HONOLULU (AP) — jason momoa He drives a vintage pickup down winding country roads in Hawaii, tattooed arms dangling out the window and Metallica blasting.
“Pooh, oh Lee,” he said.
His passenger corrected him again, “Puari,” modeling the subtle emphasis on the “u” sound.
Momoa was preparing for a role in “Secretary of the Army” The first major television series dedicated to Native Hawaiian language and culture. His passenger, Kahookahi Kanuha, got in touch with Momoa years ago when he was protesting against the giant telescope. The mountaintop is considered sacred By some Native Hawaiians. He ended up living with a Hollywood superstar in Hawaii for nearly a year as his personal language coach.
The word they kept working on during the drive could mean “warrior” or “troop.” That was one of many correct answers.
Like many Native Hawaiians in Hawaii and elsewhere, Momoa didn’t grow up speaking Hawaiian. Most of the other actors in the series are also not fluent. They worked with coaches such as Kanuha Pronounce sounds that include vowels. Kahuna was by Momoa’s side 24/7, practicing every chance he got, with a binder of the actor’s lines written down while he was driving, eating, and exercising.
“My objective was to have him say the lines and deliver them in a way that didn’t distract the viewer,” Kanuha said.
Kanuha and other Hawaiian language experts say that while the final product of the Apple TV+ series, which premiered in August, is not perfect, it is a successful contribution to the revitalization and normalization of a language that has withstood attempts at erasure during colonization on a global scale. They say it’s too early to quantify, but it could only help spark interest, especially among younger Hawaiians whose language and culture are now mainstream.
The first two episodes are mostly Hawaiian, but Hawaiian is not spoken much as the series takes us from 18th century Hawaiian society before contact with Europeans to Momoa’s character traveling beyond Hawaii.
If you speak Hawaiian, you will be punished.
“This is a moment to showcase our people and our language on a scale that we are here… We are great and our language is beautiful and thriving.” moses goodsthe series actor said, “I grew up with almost no language.” Hawaiian was his mother’s first language, but his parents forbade him to speak Hawaiian from an early age.
Kai’uokalani Damas, an assistant professor of Hawaiian language at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, said English was established as the medium of instruction in an 1896 law, several years after the overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom by American leaders.
As a result, Damas said, the Hawaiian language was systematically marginalized and children were prohibited from speaking it.
“There are many stories of students being beaten or forced to carry rocks and stones from one side of the school to the other,” he says. “I wrote “I don’t speak Hawaiian” on the blackboard 500 times.”
By 1940, native speakers were rare. Revitalization efforts to revive the Hawaiian language as an educational medium in the 1960s and 1970s led to the birth of immersion schools. Damas said it’s difficult to count how many fluent speakers there are today, noting that recent census data shows more than 30,000 speakers, including a wide range of proficiency levels.
hawaiian bubble
Momoa’s language coach began learning Hawaiian as a second language in 1994. immersion kindergarten.
“It’s not the language my parents and family spoke,” Kanuha said. “So I learned as a kid that going through these programs can sometimes be a very lonely journey.”
Now 36, his first language is Hawaiian, and it is also the first language of his two young sons.
He said that as a family, it sometimes feels like they live in a bubble in Hawaii until they leave home and everything is mostly in English. This show allows his kids to enjoy Hawaiian-language entertainment without having to close their eyes during violent fight scenes.
“How ironic that being in Hawaii and speaking Hawaiian in Hawaii makes you feel so alone,” Kanuha said. “I think this will help start reversing that a little bit.”
Other actors also share their experiences
New Zealand-born actor Lucien Buchanan said he had barely heard Hawaiian before appearing on the show. Her mother is from the Polynesian country of Tonga and her father is of Scottish descent.
“I’m not going to lie, I was surprised because I wanted to do it, but I only speak English,” she said. “I’m Tongan, but I don’t speak Tongan, so I understand that kind of linguistic trauma and can empathize with (Hawaiians) who have that kind of disconnect.”
She recalled that she also had to learn other characters’ lines with her coach so she could react appropriately. “So we’re not putting on a blank face.”
Actor Cliff Curtis cited his identity as Maori from New Zealand as a way to connect with the Hawaiian language, but said there are difficult differences.
“The flow of the Hawaiian language is fluid,” he said. “The rhythm is different.”
anxiety about the outcome
Puakea Nogelmeyer, a former Hawaiian language professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, helped translate the script. He said he was concerned about the show’s outcome after learning that few of the cast members were fluent in Hawaiian.
Mr. Nogelmeyer is not Hawaiian, but learned the language after immigrating to Hawaii from Minnesota in 1972. The show will help prove it is a “functional and viable world language,” he said.
“I was pleasantly surprised,” he said of the actors’ performances. “Unfortunately, even Apple doesn’t know how well they did.”
When Momoa first shared the idea for the show with Kanuha, he doubted it would come to fruition. Before “Chief of War,” Kanuha said, the lack of mainstream entertainment in Hawaiian was the norm.
Nowadays, it’s hard to imagine a world without it.
“Not just to hear their language, but to see our world,” he said. “Being able to visually see and hear the world we are talking about and trying to protect.”
He and others are eagerly awaiting news on whether there will be a second season.
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AP journalist Leslie Ambriz in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
