Talk:Hawaiian language

Comments

Good start! I think the paragraph opening 'History' would be better as an introduction to the whole article, and it should give some word examples to illustrate reduplication and syllable structure (i.e. the consonant-vowel pattern). Also, the plantation workers: I think many, if not most of them, actually acquired pidgin Hawaiian rather than Hawaiian itself at the time, i.e. they used the vocabulary of Hawaiian, with some changes, as a lingua franca with grammar mostly drawn from elsewhere. Acquisition of Hawaiian itself might have been much later. But I'm not fully familiar with the history. John Stephenson 11:35, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Every source I've looked at says they learned Hawaiian. I've got web sites, textbooks, and a few newspaper articles on the history of the language. I know sources aren't always right, but I'd rather follow the sources until I have evidence otherwise. As far as I know, the pidgin didn't come until the white people owned all the plantations.Drew R. Smith 14:41, 26 June 2009 (UTC)