How do Hawaiian Americans pronounce Hawaiian language place names?

13 comments

1. I live in Hawaii, though I’m originally from California, and in my experience most people here do use the Hawaiian pronunciation of names. There are some exceptions (for example, a lot of people pronounce “Lihue” as “li-hoo-ee” instead of the Hawaiian pronunciation of “li-hoo-ay”), but overall I would say the Hawaiian pronunciations are prevalent at least on the island where I live. I would say that your examples of older people and recent transplants struggling also hold true here, though.

2. It’s hard to tell if someone is a native/local based on short interactions, but a college friend of mine grew up in Honolulu and when we hung out with his friends it seemed like they all pronounced them differently amongst each other, but would use the “common” pronunciation when referring to it with non Hawaiians. i.e the island of “Oahu”.

   I’m of Korean descent and I do this as well with Korean words. My pronunciation of Seoul (the capital) changes depending on who I’m talking to.

3. Pronounce it right sure but mostly people kind of know tourist are gonna fk up something so everyone is kind of used to “close enough”

   As long as people don’t seem like they’re being disrespectful then all good, unless you meet the rare breed of kanaka who will fight over it

4. People use the proper Hawaiian names mostly, most places and landmarks kept their Hawaiian names but there were a few places that were renamed by colonists a long time ago. Those places sometimes get called the Anglicized version or the original name. For example, Diamond Head is often called that or Lēʻahi. I live on Oahu. As far as just pronunciation is concerned I think people are pretty accurate. Like Haleiwa is always pronounced with a V sound not a W. Only tourists pronounce the W as a W.

5. I’m not an American, actually I’m a Kiwi like you, but I’ve been studying Hawaiian comparatively for many years. Here’s what I’ve noticed.

   They’re pretty similar to how we are here. They likewise have to deal with Hawaiian place names on a daily basis. Like you said, the older people have a particularly hard time. But there’s now more awareness for it and the younger ones have a better idea of how things are pronounced.

   That being said, they only really develop a decent pronunciation if they’re personally really passionate about it. Since they speak American English, they don’t know how to distinguish long and short vowels like we do in New Zealand English by default, and they conflate /e/ with /ei/, and /o/ with /ou/, which is pretty much unheard of for anyone under 40 here. So even if they do have awareness, they still have to put in a lot more work to really sound acceptable in the Hawaiian language.

   Some of the more common English approximations have also persisted for speakers who would otherwise try to pronounce things the Hawaiian way. For instance, it’s much more common to hear “Oʻahu” pronounced as [ouwɑ:hɨw] instead of [oʔɐhu], even if they pronounce “Hawaiʻi” as [hɐvɐʔi].

   Added to that is the fact that they’ve got a constant supply of quasi-foreigners from the mainland who don’t know a thing about the Hawaiian language and don’t really care. So you could say they have a few more struggles than us over there, but it certainly looks like things are getting better.

6. Most people pronounce it in its modern Hawaiian place names. Some are incorrect, but it’s so ingrained that the pronunciation has changed. Most infamous example would be the leeward town of Maili on Oahu. Almost every person will pronounce it Mai lei. Ma’ili is the correct spelling and pronounce Ma ili. Known for the ili ili rocks used in hula.

7. It depends. ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi was almost extinguished by the 1970s when most place names that retained original Hawaiian names were America-fied…however a cultural renaissance was also sparked around that time in part by the Native American and Maori protest movements of the late 1960s which gave rise to greater pride in Hawaiian cultural understanding, and the preservation and study of ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi.

   That being said, only 2% of Hawaii residents are fluent in ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi with a large tourist and part-time resident population with slim to zero understanding of correct pronunciation so there’s definitely code switching going on amongst much of the ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi aware population.

   I was at an event discussing the power of language over the weekend where everyone present either spoke or had a basic understanding of ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi, and everyone made an effort to use proper pronunciations.

   I was also dealing with tourists and other older pakeha residents who still use the America-fied placenames that has been ingrained in their memories from decades of America-fied media….and often find it easier to say it in a way they understand so you can often hear both depending on which neighborhoods you’re traveling in and who you’re dealing with.

8. I’m part Hawaiian and grew up there.

   Almost every town in the state has a Hawaiian name, and the majority of the streets also have Hawaiian names. People generally pronounce them correctly.

   Someone of a fun fact, the islands were only really Unified in the early 1800s so there is no correct pronunciation for certain words.

   Kauai and Oahu had a lot of people using R and T instead of L and K. 

   People still don’t 100% agree on whether it’s Molokai or Moloka’i 

9. >Being from New Zealand

   Then you must not realize that mainland America is full of native language place names too. Go look at Arizona, it’s full of Spanish and native american language place names. It’s only people new to an area that have problems with it, because it’s normal to everyone else.

10. IMHO a lot of Hawaiian is pretty intuitive to pronounce. There aren’t that many sounds in the language, so people catch on to the general ring of it pretty quick

11. I think most people do their best, but some things are still up for debate.

    Here’s 3-hours of discussion: https://youtu.be/bq5JoRvRbbo?si=Bovsg_Jax51s5m0L

12. Native American names are everywhere in the US. Half the states and towns have native names.

13. They use the Hawaiian pronunciation. I lived there and my husband was born there. It took some getting used to getting directions.