WORKING PAPERS

IN

LINGUISTICS

The notes and articles in this series are progress reports on work being carried on by
students and faculty in the Department. Because these papers are not finished products,
readers are asked not to cite from them without noting their preliminary nature. The authors
welcome any comments and suggestions that readers might offer.

Volume 36(1)

2005
(March)

DEPARTMENT OF LINGUISTICS
UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI‘I AT MÂNOA
HONOLULU 96822

An Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Institution

 ii

DEPARTMENT OF LINGUISTICS FACULTY

2005

Victoria B. Anderson
Byron W. Bender (Emeritus)
Benjamin Bergen
Derek Bickerton (Emeritus)
Robert A. Blust (Chair)
Robert L. Cheng (Adjunct)
Kenneth W. Cook (Adjunct)
Kamil Deen (Co-Graduate Chair)
Patricia J. Donegan
Emanuel J. Drechsel (Adjunct)
Michael L. Forman
George W. Grace (Emeritus)
John H. Haig (Adjunct)
Roderick A. Jacobs (Emeritus)
Paul Lassettre
P. Gregory Lee
Patricia A. Lee
Howard P. McKaughan (Emeritus)
William O’Grady
Yuko Otsuka
Ann Marie Peters (Emeritus, Co-Graduate Chair)
Kenneth L. Rehg
Lawrence A. Reid (Emeritus)
Amy J. Schafer
Albert J. Schütz, (Emeritus, Editor)
Ho Min Sohn (Adjunct)
David L. Stampe
Laurence C. Thompson (Emeritus)
Andrew Wong
 WHERE IS THE HAWAIIAN LANGUAGE HEADED?
A PHONETIC STUDY

FABIANA PICCOLO

The struggle for the revitalization of the Hawaiian language, although valuable and necessary, has
so far either neglected or insufficiently taken into account one important issue: the existence of various
dialects of Hawaiian. The aim of the present study is to characterize the vowels of two of these
dialects, Ni‘ihauan and the University of Hawai‘i (UH), on the basis of phonetic evidence. The first
dialect is a natural continuation of the variety spoken on the island of Ni‘ihau, in that the Hawaiian
language was never banned there, as opposed to the rest of the islands, where it was. The latter dialect
evolved from that spoken on the Big Island. Although both dialects have native and non-native
speakers, most of the speakers of UH Hawaiian are non non-native speakers whose first language is
English. The present study compares the pronunciation of Hawaiian vowels by a native speaker of the
Ni‘ihauan dialect with that of a fluent (but non-native) speaker of UH Hawaiian whose first language is
English. Phonetic charts of the vowels of both varieties of the language are compared to show the
possible influence of English on the UH form.
1. INTRODUCTION. The present study compares the realization of Hawaiian
monophthongs and diphthongs by a native speaker of Ni‘ihauan Hawaiian with the
realization of the same monophthongs and diphthongs by a non-native speaker of the UH
variety of Hawaiian whose first language (L1) is American English. For sake of
completeness, the study considers also the realization of English monophthongs and
diphthongs by the same speakers, as the English phonology of the non-native speaker may
influence her realization of the Hawaiian vowels. The study aims at documenting the
existence of at least two dialects of Hawaiian: Ni‘ihauan Hawaiian and UH Hawaiian.
2. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND. Popular ideas surrounding Hawaiian consider the
language to be one monolithic form of speech produced by two groups of people: native
speakers and non-native speakers. As a student in Hawaiian classes at UH Mānoa, I
personally witnessed this when I heard my teachers differentiate between mānaleo, ‘native
speakers of Hawaiian’, and non-native speakers of Hawaiian, without further distinguishing
among dialects. However, the fact of the matter is more complex than this. Generally
speaking, there is no such a thing as one language without variation. Rather, one form tends
to be considered more prominent than others, gaining the title of “the standard” dialect and,
by default, of “the language” itself. I hypothesize that for historical reasons, the Big Island
dialect was considered the “real” Hawaiian language. As a result, other dialects were
influenced by this form. Nowadays, although the Big Island dialect is spoken by a small
number of native speakers (to my knowledge, fewer than 100), it is still considered the most
desirable form of Hawaiian. In the past years a relatively new dialect of Hawaiian has been
identified. NeSmith (2002) refers to this form as Neo-Hawaiian, but generally it has been
called UH dialect. In the present study, this dialect will be referred to as UH Hawaiian, as it
is spoken and taught at the University of Hawai‘i – although I am aware that it is also
employed elsewhere, i.e., in most of the Kindergarten through Grade 12 (K-12) immersion
schools around the state. The origins of UH Hawaiian are found in the dialect spoken by
Mary Kawena Pukui, a Big Islander who worked in a collaborative effort with the linguist
Samuel H. Elbert. The Big Island dialect gained its prestige mainly because King
Kamehameha I was a native speaker of this dialect. This dialect was also the source of
modern standard reference works, i.e., Hawaiian grammar (Elbert and Pukui 1979) and
 2

