THE LANGUAGE OF HAWAII. 
53 
2. By he, a simple article, as: he pono ole, a good not— 
i . e., good does not exist therein. In other words, it is un¬ 
righteous. 
3. Affirmation is sometimes expressed by the pronouns 
ia, eia, Jceia, etc., as: 
0 ia ka poe i liele mai (the o is emphatic). 
(Those were) the people who came. 
In fact, verbs play a very subordinate part in the language 
and are seldom employed, since their place is supplied, as 
occasion arises, by other parts of speech. Take the sentence 
that appears on the Hawaiian coins: 
ua mau he ea o ka aina i ka pono; meaning 
(is continued) the life of the land by righteousness. 
The affirmation seems to be made in the first word, ua, 
although this is sometimes a supernumerary word, or at least 
an auxiliary one. 
Position of Nouns. —A peculiarity about nouns is that they 
may stand in almost any part of the sentence except at the 
beginning. The whole method of affirmation is unique. It 
may be done by several parts of speech. Here is an example 
where a noun contains the idea : 
I ka po ka lakou hana; meaning 
In the night was their work. 
In the following case there is no verb in the sentence, and 
the pronoun contains the declaration within itself: 
( Oia) ka mea i loaa i ka waiwai; meaning 
(That is) the thing to obtain wealth. 
Some phrases are difficult to understand. This was once 
found in good Hawaiian : 
0 makou hoi, o na elemakule kane, a me na elemakule 
wahine ; 
which literally means: 
We also, the old men males and the old men females. 
8—Bull. Phil. Soc., Wash., Vol. 14. 
