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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Monday, March 17, 2003

Old dictionary brings new meaning to Hawaiian

By Vicki Viotti
Advertiser Staff Writer

A dictionary defines a language and, in many ways, a language defines a people. So when an old dictionary becomes newly available, it's cause for excitement among people who make it their mission to enable the study of people and their language — in this case, Hawaiian.

Noenoe Silva, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Hawai'i who specializes in Hawaiian issues, has watched students for years cart around photocopied versions of A Dictionary of the Hawaiian Language, by Lorrin Andrews, using it as a companion to the now-standard Hawaiian Dictionary by Mary Kawena Pukui and Samuel H. Elbert.

"Who wants to use that?" Silva said with a laugh, now that the poor, overloaded students could finally dump that ersatz dictionary. "We've now got a legible, easily accessible text."

Andrews' 1865 dictionary, last published in 1974, went out of print decades ago, forcing scholars into excessive cash outlays at the corner instant printer. This week, Island Heritage Publishing has released its illustrated edition ($19.99 hardcover, $12.99 paperback) in bookstores. For many people, said Albert Schutz, this is a new key to unlock meanings in Hawaiian texts that otherwise could be lost.

Silva and Schutz, professor emeritus in linguistics, have written introductions to the new Andrews edition. A cursory flip through the books will show some ways it differs from Pukui/Elbert. For example, Andrews avoids diacritical marks, the 'okina and kahako that have become part of accepted Hawaiian spelling today. It also arranges the entries in a different order: vowels, then consonants.

But beneath the superficial differences, they said, each dictionary fulfills a separate purpose, which is why scholars will need both. Silva and Schutz both cite different entries for words as examples, with the definitions of "kapu" as their favorite.

  • In Andrews, the following is only part of the entry: "A general name of the system of religion that existed formerly on the Hawaiian Islands, and which was grounded upon numerous restrictions or prohibitions, keeping the common people in obedience to the chiefs and priests, but many of the kapus extended to the chiefs themselves."
  • In Pukui/Elbert: "Taboo, prohibition; special privilege or exemption from ordinary taboo; sacredness; prohibited; forbidden; sacred, holy, consecrated; no trespassing, keep out."

"When Sam (Elbert) and Kawena (Pukui) did their dictionary, it was in the 1950s; the language was almost dead," Schutz said. "So it was mainly meant for translators. Hawaiian wasn't going to be a living language much longer.

"Andrews was writing this when the language was alive and well," he added. "He didn't want to use the translations that had been made by the foreigners. For the most part, he used letters written by Hawaiians as his sources."

As a result, Pukui/Elbert definitions tend to be briefer than those in Andrews, which often include shades of meaning that have gone out of use.

This doesn't mean Andrews can stand alone, he said. Andrews didn't hear the vocal distinction made by the glottal stop ('okina), Schutz said, and the exclusion of diacriticals is a shortcoming, since entries that should be listed as distinct words may be lumped together in a single entry. Oli, the word for "chant," is paired with 'oli ("joy"); Schutz noted that the confusion is reflected in the definition: "to sing with a joyful heart."

There are newer words you won't find in Andrews, and older ones that went out of use by Pukui/Elbert's time, Silva added.

But because it was written at a time when Hawaiian was still in active use, she said, Andrews includes richer examples of word usage enabling an immersion teacher, for instance, to explain a word while speaking only in Hawaiian.

The result is that many older historical and anthropological documents written by Hawaiians can be understood more fully with a dictionary devised for that time, Silva said.

"The kinds of research projects being done now are getting exciting," she said. "We're reviewing our history and anthropology ... That's why we're reading these things now, and why we need this dictionary."