Hawaiian dictionary (Pukui and Elbert 1986 [1957]). Hawaiian classes were taught by both
native and non-native speakers of Hawaiian up until a few decades ago. Native speakers
teaching the language were outnumbered by non-native speakers right from the beginning of
Hawaiian programs. This was a consequence of the banning of Hawaiian from school in
previous years, which caused the average age of native speakers to rise and the numbers to
fall. The L1 phonology of non-native speakers teaching the original Big Island dialect
influenced the kind of language the students learned, and as a result, the UH dialect
emerged. This dialect now has native speakers: in fact, a number of non-native speakers of
Hawaiian who teach the language are now raising their children as bilinguals. Furthermore,
children attending K-12 immersion schools are also raised as bilinguals. However, even
when acquired as an L1, UH Hawaiian is likely to be somewhat different from those dialects
not influenced by transfer of English phonology, syntax, etc.
The present study considers a second dialect of Hawaiian, i.e., Ni‘ihauan Hawaiian,
which is the natural evolution of the form of Hawaiian spoken on Ni‘ihau. It is known that
this dialect differs from the Big Island dialect, most notably in the alternation of [t] ~ [k] for
the phoneme /t/. To my knowledge, so far no major study has been done on the phonetic
differences between the vowel systems of any Hawaiian dialects. Although the data
collected here are very limited, the aim of the present paper is to compare the pronunciation
of the vowels in the UH dialect with those in the Ni‘ihauan dialect.
3. RELEVANT PHONOLOGY. Tables 1 and 2 show Hawaiian monophthongs (based on
Pukui and Elbert 1986), while Table 3 illustrates Standard American English (SAE)
monophthongs.

TABLE 1. Phonemic chart of Hawaiian short monophthongs.

Front Back
high i u
mid e o
low a

TABLE 2. Phonemic chart of Hawaiian long monophthongs.

Front Back
high i u
mid e o
low a
 3

TABLE 3. Phonemic chart of SAE monophthongs.

