ʻŌlelo Noʻeau are Hawaiian proverbs that often offer wisdom for a person to live by. The theme for this year is Aloha - the Hawaiian term for Love. These monthly posts will show you aloha in action, in the Hawaiian context.
- Aloha = Love
- Mai = Directional, toward the speaker
- Nō = Emphatic marker; does not need to be translated, but can be as "indeed," "really," "very"
- Aku = Directional, away from the speaker
- ʻO = Marker for an Equational Sentence ("is"). Learn more about this structure here.
- Huhū = Anger, wrath
- Mea = Thing
- Ola = Life [n]; To live, be alive [v]; To save, i. e., cause to escape from future misery
- ʻOle = Not; negating the previous word (used in the middle of a sentence, as opposed to ʻAʻole used at the beginning)
- E [verb] ai = here, a verb phrase acting as an adjective describing the noun mea. E __ ai are Simple Present Tense and Future Tense markers in situations like these (i.e., when the verb is not the main verb of the sentence), and can translate as a relative clause. Meaning ka mea e ola ʻole ai can translate to "the thing that doesn't give life" (or "the thing that will not give life") or "the not-life-giving thing."
All together:
Love toward me, love away from me; Anger is the thing that doesn't save
Love to me, love to you; Anger is the thing that does not give life
Note:
Aloha (love) here is being used as the opposite of Huhū (anger).
Aloha mai! is a common greeting in modern Hawaiian, stemming from this ʻŌlelo Noʻeau!