HONOLULU (AP) — Jason Momoa drove a classic pickup alongside a winding nation street in Hawaii, a tattooed arm dangling out the window and Metallica blasting.
“POO’-ah-LEE’,” he stated.
His passenger corrected him, once more, modeling the delicate emphasis on the “u” sound: “Puali.”
Momoa was getting ready for his function in “Chief of War,” the primary main TV sequence that includes the language and tradition of Hawaii’s Indigenous individuals. His passenger, Kahoʻokahi Kanuha, linked with Momoa years in the past whereas they have been each protesting in opposition to an enormous telescope on a mountain summit held sacred by some Native Hawaiians. He wound up dwelling with the Hawaiian Hollywood celebrity for almost a yr as his private language coach.
The phrase they saved engaged on throughout the drive can imply “warrior” or “army.” It was one in every of many to get proper.
Like many Native Hawaiians in Hawaii and elsewhere, Momoa did not develop up talking Hawaiian. A lot of the different actors within the sequence additionally aren’t fluent. They labored with coaches like Kanuha to pronounce the vowel-laden sounds. Kahuna was at Momoa’s facet 24/7, with a binder in hand of the actor’s traces to observe any probability that they had — whereas driving, consuming, figuring out.
“My goal was to have the ability to get him to say his traces, ship his traces in a means that wasn’t distracting to the viewer,” Kanuha stated.
The ultimate product of the Apple TV+ sequence that premiered in August isn’t good, Kanuha and different Hawaiian language specialists say, nevertheless it’s a profitable global-scale contribution to revitalizing and normalizing a language that has endured erasure makes an attempt amid colonization. They are saying it’s too early to quantify however that it will probably solely assist spark curiosity, particularly amongst younger Hawaiians who now have a mainstream illustration of their language and tradition.
Whereas the primary two episodes are principally in Hawaiian, the language is spoken much less because the sequence progresses from 18th-century Hawaiian society earlier than contact with Europeans to Momoa’s character touring past Hawaii.
Punished for talking Hawaiian
“This is a moment where we’re showcasing our people, our language on a scale that says, we’re here … we are amazing and our language is beautiful and thriving,” stated Moses Items, an actor within the sequence who stated he “grew up largely with out the language.” Hawaiian was his mom’s first language, however her dad and mom forbade her from talking it as a toddler, he stated.
An 1896 legislation, just a few years after the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom by American enterprise homeowners, dictated English because the medium of training, stated Kaʻiuokalani Damas, an assistant professor in Hawaiian language on the College of Hawaii at Hilo.
That resulted in a systemic devaluing of Hawaiian and forbidding kids from talking it, Damas stated.
“We have lots of stories of students being beaten or made to haul boulders and rocks from one side of the school to the other,” he stated. “Writing on the blackboard 500 occasions, ‘I will not speak Hawaiian.’”
By 1940, native audio system have been uncommon. Revitalization efforts within the Sixties and Seventies to revive Hawaiian because the medium of training resulted in immersion colleges. It is tough to depend what number of are fluent right now, Damas stated, noting that latest Census knowledge displaying greater than 30,000 audio system contains a variety of proficiency.
Hawaiian bubble
Momoa’s language coach began studying Hawaiian as a second language in 1994 at an immersion preschool.
“It’s not a language that my parents or my family spoke,” Kanuha said. “And so I learned as a kid that going through these programs … can sometimes be a very lonely journey.”
Now 36, Hawaiian is his major language and the primary language of his two younger sons.
As a household, it will probably really feel like they reside in a Hawaiian bubble till they depart residence and every part is usually in English, he stated. With the present, his kids can take pleasure in leisure in Hawaiian — once they’re not closing their eyes throughout violent battle scenes.
“How ironic that being Hawaiian — in Hawaii — speaking Hawaiian makes you feel lonely,” Kanuha stated. “I think this helps to kind of start to reverse that a little bit.”
Different actors share their experiences
Earlier than performing within the present, New Zealand-born actor Luciane Buchanan stated she had barely heard Hawaiian spoken. Her mom is from the Polynesian nation Tonga and her father is of Scottish descent.
“I’m not going to lie, it freaked me out because I wanted to do it, but I only speak English,” she stated. “I am Tongan, however do not converse Tongan, so I perceive that type of language trauma that I can empathize with the (Hawaiians) which have that disconnect.”
She recalled having to additionally study different characters’ traces together with her coaches so she might react appropriately — “so it is not like we’re giving clean faces.”
Actor Cliff Curtis drew on his identification being Maori from New Zealand as a option to make connections with Hawaiian language, however stated there have been additionally difficult variations.
“There’s a fluidity to the way that it flows in Hawaiian,” he stated. “There’s a completely different cadence.”
Apprehension in regards to the end result
Puakea Nogelmeier, a former professor of Hawaiian language on the College of Hawaii at Manoa, helped translate the script. He stated he was nervous in regards to the present’s end result figuring out how few of the forged have been fluent in Hawaiian.
Nogelmeier is not Hawaiian, and he discovered the language after shifting from Minnesota to Hawaii in 1972. He stated the present helps show it’s a “practical, viable world language.”
“I was pleasantly surprised,” he stated of the actors’ performances. “I’m afraid that even Apple doesn’t know how well they did.”
When Momoa first shared the thought of the present with Kanuha, he doubted it might ever occur. Earlier than “Chief of War,” it was regular to not have any mainstream leisure in Hawaiian, Kanuha stated.
Now he can’t think about a world with out it.
“Not only to hear their language, but just to see our world,” he stated. “To be able to see the world that we talk about, that we’re trying to preserve, to be able to visually see it and to hear it.”
He and others eagerly await information on whether or not there might be a second season.
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AP journalist Leslie Ambriz in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
