Building a Classical Dictionary in Hawaiian

In this talk, we will describe the recent creation of a digital Hawaiian-English classics-themed dictionary and how the dictionary can be used to study the reception of classical culture in 19th century Hawaiʻi. We will start by providing some examples of classical reception in 19th century Hawaiʻi--e.g. the Punahou School curriculum and the use of the Prima Porta Augustus as the primary model for the Kamehameha statue in Downtown Honolulu--and the cultural and political forces that contributed to their creation.

We will then turn to the rationale behind the creation of a Hawaiian-English classics-themed dictionary. The dictionary responds to a lack of specialized tools for the study of classics in Hawaiʻi, which reflects a parallel lack of such tools in non-European and American contexts. The dictionary is also valuable because it will allow scholars to access Hawaiian-language resources for the study of Hawaiian history that have only recently become available. We will describe how the dictionary was built and organized, and how it can be used by scholars to search digital repositories of the many Hawaiian-language newspapers published in the 19th and early-20th centuries (see Mookini 1974). We will close with examples of the kinds of classics-related materials found in these newspapers, along with some broader observations about the value of the project in light of current trends in the field of classics.

The dictionary is the first of its kind and will lay the foundations for the study of classical reception in Hawaiʻi. Most comparable is the Rev. E.W. Clark’s 1872 Hawaiian-English dictionary of biblical terms, the Buke Wehiwehi Huaolelo Baibala, whose entries contain some overlaps with the classics-themed dictionary but which are typically biblical in focus and cannot be used to search digitized Hawaiian-language sources.

Indeed, until recently, most historians of Hawaiʻi have been unable to access sources written in Hawaiian (e.g. Kuykendall’s multi-volume history of the Hawaiian Monarchy). Happily, due to the digitization projects of nupepa.org and the Papakilo database, a sizable number of Hawaiian-language newspapers have been digitized and made available online. These newspapers are remarkable not least because they reflect the views and interests of both the New England missionaries and Native Hawaiians themselves (Silva 2004). Thus their presentations of classical culture reflect larger debates about education, religion, and morality.

For example, there is a strong desire to publish classical content counterbalanced by anxiety over introducing pagan content into a newly-Christianized Hawaiʻi. We see this in the apologetic letter to readers in Ka Nupepa Ka Lahui Hawaii defending the serial publication of Charles Lamb’s rendition of the Odyssey translated into Hawaiian (Mar. 11, 1875) and in the description of Zeus as less powerful--and therefore less threatening--than even the traditional Hawaiian gods (Ka Nupepa Kuokoa, Oct. 13, 1866). Thus, these newspapers, with their varying drives, allow us to interpret their classical material as part of the broader history of Hawaiʻi during the transformative 19th century.