Bernice Judd
The first chapter in the history of Hawaiian printing becomes primarily a resumé of the linguistic efforts of the early missionaries to the Sandwich Islands. To a researcher perhaps the most remarkable feature of the story is that the missionaries began their printing activities even before they had settled on a standard alphabet and orthography for the hitherto unwritten Hawaiian language. The members of the Sandwich Islands Mission sent from Boston by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions had arrived at Kawaihae armed with zeal, press, and printer, on March 30, 1820, and in Honolulu the following April 19. To their collective mind it was absolutely essential to have printed material available as soon as possible to reinforce their efforts in disseminating the gospel among the widely scattered communities of the island group. Consequently, as the oral language had to be converted to writing before any printing could be done, intolerable delay would be inevitable if the men of God were to wait until their studies became definitive. So they set to work almost immediately and in only two years completed the complicated task of developing a preliminary written language. However, the final decisions in choice between t and k, band p, r and l, v and w were made later, only after prolonged discussion among the members of the group and their native informants. Agreement was reached in 1826, when the Hawaiian alphabet was established with twelve letters: a, e, i, o, u, h, k, l, m, n, p, w.
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