CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Keawe Lopes will be performing with his wife Tracie at the Aston Full Moon Concert tonight.
Perpetuating
the language
By law, the Hawaiian language has equal standing with English here in the islands, but the reality is that most residents' knowledge of Hawaiian comes up short when confronted with anything more complicated than mauka, makai and okole. Keawe Lopes, who learned Hawaiian as a second language and is now an instructor in the Hawaiian Language Department at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, says that it doesn't have to be that way.
Relax under the stars
Second Aston Full Moon Concert featuring Amy Hanaiali'i Gilliom, Lanai & Augie, Lehuakea and Native Blend (concerts featuring other performers are scheduled for Aug. 15 and Oct. 10)Where: Kapiolani Park Bandstand
When: 6:30 p.m. today
Admission: Free
Call: 931-1435
"You can read an old Hawaiian newspaper by the time you're at the second level," Lopes said in his office Monday morning, as we spoke about the native music, culture and resurgence of the language over the last few decades.
(Lopes also made his public debut as a song composer last year with "He Aloha No," an album of songs he and his wife, Tracie, wrote to honor people and places important to them. While it was recorded with studio musicians, the couple will perform at tonight's Aston Full Moon Concert as members of Lehuakea, a traditionalist Hawaiian quartet that includes bassist Wailani Avilla and guitarist Iopu Fale Jr.)
Lopes says that being able to read Hawaiian-language newspapers is particularly important for anyone interested in getting first-hand accounts from a native perspective.
"You get a glimpse of history (and) the worldview of a Hawaiian writer."
So Lopes spends his Saturdays helping with a landmark indexing project that will eventually allow researchers to type in a name -- "Manoa," say -- and get a printout listing every reference to "Manoa" in every archived Hawaiian-language newspaper. It's a tremendous opportunity, he says, to work with several native speakers who sometimes help out by explaining the nuances and subtleties of the older forms and usages of the language.
"We read every story, every advertisement, and we index every (person's) name, every place name, do a summary of every article, every letter to the editor, and it gets put into this index," Lopes said.
CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Keawe Lopes keeps himself busy with teaching, playing music, promoting his album, indexing the contents of Hawaiian newspapers and making digital recordings of Hawaiian music.
Getting the place names right is also important for musicians who are interested in either recording old songs or writing new ones in the traditional Hawaiian style.
"If you're looking at a mele or a song that has an old name, inside, you can reference (the meaning of the location ) now. You can't do that if you don't know where it is," he said, explaining that a lyric reference to a location can suggest several layers of kaona (hidden meaning) that may be misunderstood if the correct location is not known.
IF IT SOUNDS like Lopes has a full schedule teaching, playing music, promoting his album and helping index the contents of Hawaiian newspapers -- well, there's more. He is also part of a group that is making digital recordings of the huge collection of Hawaiian music housed at the university.
While the benefit of providing backup copies of irreplaceable, out-of-print vinyl singles and albums to researchers is immediate, it also allows teachers to use the older recordings to show how the Hawaiian lyrics were pronounced by old-time native speakers -- or sometimes mispronounced by people who lacked knowledge of the language.
"When a performing artist doesn't really speak Hawaiian, you can tell in the execution of it. It's still commendable to go ahead and record a Hawaiian song, (but) we have native speakers of Hawaiian language on these records, and (because) a lot of our Hawaiian-language-speaking community now are second language speakers, (these recordings) give us a look into a native speaker's execution of a song -- their phrasing, the nuances and the pronunciation."
And although Lopes' students have the opportunity to refine their pronunciation and conversational skills by talking with native speakers who've stepped forward to share their knowledge, most local residents aren't that lucky.
"You need to have (the language) in your everyday life, or be with a friend who speaks Hawaiian so you can practice, and a lot of the effort in becoming as fluent as you want depends on that. We have a lot of students who want the opportunity to speak more (Hawaiian), but who don't have the opportunity to speak it at home."
LOPES KNOWS how difficult it can be. His parents and in-laws are of the generation who lost the connection with their ancestral language and were raised speaking English only. Several of Lopes' older relatives, however, were native speakers and they encouraged his early interest -- he speaks fondly of his great-grandmother who "would drill us in memorizing Hawaiian scripture."
And even though his parents didn't speak Hawaiian, they encouraged him to the point where he began getting formal instruction as a 9th-grader at Waipahu High School. But his studies took an unusual twist when he met a woman at church who was a native speaker "and my mom let me go home with her."
"I lived with her for a couple of years, continued my studies when I got accepted to the University of Hawaii, and did my B.A. in Hawaiian language."
But since there were no advanced degree programs for the language, Lopes went on to get his master's degree in education. He's currently working on a Ph.D. in teaching education and curriculum studies and says that, in retrospect, there may be some benefits to that.
"Because our advanced degrees aren't from our language, it allowed us to go into other areas like education ... and bring all that information home to our department. ..."
Lopes says that master's degree programs in Hawaiian language and Hawaiian studies should be available either this fall or in time for the spring 2004 semester.
And, yes, Lopes and his wife, who teaches Hawaiian language and Hawaiian studies at Saint Louis School, are raising their daughters, Pi'ikea and Ka'onohi, to be bilingual.
"They have a lot of English during the day (when they're with their grandparents) and when they come home, they have a lot of Hawaiian with us. One of my daughters will be starting preschool this August where she'll spend most of her time in the Hawaiian-language immersion. It's very important that they grow up bilingual."
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