A Brief Overview of Some Aspects of the Hawaiian Language

As Hawaiian vocabulary appears throughout the award-winning Natalie Seachrist Hawaiian Mysteries, I offer the following overview to help you understand aspects of the language as you read this series and other works that I, and other writers my present to you. When I first moved to Tucson, Arizona, I was often questioned about the pronunciation of a few Hawaiian words I sometimes used. I soon realized that for speakers of Spanish, pronouncing Hawaiian was easier than they realized. In short, the pronunciation of Hawaiian is very similar to Spanish...with one major difference, unlike Spanish, the "H" is sounded in Hawaiian!

The Hawaiian language was unwritten until 1826, when Christian missionaries transcribed the sounds of the language into a thirteen-letter alphabet. Hawaiian consonants are pronounced as in standard American English. They include H, K, L, M, N, P, W, and the ʻokina ( ʻ ). Often, the “W” is pronounced like an English “V.” As there is no “S” in the Hawaiian language, plurals are determined by the preceding article. Each vowel is sounded in Hawaiian; they are similar in pronunciation to those in Spanish, and other Latin-based European languages:

A = Ah, as in above

E = Eh, as in let

I = Ee, as in eel

O = Oh, as in open

U = Oo, as in soon

Diphthongs are expressed as common English sounds. The “au” transliteration is pronounced as “ow” in “How.” Diacritical marks indicate emphasis and syllable separation. A kahakō ( - ) placed over vowels, indicates a need to hold the vowel sound slightly longer, as seen in the “a” in the word “card.” The ʻokina, ( ʻ ) is both a consonant and a diacritical mark (glottal stop); it is employed to produce a break as in “oh-oh.”

Please note, that in accordance with standard publishing practices, foreign words included on this page and in other of my writings are subject to the grammatical rules of English.

Mahalo for your patience and understanding,
Jeanne Burrows-Johnson