At the beginning of makahiki, I was hiking the Kilauea Iki trail when I stopped to talk story with a pair of recent relocatees from California. One was taking Hawaiian classes, but said he was having a tough time finding people to converse with outside of the classroom. I told him that I remind my son (whoʻs favorite class is Papa Hawaiʻi) that when I was his age, 13 years old, ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi was just about to be returned to the schools after being banned as a medium of instruction in 1896.

I told the relocatee that, sadly, he wouldn’t find many middle-aged Hawaiians like me to speak with, but, maybe, he could try with keiki. As we look back on February, Hawaiian language month, maybe middle-aged Hawaiians can be inspired to be less apprehensive about ʻōlelo and take inspiration from when the Irish actor Paul Mescal unexpectedly found himself speaking Gaelic on the red carpet at the U.K.’s version of the Oscars. Mescal’s moment lit a fire of pride in his fellow Irish.

“I’m sorry about my Irish — it was much better when I was in school,” Mescal said in Gaelic during the interview. “It’s slightly lost on me now.”

I’ve watched the above clip a few times even though I don’t understand him, but I sense the joy his fellow country men are feeling to see someone try.

Gaelic, like ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi, was a language that had been trampled and nearly eradicated. UNESCO considers Gaelic with 1.7 million speakers “definitely endangered,” while ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi, with less than 5% of Native Hawaiians speaking it fluently, is “critically endangered.”

When I shared the Paul Mescal story with my friend Kuʻuipo Kahele, she wrote: “That definitely resonates with my personal experiences, too. So much of what I learned of Hawaiian (at UH Hilo) was academic and not so much conversational, and then to have such a long span of not using it (before her twin keiki were born) — I often feel very tongue-tied trying to have a conversation these days purely in ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi. 

“At the twins’ parent/teacher conferences, for instance, I made a very supreme effort to only converse with their kumu ma ka ʻōlelo and throw in the odd English word when I couldn’t (or didn’t know) remember the right word, but I felt so childish in the effort because my grasp of the language when reading and even writing it out is so much greater and refined. However, as our ancestors wisely said, ‘Ma ka hana ka ʻike,’ so we persevere. Carving out time to solely converse with the twins helps, as does making every effort to use the language with others who I know can understand it.”

The moʻolelo that follows wasn’t written for 99.99% of Civil Beat’s audience. It was for a tiny percent I consider to be the most important. The story is about Kuʻuipo’s little boy, Kalanikoa, and how he lit a fire of pride when he read a Civil Beat story that had been translated into ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi.

It’s my version of a “Paul Mescal in Gaelic” moment. I’m very hemahema, but I’m trying to be wiwoʻole. 

I wrote the moʻolelo out first in French because I wanted to simplify the language and I didn’t want to have it come from an American lens. (My friend, Sonia Karkar, helped me with my French and, in the spirit of showing my work, the translation will be dropped in the comments below.) I then translated the French into ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi using wehewehe.org, my dictionaries and language lesson books. Thankfully, Ākea Kahikina, who translates the Ka Ulana Pilina series for Civil Beat, made sure what I wrote wasn’t a total disaster. I made sure to e kala mai for my hewa nui.   

I’m also incredibly proud that Kahikina is translating my first column into ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi. There’s a three-generation journey between “By Naka Nathaniel” at the top to “Ua kākoʻo ʻia kēia papahana e ka ʻOhana o Harry Nathaniel” at the bottom. My grandfather, Harry, was the last fluent speaker of ʻōlelo in my ʻohana until my cousin Cheri had the wiwoʻole to teach her keiki, Leimaile and Kepa, in the cradle.

I learned my French vocabulary via French newspapers. I wanted to do the same with ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi. After all, the revival of ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi was partially staged from the hundreds of Hawaiian language newspapers that were published in the 19th century. Thankfully, in the 21st, Civil Beat translates one of its stories each week into Hawaiian.

I like to say that one of my character traits is that I’m metaphorically the first person out on the dance floor. I know I’m not a great dancer, but I like to think that I’m a happy one. And my inarticulate dancing gives license to those that are good dancers, or those that just want to be happy dancing, to come out on the floor and join the fun. After all, what better place is there than a happy dance floor?

The phrase I cited in the moʻolelo above could not be more appropriate: “Aʻa i ka hula, waiho i ka hilahila i ka hale.” When one dances the hula, you must leave embarrassment at home.

Just before moving to Paris, two decades ago, I read Adam Gopnickʻs “From Paris to the Moon.” Toward the end of the memoir, he has an epiphany. He realizes that no matter how well he thinks he is speaking French, that in his France-born sonʻs eyes he is an alter kocker, a comic immigrant. Gopnick writes: “ʻZo, how the boy does?ʻ he hears me saying in effect (to his sonʻs teachers). ʻHe is good boy, no? He is feeling out the homeworks, isnʻt he?ʻ I can see his small frame shudder, just perceptibly, at his fatherʻs words. I had thought to bring him the suavity of the French gamin, and instead I have brought onto him the shame of the immigrant child.” 

From that paragraph, I knew I’d never be a suave native speaker, so instead I used French as the lingua franca that it’s supposed to be. In Paris, people are uptight about their French, because they’re afraid that they’re being judged (because they are). However, when I was working in France’s former colonies, I felt loose with the language because the idea is to communicate not conjugate. I’ll make a Parisien’s des orielles saignent, but we’ll figure out what we need to figure out. That’s why I’ll always treasure the effort an ESL speaker makes to be understood. I’ve been an alter kocker and I honor the grace others gave me. 

At the end of the moʻolelo, I’ve included a blague, a joke, that I learned to say in French. Sadly, the word play doesn’t work quite as well in ʻōlelo: “Q. What do you call someone who can speak two languages? A. Bilingual. Q. What do you call someone who can speak three languages? A. Trilingual. Q. What do you call someone who can speak one language? A. An American.”

I made an addition: “Q. What do you call someone who can speak Hawaiian? A. A savior.” 

Ma ke mahalo nui piha to all the kumu and haumana safeguarding the language. And to the rest of us? Donʻt be afraid to dance with language.

The translations for Civil Beat’s Ka Ulana Pilina project are funded in part by the Ohana of Harry Nathaniel, Levani Lipton, and Lisa Kleissner.