Fabiana Piccolo

<fabiana@hawaii.edu>

Department of Linguistics
University of Hawaii at Manoa

Where is the Hawaiian language headed? A phonetic study

The present study compares the realization of Hawaiian vowels and diphthongs by a native speaker of Hawaiian (NS) with that of a non-native, albeit very fluent, Hawaiian language speaker (NNS) whose first language is American English. After showing the major differences and similarities in the vowels of the two speakers, and the important role played by American English in the articulation of the non-native speaker's Hawaiian vowels, I will present acoustic vowel charts of the Hawaiian vowels for both speakers. If these results can be generalized to other native and  non-native speakers, they support recent claims by NeSmith (2003) and  others that at least two Hawaiian dialects exist: the Ni'ihauan dialect (spoken by NS) and the UH dialect (spoken by NNS). The name for the latter dialect is not optimal; I use this label only because it indicates the form of Hawaiian taught here at UH and at other institutions. The theory about the existence of two dialects is nothing new. Both forms of the Hawaiian language have emerged from different dialects, as I will explain in my talk. The results of my study will uphold the position of the few scholars who have currently recognized the existence of two separate dialects of the Hawaiian language: the Ni'ihauan Hawaiian (which is a pre-existent dialect of Hawaiian, and the only one, to my knowledge, to be spoken by native speakers) and the UH dialect (which derived by the Big Island dialect, but which, to my knowledge, has virtually no native speakers left. Such dialect is spoken primarily by non native speakers and, at least phonetically, has changed due to the pronunciation of such non-native speakers).