high i u

mid-high  

mid 
mid-low  1

low æ 

Hawaiian diphthongs are: /ai/, /ae/, /ao/, /au/, /ei/, /eu/, /iu/, /oi/, /ou/.
English diphthongs are: /a/, /a/, /e/, //, /o/, and, as it is commonly indicated for some
American English dialects, /yu/.
4. METHODS.
4.1 WORD LIST AND ELICITATION. The Hawaiian vowels were elicited as follows. The
two consultants were recorded separately as they read four repetitions of nineteen sentences
(5 short monophthongs + 5 long monophthongs + 9 diphthongs). The sentences were
structured as follows: ‘Ōlelo mākou i ka ____ i ka ‘ōlelo Hawai‘i (‘We say _____ in
Hawaiian’). Each sentence included a word, occurring in the middle of the sentence, which
contained the vowel studied. The vowel always appeared in the first syllable of a disyllabic
word; i.e. in stressed position. I tried to have the second syllable consistently unstressed, but
this was not always possible.
The English vowel sounds were elicited in the same fashion. Both consultants read four
series of fifteen sentences (9 monophthongs + 6 diphthongs). The sentences were structured
like this: “Say ____ now.” Each contained a word, occurring in the middle of the sentence,
in which the target vowel appeared. The vowel always occurred in the first syllable of a
disyllable, and always in stressed position. The second syllable was always unstressed.
The English monophthong // was not elicited. For both Hawaiian and English, I looked
for monophthongs appearing between fricatives or stops, as such consonants interfere much
less than do sonorants with the measurements of vowels. Since // is present in the
phonology of many native speakers of American English only when appearing before //, or
as the beginning part of the diphthong //, it was not included in the present study.

1
Many native speakers of American English produce the phoneme // as []. Here, I will follow the
conventional way employed by linguists to represent this sound.
 4

TABLE 4. Hawaiian word lists.

Monophthongs
Short Long
1. papa ‘flat surface’ 1. māpu ‘fragrance’
2. pepe ‘flat, as a nose’ 2. pēheu ‘soft, flabby’
3. pipi ‘Hawaiian pearl oyster’ 3. pīhoi ‘disturbed, excited’
4. popo ‘rot, decay’ 4. pōheo ‘knob’
5. pupu ‘small shelter’ 5. pūhau ‘cool spring’

Diphthongs
1. heihei ‘race, as a competition’ 6. haihai ‘wicked person’
2. heuheu ‘down or fine hair’ 7. haehae ‘to tear to bits’
3. hoihoi ‘interesting’ 8. haohao ‘iron’
4. houpo ‘diaphragm’ 9. hauhau ‘to beat’
5. houhou ‘to push’ 10. hiuhiu ‘to pelt repeatedly’

TABLE 5. English word list.

Monophthongs Diphthongs
1. sheepish 6. hooking 1. safer 6. Houston
2. hissing 7. sushi 2. sofa
3. fester 8. suffer 3. hyphen
4. hash it 9. sausage 4. housing
5. hoppy 5. hoister

4.2 SPEAKERS. Both consultants are females and are similarly built, which is important
for comparing vowels, since formant values are determined in part by the size of the vocal
tract.
One Hawaiian native speaker of the Ni‘ihauan dialect participated in this project. She is
45 years old, was born and raised on Ni‘ihau until she was 4, then moved to Kaua‘i, but she
grew up in a community of Ni‘ihauans. She currently teaches Hawaiian. She speaks
American English as second language. She will be referred to as ‘A’ in the remainder of the
paper.
My other consultant was a 34-year old woman, whose first language is SAE. She was
born and raised in Honolulu and has spoken the Hawaiian language since the early
1990s. She has also taught Hawaiian for 10 years. She will be referred to as ‘B’ in the
remainder of the paper.
 5

4.3 RECORDINGS AND MEASUREMENTS. All recordings were made on a Sony Minidisk
Recorder in a quiet room at UH Mānoa and were transferred onto a cd-rw. The data were
digitized at a 11,000 Hz sampling rate using PCQuirer and Praat. For each vowel, formant2
one (F1), formant two (F2), and duration were measured on Praat, through time-aligned
spectrograms and waveforms.
Figures 1-3 show examples of waveforms, spectrograms, and formants depicting displays
from which vowel durations were measured. Arrows indicate approximate beginning and
ending points for the vowel studied.
For each monophthong, formants and duration were measured as follows. Formants were
measured by first isolating the target vowel studied, then finding a stable area for the
formants (i.e., an area where the formants were clearly visible and formed a straight
horizontal band), and finally recording the frequencies of each formant in that area. As in
usual phonetic research, I created acoustic vowel charts by plotting F1 vs. F2, to analyze and
compare the two speakers’ vowels.
Duration was given at the bottom of each waveform and spectrogram. When isolating
each vowel, I was able to measure and make a log entry of its exact duration.
For each diphthong, formants and durations were measured as follows. The onset of the
diphthong was identified and its F1 and F2 were measured in the same way as for
monophthongs. Then, the offset of the diphthong was isolated and its F1 and F2 were
measured. Finally, the duration of each diphthong was observed at the bottom of each
waveform and spectrogram, and was recorded in the same fashion as for monophthongs.
FIGURE 1. Example of a repetition of the word pepe ‘flat, as a nose’ by A, with beginning and end points for
the target vowel marked.

