[[xi]]
Helps to Pronunciation.
There are three simple rules which practically control Hawaiian pronunciation: (1) Pronounce each vowel. (2) Never allow a consonant to close a syllable. (3) Give the vowels the following values:
| a | = | a | in father |
| e | = | ey | in they |
| i | = | i | in machine |
| o | = | o | in note |
| u | = | oo | in tool |
[[xiii]]
Introduction.
If you draw a line from the tip of New Zealand to the top of the Hawaiian Islands, you will be able to indicate the true Polynesian area. On the islands towards the Malay Peninsula there is a mixed people who show the Papuan strain that is in them. They are the Melanesians. On the American side of the line there is a singularly homogeneous people who are of a type like to our own. They are the Polynesians. We have been able to pay ourselves the compliment of admiring them ever since the chronicler of Mendaña’s voyages looked upon the men and women of the Marquesas and found that “they had beautiful faces and the most promising animation of countenance; and were in all things so becoming that the pilot-mayor Quiros affirmed nothing in his life caused him so much regret as leaving such fine creatures to be lost in that country.”[1]