Papani Table #1 — Hawaiian Personal Pronouns

Papani are short gender-neutral words we can use to refer to people or pets or similar things which have been given names; they are similar to English personal pronouns. Papani should not be used to refer to or replace common nouns.

There are three important elements to think about when studying this table:

① Unlike English which has only singular (one) and plural (more than one), Hawaiian has singular (one), dual (two), and plural (three+);

② The concept of “inclusivity” vs. “exclusivity” which means whether or not the person being spoken to is included in the grouping or not; and

③ There are only two papani that are different in the piko and the ʻawe: au—aʻu and ʻoia—ia; all the others are the same in either the piko or the ʻawe.

Person	Number of People and Inclusivity*	Subject position (in the piko)			Object position (in the ʻawe)
		Eng		Haw	Haw	Eng
1st	1 person	I alone	I	au	aʻu	me	me alone
	2 people inclusive	you and I	we	kāua	kāua	us	you and me
	2 people exclusive	he/she and I	we	māua	māua	us	him/her and me
	3+ people inclusive	we, including you	we	kākou	kākou	us	us, incl. you
	3+ people exclusive	we, not incl. you	we	mākou	mākou	us	us, not incl. you
2nd	1 person	you alone	you	ʻoe	ʻoe	you	you alone
	2 people	you both	you	ʻolua	ʻolua	you	you both
	3+ people	you all	you	ʻoukou	ʻoukou	you	you all
3rd	1 person	he/she alone	he/she	ʻoia	ia	him/her	him/her alone
	2 people	they both	they	lāua	lāua	them	them both
	3+ people	they all	they	lākou	lākou	them	them all

English and Hawaiian are not the same. Do not use papani to refer to aforementioned common nouns like we do in English with the pronouns “it”, “they”, or “them” —e.g., “I see some cars. They are nice. I like them.” or “Did you see the bird? Yes, I saw it.” It is very common and correct to leave out these kinds of words if understood by context, especially in the ʻawe position. If you do need to refer to something already mentioned, use the kaʻi “ia” for “it” (singular) or “ia mau [memeʻa]” for “they” / “them” (plural) in English.

ʻŌlelo Online Virtual Classroom · kumu Kaliko Beamer-Trapp · Table revision 6 (May 2023) · This is a work in progress; feedback is welcome.