2
Formants are resonances that are formed in the vocal tract depending on the shape given to the vocal tract;
different combinations of resonances determine different vowel qualities
 6

FIGURE 2. Example of a repetition of the word sausage by A,

with beginning and end points for the target vowel marked.

FIGURE 3. Example of a repetition of the word haehae ‘to tear to bits’ by B,

with beginning and end points for the target vowel marked.
 7

5. ANALYSIS OF VOWEL QUALITY. Vowel charts were made with the UCLA software
PlotFormants. As is common in phonetic research, F1 appears on the vertical axis, F2 on the
horizontal. Ellipses show one standard deviation around the mean value for each vowel. The
symbol in the center of the each ellipse shows the mean value for each vowel.
I will consider two parameters when comparing vowels in the charts below: the size and
the position of the areas formed by the vowels. I will look at both parameters at the same
time. I will also observe the placement of each vowel area and try to provide explanations
for it. Finally, as I proceed, I will attempt to draw some conclusions.
As duration did not produce any significantly statistic results, I will not include it in the
discussion of the paper.
In section 7, I will move to the conclusions. A summary of results appears at the end of
the present paper.
I will study monophthong areas first, then diphthong areas.
5.1 MONOPHTHONGS. I shall discuss Hawaiian monophthongs first, then English
monophthongs.
5.1.1 HAWAIIAN SHORT MONOPHTHONGS. The comparison between Figures 4 and 5
(summarized in Figure 6) shows the following.
A’s areas are small and distinct. On the other hand, B’s realization of Hawaiian short
monophthongs creates larger areas. Moreover, B’s back vowel areas overlap with each other.
In terms of positioning, B’s vowel space is contained within the space formed by A’s
vowel space. There are a few possible explanations for this finding, and I will suggest only
two. A might be hyperarticulating her vowels, whereas B might not. Another possibility is
that B has a slightly larger vocal tract than A.
Looking at individual monophthongs, I observe that B’s front vowel areas overlap with
those of A, although B’s front vowels are positioned a little more toward the center of the
vowel space with respect to A’s. This means that B’s production of front vowels is close to
A’s.
B’s low vowel /a/ is about 150 Hz higher (on the F1 axis) and more central than A’s and
partly overlaps with B’s back vowels. This could indicate that B is less certain in her
production.
The back vowel areas for B do not match those in A’s production. First of all, /o/ and /u/
overlap for B, which indicates that she does not clearly distinguish between them. B’s /o/ is
slightly higher and more central than A’s /o/, and B’s /u/ is about 100 Hz lower and a little
bit more central than A’s /u/. I suggest that B’s production of /o/ is influenced by her
English phonology and that the Hawaiian monophthong /o/ is diphthongized to some extent
(in other words, she tends to say /o/, rather than /o/). I was actually able to hear a slight
diphthongization during B’s production. Notice that this does not happen for /e/: in fact,
there is no diphthongization for this monophthong, which would lead to /e/.
 8

FIGURE 4. Hawaiian short monophthongs for A.

FIGURE 5. Hawaiian short monophthongs for B.

 9

FIGURE 6. Hawaiian short monophthongs for both A and B.

A in light line ellipses and white font, B in thick ellipses and bold font.

