04-02-2012, 06:06 PM
I can't answer your question, but you raise a very important issue. The Hawaiian language lives, for the most part, in song and dance (hula and oli) and hangs on by a thread otherwise. Seems to me if the goal is to hear Hawaiian, that your guests should go where Hawaiian is spoken, whether that is in a church or at the edge Halema'u ma'u. Kalapana is the place in Puna where the language is best remembered, I think. It is very, very diluted and is on life support, although there are sincere efforts to revive it. For a blast of Hawaiian, witness the chants when they do hula and teach basic Hawaiian in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. The oli go back forever and are no mere entertainment.
For my blast of Hawaiian, I listen to nothing but KAPA radio on the weekends.
As a side point, I find that we are living in a very interesting linguistic pocket with a very distinct accent. It is sing-song, sort of like Swedish. It is very, very charming, fetching. It is delicate and every syllable is enunciated while the "tune" of the sentence goes all over the place...up, down and with an unusual emphasis, especially when a question is involved. So, instead of "Did you find everything you were LOOKING (tone goes up) for?" It is "Did YOU (goes up) find ev-uh-re-ting you were looking (tone lowers) for?" It is not Hawaiian, but there is a very clear regional accent (I am not talking about so-called Pidgin). If I were a credentialed linguist, I might tune into that as well. Check out at a Long's or a KTA and tune into it.
This is a very interesting linguistic pocket of the US. My wish is that it become like cajun country, when I first visited it in the late 70's: you would go into a store and people were speaking Cajun French.
We can aid in the preservation of the Hawaiian language by learning as much of it as we can. My focus is on learning Hawaiian song, and learning the language that way. That is how I learned French (aside from studying it!): I listened to Edith Piaf until my friends ran screaming from the room. By the time I arrived in Paris, I understood what she was saying. Got new friends. A hui hou.
For my blast of Hawaiian, I listen to nothing but KAPA radio on the weekends.
As a side point, I find that we are living in a very interesting linguistic pocket with a very distinct accent. It is sing-song, sort of like Swedish. It is very, very charming, fetching. It is delicate and every syllable is enunciated while the "tune" of the sentence goes all over the place...up, down and with an unusual emphasis, especially when a question is involved. So, instead of "Did you find everything you were LOOKING (tone goes up) for?" It is "Did YOU (goes up) find ev-uh-re-ting you were looking (tone lowers) for?" It is not Hawaiian, but there is a very clear regional accent (I am not talking about so-called Pidgin). If I were a credentialed linguist, I might tune into that as well. Check out at a Long's or a KTA and tune into it.
This is a very interesting linguistic pocket of the US. My wish is that it become like cajun country, when I first visited it in the late 70's: you would go into a store and people were speaking Cajun French.
We can aid in the preservation of the Hawaiian language by learning as much of it as we can. My focus is on learning Hawaiian song, and learning the language that way. That is how I learned French (aside from studying it!): I listened to Edith Piaf until my friends ran screaming from the room. By the time I arrived in Paris, I understood what she was saying. Got new friends. A hui hou.