Learn Hawaiian Language: Essential Building Blocks of 'Olelo

Mona which means Mountain [Music] Mona

[Music] preceded by aut like but it's the

[Music] name aloho and welcome to the first episode

of C oiv our new Hawaiian language learning series Mah oo ohub and over the course of 13 episodes we'll be on a

journey covering the basic building blocks of Oli our Hawaiian language because Olo is ingrained in all of

Hawaiian culture we'll be learning a whole lot more than just our Olo so you might be wondering just how we're going

to do this well we're going to try to Olo as much as we can we'll learn some easy phrases that you can start using

immediately and we'll do some fun exercises that'll have us learning by doing which is one of the best ways to

learn anyway in each episode we'll do a review cover new material and even have some

friends to come visit usually toil or jam with us a couple of our friends are actually going to join us for every

episode to learn along with us my hoha Iolani who is a graduate from our Hawaiian immersion program is the one

who actually talked to me about having a little little Papa or class cuz she has a friend who really wants to

learn that's so nice to meet you so I'm really glad you decided to

come over for thank you so much for having us Hina no worries what's your last name Benz okay and where are you

from well I grew up in Kaa went away to school for a little while and I've been back in Hawaii for a couple of years

recently my wife and I actually just had our first baby and that's really why I want to

start learning Hawaiian again I took some classes in high school but I really want to be able to raise my babies

speaking Hawaiian maybe when the time's right we can enroll Ino and hopefully by then I'll be able to speak a little

hawaian even I will definitely help you work towards that in fact by the end of our C OE journey we'll all be able to

use some basic Hawaiian and hopefully be own to learn more the main thing to H or remember is May ho

hoila don't worry and no be shame we'll jump into speaking as best as we can and help each other learn as we go it'll be

fun hi because we're going to focus on learning just by actually speaking and

trying to pick things up as we use the Olo we won't follow a textbook to the T however a lot of what we'll learn is

based on nalu by Koo Kam and Pila Wilson and I set up a Facebook site called C oiv where you can get information on

purchasing a copy of nakay evalu if you'd like we'll also put up vocabulary lists and supplemental hot Aina or

lessons for each episode the same information will be available on our website Hawaiian language. TV where all

of these episodes will be held so you can watch them over and over [Music]

[Music] again [Applause]

Aloha and welcome back you know if we stop and think about it olelo Havi is all around us from street signs to names

of buildings in our state song and even our state model yeah all there's a lot of wine words and terms that we use in

everyday conversations like Aloha Mahalo Mak kind Po and because of that a lot of people in Hawaii actually know more

Hawaiian than they think and we'll keep that in mind as we move along hi it's for you thank you

Mahal so why don't we start with some simple but important building blocks that'll help us to make use of and be

more aware of the Olo Havi that's all around us we'll run through the p Hai or Hawaiian alphabet brush up on the kahako

or macron as it's called in English and it's used in modern spelling we'll look at two words that precede many others Ka

and K and we'll talk in general about descriptive words and how to use them sound

good can do so the P has 13 letters a a e or o

u he K La Mo P the and the last letter which a lot of people think of as a mark but it's

actually a letter and it's in your name can you guess what it is is it the a o and it sounds like this the sound

between a and o when you go uhoh and just a little note while the okina might look like an apostrophe it's

not it should actually in writing look like a small six whereas the apostrophe looks like a small

nine okay a a e e o o u u he he k k la la mo mo new p p

and okay a a e o u he

La [Music] p now or explain to him the importance

of the the kahak called a macron in English changes the pronunciation of vowels and

it's also important in clarifying the or meaning of repeat after me

k k Kella can mean excelling or exceeding and K is one of the words for that

Paka p p p p p so one of the meanings of Paka is tobacco and the word Paca means park paca can mean to cut into thin

slices interesting how all those words are spelled p k Paka but with AO over the first a paa and then over both A's

paa totally changes the meaning of the word I so vowels with the kahak are held longer I po and when writing Hawaiian

words the kahako is symbolized by a solid line over those vowels mopo I and I'm sure the kak will come up over and

over as we continue to practice Po in fact let's or practice some words that help to emphasize the importance of the

okina and the kahako we'll start with the name of one of our that's commonly [Music]

mispronounced okay Liu means to spin or be dizzy and Lani refers to the heavens so liani would probably mean something

like spinning or dizzy Heavens something very different than the name of our alii but Liu refers to a burning in the eyes

it was said that during lani's birth her foster mother's aunt K was suffering with pain in her Maka in her

eyes let's try one more power power power power

power pa pa so power can refer to certain

fragrant things PA is the name of a divining rod in a legend of Pelle and paa that doesn't mean anything so the ha