5.1.2 HAWAIIAN LONG MONOPHTHONGS. The comparison between Figures 7 and 8

(summarized in Figure 9) shows the following.
A’s long monophthongs produce very small areas. Once again, there is no overlapping of
any area whatsoever for A: this indicates even more precision in the production of her long
monophthongs as compared with her short monophthongs. As for B, her areas for the mid
and low long monophthongs are comparable to A’s, whereas B’s high monophthong areas
are quite a bit larger. B’s back vowels /o/ and /u/ overlap only very slightly. As compared
with B’s short monophthongs, all this means that B is aiming at the same vowel targets as
A’s. Therefore, in general her production of long vowels more closely resembles that of the
native speaker’s than her production of short vowels.
Let us now look at individual monophthongs. First of all, B’s /i/ is slightly higher and a
little more central than A’s /i/, but it forms a much wider area than the latter. B’s /e/ almost
completely overlaps A’s /e/, thus revealing that her target is positioned in the same spot as
A’s. B’s /a/ partly overlaps with A’s /a/, thus showing a similar positioning of this vowel
for both speakers. B’s /o/ and /u/ form almost completely separated areas, which means that
B can distinguish between them; however, both vowels show different targets from those of
A (B’s /o/ is more central and lower than A’s /o/, and B’s /u/ is more central and has a
wider area than B’s /u/).
 10

FIGURE 7. Hawaiian long monophthongs for A.

FIGURE 8. Hawaiian long monophthongs for B.

 11

FIGURE 9. Hawaiian long monophthongs for both A and B.

A in light line ellipses and white font, B in thick line ellipses and bold font.

5.1.3 HAWAIIAN SHORT VS. LONG MONOPHTHONGS. The comparison between Hawaiian
short and long monophthongs for A is shown in Figure 10. The same comparison for B is
shown in Figure 11 (note: due to technical problems with PlotFormants, I was unable to plot
long monophthongs with macrons when compared to short monophthongs. Instead, short
monophthongs are shown as light-line ellipses and in white font, while long monophthongs
are shown as dark-line ellipses and in bold font.) Let us analyze the data.
A’s long monophthongs generally form smaller areas than her short monophthongs: this
probably results from the fact that she has more time to realize such sounds; therefore it is
easier for her to aim for her ideal targets. There is virtually no overlap between A’s short and
long monophthong areas. The interpretation of this fact is open to speculation: it could mean
that A has separate ideal vowel quality targets for short and long monophthongs, which
would contradict what was implied above; that for each long/short pair vowel she has one
(not two) ideal target to aim for. But it could also mean that she actually does have one ideal
target, which the long vowels implement better. If she does have separate vowel qualities in
short vs. long vowels, this may mean that quality differences are serving to enhance quantity
differences (this happens when ā or a is followed by u or i : short vowels raise, whereas long
do not, or, at least, not much; see section 5.1.6).
B presents small areas for mid and low long monophthongs; all the other monophthongs,
short and long, tend to form large areas. Finally, a general overlap for B’s monophthongs is
shown, with the exception of /e/ vs. /e/, and /a/ vs. /a/.
On the basis of my observations about the Hawaiian short and long monophthongs, I can
claim that A has extremely well-defined targets in the vowel space. B lacks such precision,
which is evident from the overlapping of a number of her monophthongs, and from their
range of variation.
 12

FIGURE 10. Hawaiian short monophthongs vs. long monophthongs for A.

Short monophthongs in light line ellipses and white font, long monophthongs in thick line ellipses and bold
font.

FIGURE 11. Hawaiian short monophthongs vs. long monophthongs for B.

Short monophthongs in light line ellipses and white font, long monophthongs in thick line ellipses and bold
font.
 13

Let us now look at the English monophthongs.

