Ad Code

Language and religion

The language in Hawaii

The indigenous language of Hawaii is Malay-Polynesian and, currently, is the official language on the island along with English. If you plan to travel to Hawaii, therefore, and you handle well with the Anglo-Saxon language, you will not have any problem to make you understand among the natives, because here everyone knows and speaks that international language to perfection.

Language evolution in Hawaii

Malay-Polynesian, the language of Hawaii, comes from the family of Polynesian languages ​​similar to Maori and Rapanui. It is a language that entered the island during the 2nd and 8th centuries, when the first Polynesian colonizers arrived, and settled down as the language of the entire archipelago. So much so that from the conquest until well into the eighteenth century was the only language of Hawaii. At the end of that century new colonizers began to arrive on the island, provoking a resounding change in the language of the natives.



Not only language was affected by conquest. The new members of the islands brought with them also new diseases for the natives that caused the death in great quantities to the inhabitants. Due to this, from the 19th century, the native population of Hawaii began to diminish rapidly. It was also in that century that English began to be established as an official language, displacing the original language. Considering that only 0.1% of the inhabitants of the island were Hawaiians at this altitude, this change is not so striking.

Currently, Malay-Polynesian continues to be the official language on the island jointly with English, although only about 1,000 people speak actively and 8000 passively. During this last decade they have tried to apply various policies of linguistic normalization, without significant results: English speakers continue to be majority than natives.

Finally, it is worth noting that the language of Hawaii since 1820 has Latin writing, since a group of missionaries codified the language.



Religion in Hawaii

Currently, the majority religion in Hawaii is Christian, with 68% of followers. Within Christianity the strongest tradition is the Protestant with 42% (the strongest colonization suffered by the country was the English). Next comes the Catholic with 21% and the Mormon with 5%. Surely, the Asian influence has generated that there is a 9% of Buddhists. It should also be noted that in Hawaii there are 18% of atheists / agnostics.



The traditional culture of the Huna or better known as Aloha stands out in religion in Hawaii. Although this is not considered exactly part of the religion in Hawaii, since it belongs to what is known as ancient wisdom, it has a base very similar to that of any religion and retains characteristics of its most primitive religion.

Post a Comment

0 Comments