The Kingdom of Hawaii became a major point for traders from Asia and North America, and so a lot of languages passed through. And when sugarcane plantations began to open in 1835, people from all over the world arrived to work at them.Īs the century progressed, one language began to dominate Hawaii: English. The Pacific Ocean is huge, and Hawaii provided a convenient place to rest and refuel along the way. Once Hawaii was found by the Europeans, it became a popular spot to stop during long voyages. They lived in total seclusion until the islands were discovered by Europeans in 1778, when explorer James Cook landed on the archipelago he called “Owhyhee.”
The ancestor language of Hawaiian first arrived when voyagers from the Marquesas Islands settled the archipelago around 400 C.E. If traced back far enough, many of the languages of the Pacific seem to have originated from a proto-language that was spoken on the island that is now Taiwan.
Hawaiian is a Polynesian language, along with Samoan or Māori, and it descends from the Austronesian language group. Before the 18th century, Hawaii was home only to Hawaiians, and the only language there was Hawaiian.
0 kommentar(er)