5.1.4 ENGLISH MONOPHTHONGS. By comparing Figures 12 and 13, which show charts
for the English monophthongs respectively produced by A and B (this comparison is
summarized in Figure 14), I observe the following.
A’s low English monophthongs overlap: specifically // forms a very wide area which
includes //, //, and /æ/. This may well be due to the influence of her native language, i.e.
Hawaiian, which does not distinguish among these sounds. A’s // also forms a fairly large
area, whereas A’s front and central vowels tend to form small areas.
On the other hand, B’s areas are all fairly small and non-overlapping, with the exception
of // and //. This can be interpreted as follows: B has very small and clear targets in her
native language, although she has no phonemic distinction between // and // (which is
characteristic of a number of American-English dialects).

FIGURE 12. English monophthongs for A.

 14

FIGURE 13. English monophthongs for B.

FIGURE 14. English monophthongs for A and B.

A in light line ellipses and white font, B in thick line ellipses and bold font.
 15

Let us now compare each speaker’s Hawaiian monophthongs with her English
monophthongs. Since this comparison is between two languages which do not feature the
same phonological vowel inventory, either in terms of quality or length (Hawaiian has both
long and short monophthongs, while English has only short monophthongs), I will compare
short Hawaiian monophthongs with English (solely short) monophthongs.
5.1.5 HAWAIIAN SHORT MONOPHTHONGS VS. ENGLISH MONOPHTHONGS. Figure 15
compares Hawaiian short monophthongs and English monophthongs for A. Figure 16
illustrates the same comparison for B. Let us now analyze the data, starting with A.
Generally speaking, A’s monophthongs (both Hawaiian and English) tend to form small
areas, with the exception of English monophthongs // and //.
Looking at individual monophthongs, I observe the following. A’s English low central
monophthongs overlap: // forms an extremely wide area that encompasses /æ/, //, and
//. This likely shows that each of the three latter sounds tends to be confused with //, to
varying degrees. I interpret such information as follows: in producing English //, /æ/, //,
and //, A is probably aiming for some vowel that is positioned in front of her Hawaiian
/a/. Furthermore, A can distinguish between English // and Hawaiian /a/, although there is a
slight overlapping of the areas formed by such vowels.
Furthermore, A articulates her English // in a large area positioned between her
Hawaiian /u/ and /o/ (remember that // is not part of A’s native phonology); similarly, she
articulates her English // between her Hawaiian /i/ and /e/ (remember that // is not part of
A’s native phonology).
She can clearly differentiate between Hawaiian /u/ and English /u/, as these vowels are
positioned well apart.
A’s English and Hawaiian /i/ overlap, signaling that she patterns this vowel roughly in the
same position for both languages. However, she can clearly distinguish between Hawaiian
/e/ and English //, since the areas formed by such vowels do not overlap. Furthermore, she
can distinguish between these two sounds and /æ/; however the latter tends to overlap with
//.
Let us now look at B’s production. B’s English monophthongs form smaller areas than
her Hawaiian monophthongs; furthermore, her English monophthong areas do not overlap
with each other, as mentioned above. If I consider each individual sound, I observe the
following.
As for the production of her front vowels, B patterns her Hawaiian /i/ just about in the
same position of her English /i/ (although the former creates a larger area in the F1
dimension than the latter). Her Hawaiian /e/ is positioned between her English // and //,
with a little overlapping of // and /e/.
B produces her Hawaiian low and back vowels (/a/, /o/, and /u/) somewhere between her
English // (which ends up slightly overlapping with Hawaiian /a/) and her English //
(which slightly overlaps with Hawaiian /o/). Finally, she clearly distinguishes between
English /u/ and Hawaiian /u/.
 16

FIGURE 15. Hawaiian short monophthongs vs. English monophthongs for A.

Hawaiian short monophthongs in light line ellipses and white font.
English monophthongs in thick line ellipses and bold font.

FIGURE 16. Hawaiian short monophthongs vs. English monophthongs for B.

