Since many of you are planning a trip to Hawaii I thought it may be helpful if you learn some of the language. I will be your kuma kula (teacher) and if you work diligently, soon you will be reading and under standing some basic Hawaiian! The kama`aina (the locals or islanders) will be impressed with your knowledge of their very beautiful language. Okay, lets start at the beginning.
Hawaiian Alphabet:
There are only 13 letters in the Hawaiian alphabet compared to the 26 in English. The vowels a, e, i, o, and u. Cool so far,right? The consonants include h, k, l, m, n, p, w and the okina. The okina looks like this (`) But without the quotation marks. Okay then, lets learn their sounds!
a as in water
e as in day
i as in police
o as in toe
u as in spoon
Example:
puke (poo-kay) book
peni (pay-nee) pen
popoki (poh-poh-key) cat
hale (hah-lay) house
That's enough for today papa (class). Practice, practice those vowels sounds because there is much more to learn so that you can read words like these:
ho`omakaukau and namunamu and humuhumunukunukuapua`a
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