Pronouns
In English, a “personal pronoun” substitutes for a person or a thing. Personal pronouns make it convenient for us to reference someone or something we’ve already mentioned.
EN Examples
In Hawaiian, personal pronouns substitute for a person. They can also be used for things that have been anthropomorphized —that is, spoken of as if a person. Avoid using personal pronouns in Hawaiian for everyday things, even though you will be tempted to do so because of English language thinking. Below are the Hawaiian versions of the sentences shown above.
HA Examples
Summary
- Personal pronouns include words for people like “I, you, he, she, we, they … …”
- As shown in the examples above, the English pronouns “it”, “they”, and “them” can be used to refer to non-people things already understood (aforementioned) in context. We should not use pronouns for that purpose in Hawaiian; instead we just drop the reference most of the time.
Papani In Hawaiian, we call pronouns «papani»
The word «papani» comes from «pani» meaning “a substitute” or “to substitute”.
Hawaiian Singular Pronouns (Papani)
Papani are used to refer to people. Here are the first three you should learn:
| English | Papani | Example | Meaning | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| I | au | eg., Holo au. | I travel. | ! not /holo ʻau/ |
| you | ʻoe | eg., ʻAi ʻoe. | You eat. | |
| he/she | ʻoia | eg., Hula ʻoia. | She dances. |
Note: some University of Hawaiʻi-based texts spell «ʻoia» as two words («ʻo ia»). I prefer to use one word for each papani because each papani is one “unit” of meaning.
ʻŌlelo Online Virtual Classroom · kumu Kaliko Beamer-Trapp · Lesson revision 3 (July 2024) · This is a work in progress; feedback is welcome.