Hawaiian short monophthongs in light line ellipses and white font.
English monophthongs in thick line ellipses and bold font.
 17

In conclusion, B is aware of most differences between her native monophthongs and

Hawaiian monophthongs.
At this point, I would like to suggest an explanation for B’s choice of specific targets in
Hawaiian. I hypothesize that whenever her native inventory lacks a Hawaiian monophthong,
but offers one or more lax sounds as the closest targets (for instance: English does not have
tense /e/ as a monophthong, but it has lax // and lax //), she takes one sound (or the area
between such sounds) as a starting point and tries to make it tenser. Thus, she takes a
monophthong between lax // and lax // and tries to make it tenser in order to produce tense
/e/. It is true that her /e/ does not look tenser, i.e., more peripheral than her English // and
//. I believe that she simply tries to do this, regardless of her accomplishment. This strategy
is the same one that I adopt when speaking English. As a native speaker of Italian, I have the
phonemes /e/ and /i/ in my inventory, but not //. Therefore, when trying to produce this
English sound, I consciously aim for a spot between my native /e/ and /i/ and try to make it
tenser.
Let us now look at diphthongs. Once again, I shall start from Hawaiian, then look at
English, next compare Hawaiian vs. English diphthongs, and finally draw some
conclusions. Figures showing overlays of two charts are not included in this section.
5.1.6 HAWAIIAN DIPHTHONGS. Figure 17 illustrates the production of Hawaiian
diphthongs by A. Figure 18 show the realization of the same diphthongs by B. In these
figures, I use the symbol [] for the first portion of /ai/ and /au/, and [a] for the first portion
of /ae/ and /ao/, for clarity. The comparison between Figures 17 and 18 shows the following.
Generally speaking, the beginning and end targets for A show less variation than B’s
(with the exception of /a/): this reflects what was observed for A’s general small areas in her
production of the Hawaiian monophthongs and B’s wider areas for the same sounds.
A few diphthongs stand out and I will discuss them here. B’s starting point for
diphthongs /ai/ and /ae/ are overlapping, contrarily to A; however, for both speakers the
starting points for /au/ and /ao/ overlap. I can interpret such observations as follows: A has
two distinct starting points for diphthongs /ai/ and /ae/, but not for /au/ and /ao/. B, though,
does not have such difference and patterns both beginning points in the same area.
Moreover, B’s beginning and end points generally tend to fall into different positions
with respect to A’s: see, for instance, the end points of the diphthongs /au/ (labeled []) and
/ao/. In such cases, B’s [] follows the same trajectory as for /ao/, whereas A’s same
diphthongs go in different directions). Therefore B might not keep these two diphthongs as
separate as A seems to.
 18

FIGURE 17. Hawaiian diphthongs for A.

FIGURE 18. Hawaiian diphthongs for B.

5.1.7 ENGLISH DIPHTHONGS. Figures 19 and 20 show the production of English

diphthongs respectively by A and B. In these figures, I use the symbol [j] for the first portion
of /yu/. The comparison between such charts shows the following.
Generally speaking, both A and B tend to produce small target areas for all diphthongs,
with the exception of the end point for A’s /o/ and the beginning point for A’s //. The
beginning points of /a/ and /a/ are kept distinct by both A and B, but B produces them well
 19

apart from one another, whereas A produces them in a very central and low position and
close to each other. This results in the fact that the diphthongs’ movements for B are in
height only, whereas the movements for A are in both height and backness.

FIGURE 19. English diphthongs for A.

FIGURE 20. English diphthongs for B.

