How would you describe “allergy” with traditional Hawaiian words?

Aloha,

This month we are focusing on the pillar of Listening, and continuing our conversation about traditional and new/modern Hawaiian vocabulary.

As it stands today, most Hawaiian words are traditional Hawaiian words - the creation of these words was led by the Native Hawaiian speaking community. As new concepts and innovations made their way from the western world, words were assigned to them. Some of these words were traditional words that were recycled and sometimes an English word or other foreign words were altered to coincide with Hawaiian pronunciation. We will talk more about how Hawaiian words were created traditionally, next week. 

The native speakers we’re listening to in these recordings have no problem expressing themselves using only traditional words. They’re not at a loss for words even though there are things in the modern world that didn’t exist anciently. You will hear native speakers use some English words as they speak Hawaiian. This is common amongst native speakers of every language, including English. Let’s not forget that words like, “fiance”, and “croissant” are French words adapted into English. Native speakers of Hawaiian are no different.

A few weeks ago, I shared in my Instagram stories how my daughter expressed in Hawaiian that her friend has an allergy to peanuts, without using the new word for “allergy”. She said, “Mai koʻu hoa i ka pineki”. Which can be translated as, “My friend is allergic to peanuts”. I was extremely impressed with her, of course. She was able to express herself in that way based on her knowledge of traditional Hawaiian words. What was more impressive, is that I had never said something along those lines to her. It was completely original.

Here is a link to my Instagram stories where I shared this story.

Using Traditional Hawaiian Words

As I mentioned last week, when you listen to Native Speakers, focus on:

• The words they’re using, 
• New meanings to words you already know
• HOW they are using words (expression) 
• The CONTEXT that they use certain words

How have these practices and information been helpful for you? I’d like your feedback if you have a few minutes to reply.

Keep listening, reading, writing and speaking at least a little bit every day and you’ll make more progress than you realize.

me ka oiaio no,

Malu