Aina or lesson here is not to give in the urge to throw random okas where they don't belong because paa has three

vowels grouped together sometimes we feel like putting an okina in there but it's not

correct by the way what is paani paani is the name of one of lani's residences and it's pronounced just like that paani

no okina another area that's commonly mispronounced is the area known as a because a has several vowels put

together people tend to say a but actually it's a so will be alert to pronounce the OKO

where they are and not putting them in where they don't belong so so let's move on to some

common words that actually help us to spell the words that follow them those are C and K both are called K and are

the words for thee so P what would Kalani mean the heavens how's

about the land how about the

child well I remember Al as meaning Chief so the chief so if and and

and how do I know when to use which heo that's a great question and there's actually a little tool we can use to

help us remember it isn't foolproof as there's always exceptions but it's still M and that's the letters k e a and o

which happen to make up the two words K and that means the cloud basically K comes before all words

except the words that start with k e a or o like Ki because Ki starts with a K it was Ki and Al because it starts with

an A was K understand I but I'd love to have a couple more do that he know let's like

this I'll say a word and you repeat it with the correct K or before it Mona which means Mountain

monaa for coconut tree well it starts with an O which is

in so it must be good try but oh who actually starts with an

okina which is a letter but isn't in K so if it's not one of those it would be I got it okay po how's about a few

more S Wave for

SE po starts with an okina so would be the correct and I don't know if you guys

knew but ehukai is also the name of a world class surface break here on the NorthShore that a lot of surfers call

pipeline I think anop we kind of got it and we'll get more practice with this as we go along but just remember like I

said earlier there's always exceptions to the rule there are words that don't start with k e a or o but K would still

be the CI that precedes them like pacoo which starts with p and E which starts with okina we say Co

and the only way to know these exceptions is to memorize them as they come

upo now let's take a look at descriptive words in hawan and particularly how they're

situated they're called why because Hulu is a word for feathers and feathers are the pretty and

colorful parts of birds especially the tail feathers that flutter behind them and in Hawaiian the descriptive and

colorful words follow the word that they describe ho ho yeah like my name Eva Lenny Eva is a type of bird and Lenny

refers to the heavens which describes the bird so IAL means the Heavenly bird here's a list of some simple words

and many of them you may already know like Hal and AA and so on so looking at the

list big house you know the words for big and house right I do

and but if would be used to describe the Hal then it would come after Hal thus it'd

be so basically these words Nu Li and AAA tell you which house is being referred to the big one the little one

or the red one so the kahulu describes the word it follows morea make sense I kind

of what's the word for room what's the word for bathe a that's an easy one oh oh so what would you call

a room where you bathe um Lumi what kind of Lumi Lumi o what about a room where you cook or a

kitchen aumi clroom Lumi

Papa now what if I wanted to describe the classroom further and say it was a big classroom big is now describing the

classroom so what would it be num papaa so in Hawaiian the words are reordered from last to first so big

class room becomes room class big [Music]

so how would you say clothes for your leg or pants I I'm kind of getting there I

think and like with everything else that we went over the p k k and Ka with K and these kahulu because they're the basic

building blocks of ol Hai we'll see them over and over again and have more time time

to so let's take a short break or and when we come back we're going to H H or go for a ride in the

car all set you and to the right Vamp alternating feet coming forward on

the right and now opening the knees and kicking the

feet and Vamp right Vamp left and we're done without Hawaiian it's just not the

same aapo reinvigorating the Hawaiian language since 1983 so we started off today talking

about how ol Hai is just a natural part of everything around us yeah people's names songs names of buildings and

streets so I was thinking we could just go Hol Holo Kaa and see how many names we either already already know or can

figure out based on what we learned today where are we going how about I've noticed that a lot

of the street names down there are named after do you know why that is that's where many of lived and played many of

them had homes in the area what or who is the name of this Treet what is the meaning of that what

is Kaa again is the word for war ah so if Ka means the LA is day and Kawa is war then kakwa means the day of War but

why did they call him that there's more than one reason but one of them is that the day that Kaka was born there was a

treaty signed between Hawaii and Great Britain and sto the conflict between them wow I never knew that hey

Al what about this tree uh K she was kalak was Queen right hi and refers to an arch like a rainbow ah so capani

means the Heavenly Arch I rainbow signify the presence of royalty um KU K means aan and hi means

sine it is said that this family name referred to the one who leans forward looking to his people perhaps as an

alite paid attention to those before him um what is low again Leaf so if low means leaf and new means coconut then

coconut leaf and look here's another one kolu k means ocean but what does ol Co or refreshing ah so means refreshing o

Shan um what is you sacred as in a place or in this case a person and Lenny refers not only to the the heavens but

to royalty as well oh so culani means the sacred and Royal one I and we know that culani was Queen liily or's niece

who would have succeeded the throne speaking of our Queen here's another one we practiced earlier Le and

here's another one paani PA as we remember means fragrance and col is a royal reference so the Royal fragrance

hi and this is the name of one of Queen l residences that should be pretty simple

the Heavenly flower beautiful water I think that's enough for now but

like we said earlier ol is all around us and the more you learn it the more you'll start to notice it and hopefully

you'll take those opportunities to and maybe even go and find out more meanings of other words on your own yeah I've

seen these things on my life but I'm going to be looking at the places names a little more differently now I really

want to know what they mean and they're not that hard to figure out follow we got some friends coming over

you [Music] know more than 120 years ago princess

Bernice paahi Bishop founded kameha schools through the lands of her ancestors today our commitment continues

to care care for these lands that support education cultural perpetuation renewable energy reliable water forestry

and sustainable food sources our vision is to plant the seeds for thriving lands and communities now and for the

future Hopkins oh it's been good fun um it was a great review on a lot of things that I already

learned and some of the things we actually discovered for the first time so it's really

good foree for

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spee [Music] foree

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