5.1.8 HAWAIIAN DIPHTHONGS VS. ENGLISH DIPHTHONGS. Figures 21 and 22 illustrate

B’s production of selected diphthongs: such diphthongs are either shared by both languages
 20

or are Hawaiian diphthongs that are so similar to diphthongs in English that they tend to
create confusion in her production of Hawaiian. I will not show comparable figures for A,
because the scope of the present study is to document two Hawaiian dialects and the possible
carryover of B’s first language (English) phonology to Hawaiian. Therefore, it is useful to
look at what B’s production of Hawaiian looks like, and whether English may influence
it. In contrast, A’s native production of Hawaiian should not be influenced by English.
The comparison of Figures 21 and 22 (and the previous Figures showing A’s production
of Hawaiian and English diphthongs) shows the following.
B’s Hawaiian /oi/ is clearly patterned on her English //. If I look at the realization of
/oi/ by A, I can see how far the beginning target of this diphthong is from the beginning of
the same diphthong produced by B. A’s beginning target is very peripheral and positioned in
the back of the vowel space, whereas B’s beginning target is very central and extremely close
to the area formed by the beginning target of her English //. The end targets of B’s /oi/ and
// overlap.
B’s Hawaiian /ou/ is much more peripheral (back) than her English /o/. This may
indicate that she perceives a difference in the position of this diphthong in Hawaiian and
English. A’s realization of such diphthong partly corroborates B’s production. In fact, her
Hawaiian /ou/ is articulated at the very right side of the vowel space. Note also that A
understands the difference in the production of this diphthong in the two languages as well,
since she positions her English /o/ similarly to B’s English /o/, with the beginning target in
a very central position and the diphthong being produced to the back side to the end target.

FIGURE 21. Selected Hawaiian diphthongs for B.

Additional IPA symbols used: [] and [j] for /i/, and [] for /u/.
 21

FIGURE 22. Selected English diphthongs for B.

In summary, B seems to have more problems in the production of Hawaiian diphthongs

than monophthongs. She conflates target points and in some cases shows transfer of English
patterns.
6. RESULTS. From the analysis of all the data above, we learn that A’s realization of
Hawaiian differs from B’s in certain respects. B’s monophthongs tend to form larger areas
and her back short monophthongs tend to overlap. A few of B’s diphthongs are patterned
differently from A’s. B’s pronunciation in general does not match A’s, due arguably to the
influence of American English. The divergence of B’s production of Hawaiian seems to be
particularly heavy for diphthongs.
7. CONCLUSION. The data are few and the number of speakers extremely limited;
consequently, the results are limited. Therefore, further study with a larger number of
speakers is needed. However, on the basis of the phonetic data found in the present study, it
is possible to show the vowel systems of two varieties of Hawaiian: the Ni‘ihau dialect and
the UH dialect. The following phonetic charts illustrate schematically the differences
between the two speakers of the different dialects of Hawaiian.
 22

TABLE 4. Phonetic chart of Ni‘ihauan Hawaiian short monophthongs.

high i u
mid e o
low a
TABLE 5. Phonetic Chart of UH Hawaiian short monophthongs.

high i u~o
mid ~e~ o~u
low a~

TABLE 6. Phonetic chart of Ni‘ihauan Hawaiian long monophthongs.

high i u
mid e o
low a
TABLE 7. Phonetic chart of UH Hawaiian long monophthongs.

high i u
mid e o
low a

FIGURE 23. Phonetic chart of Ni‘ihauan Hawaiian diphthongs.

 23

FIGURE 24. Phonetic chart of UH Hawaiian diphthongs.

The two varieties of Hawaiian have followed different paths. Ni‘ihauan Hawaiian has
not been significantly influenced by American English in phonetic terms. UH Hawaiian,
instead, has been, as illustrated by the results of the present study.
 24

REFERENCES
ELBERT, SAMUEL H., and MARY KAWENA PUKUI. 1979. Hawaiian grammar. Honolulu:
University of Hawai‘i Press.
NESMITH, RICHARD K. 2002. Tūtū’s Hawaiian and the emergence of a neo-Hawaiian
language. University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa M.A. thesis.
PUKUI, MARY KAWENA, and SAMUEL H. ELBERT. 1957. Hawaiian-English dictionary.
Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.
PUKUI, MARY KAWENA, and SAMUEL H. ELBERT. 1986. Hawaiian dictionary. Honolulu:
University of Hawai‘i Press.