.
The Hawaiian culture is known throughout the western world for their extravagant luaus, beautiful islands, and a language that comes nowhere near being pronounceable to anyone but a Hawaiian. Whenever someone wants to “get away” their first thought is to sit on the beach in Hawai’i with a Mai tai in their hand and watch the sun go down. Haunani-Kay Trask is a native Hawaiian educated on the mainland because it was believed to provide a better education. She questioned the stories of her heritage she heard as a child when she began learning of her ancestors in books at school. Confused by which story was correct, she returned to Hawai’i and discovered that the books of the mainland schools had been all wrong and her heritage was correctly told through the language and teachings of her own people. With her use of pathos and connotative language, Trask does a fine job of defending her argument that the western world destroyed her vibrant Hawaiian culture.
Bollig, L. (1927). The Inhabitants of The Truk Islands: Religion, Live and a Short Grammar of A Micronesian People. Munster i W.: Aschendorff.
Hawaiians should have rights to their own land and not let foreigners disrupt their daily habits and life. If a foreigner takes allegiance to Hawai’i they not only have the accessibility of a citizen but also the perks that go with citizenship. Foreigners would be able to marry the women of Hawai’i while they have wives back home in their previous motherland. Foreigners that are aiding to Hawai’i can stay as aliens and be just as effective. There is no need for them to gain citizenship and take an oath of allegiance for their help. If a foreigner wants a piece a land all he needs to do is take an oath of allegiance and he is able to have a piece of land. If too many foreigners enter Hawai’i, their culture will take over. The majority will consist of the foreigners and their government will take over. Too many foreigners will cause much more damage to the native Hawaiian population. The number of full Hawaiians will decrease if foreigners continue to enter the island of Hawai’i.
Racism in Hawaii has caused various issues, and one of them is racial tension. It states that “ some say…”[there are]”...racial tensions between the islands white community and native hawaiians” (Hansen, paragraph 3). Well, in history, it was quite difficult for most of the
Jovik, Sonia P. and James O. Jovik. (1997). “History.” Atlas of Hawaii. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, p.408.
Ness. Philip A. Grafting Old Rootstock: Studies in Culture and Religion of the Chamba, Duru, Fula, and Gbaya of Cameroun. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics, Inc., 1982.
The Iroquois includes many Indian tribes speaking a language of the Iroquoian family, such as the Huron, Mohawk, Onondaga, and Seneca among others. However, the Huron is often spoken of separately. The Iroquois differs from the Iroquois Confederacy, also known as the Iroquois League. All of them were affected by the arrival and colonization by Europeans. While Iroquois have a reputation of being violent, they were at times peaceful and were employed by different European companies; they also spread their culture and some European ideas with them. The Iroquois League has been said to have influenced the Founding Fathers, but is that true? Another question is whether the Iroquois were cannibals. They believed in witchcraft, but witchcraft
Hawaii’s economy started with trade. The first European trading ships that stopped at Hawaii to trade was in 1786. They were believed to be bringing furs from Oregon to China. However, the economy could not flourish so well without the help of pineapples and sugarcane fields. When the number of sugarcane fields started to increase, many immigrants were attracted because of the high amount of labour required for growing sugarcane. Plantations hired large numbers of Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, Koreans, and Portuguese. However, the immigrants demanded their own food to be grown as well. This allowed the Chinese to replace poi, a thick gray paste from pounding...
The impact that the geography, history and economic situation in the country has had on the sociolinguistics of the country is of great importance, and as such it is unavoidable to include the history of Haiti, Haitian people, as well as Haitian Creole in this essay. Here it will be attempted to describe the implications that the history, political turmoil and economical situation have had on the use and status of Haitian Creole today.
The Polynesian peoples have a lifestyle quite different than that of any other culture, as living on an island requires a level of flexible adaptability in order to cope with such a different, sometimes difficult environment. We see the way diverse cultures build their lives around their circumstances and how they respect them in their cultural myths and stories. The Polynesian legends emphasize the physical environment that they live in. They are quite different than any other region in the world, but the beauty and individuality of the Polynesian culture is prominent as seen in their mythology.
Since 1840 the Hawaiian Islands have been an escape to a tropical paradise for millions of tourists. People all over the world encounter alluring, romanticized pictures of Hawai'i's lush, tropical vegetation, exotic animals, beautiful beaches, crystal clear water, and fantastical women. This is the Hawai'i tourists know. This is the Hawai’i they visit. However, this Hawai'i is a state of mind, a corporate-produced image existing on the surface. More precisely, it is an aftermath of relentless colonization of the islands' native inhabitants by the United States. These native Hawaiians experience a completely different Hawai'i from the paradise tourists enjoy. No one makes this as clear as Haunani-Kay Trask, a native Hawaiian author. In her book, From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawai'i and through her poetry in Light in the Crevice Never Seen, Trask provides an intimate account of the tourist industry's impact on native Hawaiian culture. She presents a negative perspective of the violence, pollution, commercial development, and cultural exploitation produced by the tourist industry. Trask unveils the cruel reality of suffering and struggling through a native Hawaiian discourse. Most of the world is unaware of this.
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