Basic Hawaiian Grammar

Have you been watching Lilo & Stitch, Blue Hawaii or perhaps just heard the most famous Hawaiian song of all time: Aloha 'Oe? Maybe that planted a seed within you to start learning the Hawaiian language.

The Hawaiian language was first recorded to have been heard by the British explorer James Cook, who was the first European to ever set foot in the Hawaiian islands in 1778. It is however more than likely that the language is much older than that. The written Hawaiian language however, is no more than 200 years old as of 2022, as it was first formed and used in 1822.

Nowadays there is only one region in the world where Hawaiian is still spoken as the primary language, and English is the secondary language, and that is the island of Ni'ihau, also known as the Forbidden Island.

The count on native and fluent speakers is a much debated issue, and you will see different numbers depending on the source. However, as of 2008, it was estimated that only 24,000 people worldwide speak Hawaiian fluently.

My goal with this course is for you to build a foundation, on which to keep building knowledge of the Hawaiian language, and eventually, hopefully, increase the number of fluent speakers and help reaching for the goal of a, once more, bilingual Hawaii, and inspire other Haole - Foreigners - to learn the language as well. A personal goal for me, is to help Hawaiian gain the same recognition as any other popular language these days.

Welcome to this course! Welcome to our journey!