Hawaiian Language
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
40 free Hawaiian Language trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Hawaiian is one of the two official languages of the state of Hawaii, and one of the most recognisable languages on Earth: long strings of open syllables, very few distinct sounds, and place names that turn out to be small descriptions of the landscape. It was also pushed close to silence within a few generations, and its return is one of the best-known language revival stories anywhere. This quiz covers both sides. There are questions on how the writing system works and where it came from, on everyday words visitors meet on signs and menus, on the meanings hidden in famous place names, and on the words English has borrowed. Others follow the history: first contact with Europeans, the mission presses, the schoolroom ban and the immersion schools that reversed it. It suits learners checking the basics, travellers planning a trip to the islands, and anyone who enjoys word origins. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you will pick up something new even on the ones you miss.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Hawaiian word for 'quick' did Ward Cunningham borrow in 1995 to name his user-editable website?
Wiki
Wiki came to Ward Cunningham from the Wiki Wiki Shuttle, a bus that runs between terminals at Honolulu's airport. He preferred it to calling his invention 'quick-web'.
Q 02Which small instrument, based on Portuguese immigrants' guitars, has a Hawaiian name meaning 'jumping flea'?
Ukulele
Ukulele roughly translates as 'jumping flea', perhaps for the way a player's fingers leap across the strings. It grew out of the machete and other small Portuguese guitars in the 1880s.
Q 03Hawaii's state fish, the humuhumunukunukuāpuaʻa, has a Hawaiian name describing a snout like which animal's?
A pig
A pig is the animal in the name, which means 'triggerfish with a snout like a pig'. The reef triggerfish even grunts like one when someone holds it.
Q 04Mele Kalikimaka, the title of a 1950 Bing Crosby recording, is the Hawaiian way of saying which English phrase?
Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas becomes Mele Kalikimaka because Hawaiian has no R or S sound and never lets two consonants sit side by side. L and K stand in, and extra syllables fill the gaps.
Q 05How many letters are in the modern Hawaiian alphabet, which American missionaries trimmed down in 1826?
13
13 letters are all that written Hawaiian needs, and one of them stands for the glottal stop. The first printed version of 1822 had more, including B, D, R and V.
Q 06On which small island off the southwest coast of Kauaʻi is Hawaiian still the language of daily life?
Niʻihau
Niʻihau is the only place in the world where Hawaiian is the first language and English a foreign one. Its people keep their own dialect, which rarely adopts the new words coined by a university committee.
Q 07Which Hawaiian word for family, relatives by blood or by choice, did Disney's Lilo & Stitch popularise in 2002?
ʻOhana
ʻOhana covers relatives by blood, adoption or choice. In Hawaii property listings an 'ʻohana unit' is a second dwelling on the same lot, built to house a relative.
Q 08Which fish, also sold as dorado or dolphinfish, is best known by a Hawaiian name meaning 'very strong'?
Mahi-mahi
Mahi-mahi doubles the word mahi, 'strong', a trick Hawaiian uses to intensify a meaning. The fish is unrelated to dolphins, though 'dolphin' was once its traditional English name.
Q 09Geologists around the world use the Hawaiian words ʻaʻā and pāhoehoe to describe two types of what?
Lava
Lava with a rough, rubbly crust is ʻaʻā, while pāhoehoe is smooth and ropy. Geologist Clarence Dutton introduced both Hawaiian words as technical terms.
Q 10Which British explorer's crew first wrote down the island name Hawaii in 1778, spelling it 'Owhyhee'?
James Cook
James Cook and his crew heard ʻO Hawaiʻi, a phrase meaning 'this is Hawaiʻi', and wrote the opening O as part of the name. They made the same slip with Tahiti, recording it as Otaheite.
Q 11Which raw fish dish takes its name from a Hawaiian verb meaning to slice or cut crosswise into pieces?
Poke
Poke means 'to slice' or 'cut crosswise into pieces', which is how the raw fish is prepared before it is tossed in sauce. In Hawaii a 'poke bowl' simply means the fish served over cooked rice.
Q 12Which Disney film was re-recorded in Hawaiian in 2018, with Auliʻi Cravalho returning to voice its heroine?
Moana
Moana premiered in Hawaiian on June 10, 2018, and copies were later given free to schools across the state. Nicole Scherzinger also returned to voice the heroine's mother, Sina.
Q 13The internet company Akamai, which began as a 1998 MIT contest entry, is named after the Hawaiian word for what?
Clever
Q 21Mauna Kea, the highest point in the Hawaiian Islands, has a name that is usually translated as what?
White mountain
White mountain refers to the snow that caps the summit in season. In Hawaiian tradition the peak is also Mauna a Wākea, the mountain of the sky father Wākea.
Q 22Which Honolulu beach district has a Hawaiian name that means 'spouting fresh water'?
Waikīkī
Waikīkī means 'spouting fresh water', probably after the springs and streams that fed wetlands behind the shore. In the 1800s it was a retreat for Hawaiian royalty, who surfed there on early longboards.
Q 23The name of Honolulu, the capital of the state of Hawaii, is usually translated from Hawaiian as what?
Sheltered harbor
Clever, or more loosely 'cool', is what akamai means in Hawaiian. Co-founder Daniel Lewin looked the word up after a colleague suggested it.
Q 14The Hawaiian feast called a lūʻau is named after the young leaves of which plant, stewed in coconut milk?
Taro
Taro leaves, called lūʻau, go into a stew with octopus or chicken, and the dish lent its name to the whole party. Older Hawaiian words for a feast are pāʻina and ʻahaʻaina.
Q 15Which of these languages is a close relative of Hawaiian within the Polynesian family?
Māori
Māori is close enough that a Hawaiian band touring New Zealand in 1911 was reported to converse easily with its speakers. The Māori word roa, 'long', is simply loa in Hawaiian.
Q 16What is the everyday local name for Hawaiʻi Creole English, which more residents speak than Hawaiian itself?
Pidgin
Pidgin took shape on 19th-century sugarcane plantations, where Native Hawaiians and immigrant workers needed a shared tongue. Despite the name, linguists class it as a full creole language.
Q 17What is the Hawaiian name for the apostrophe-like letter that marks a glottal stop in words such as Hawaiʻi?
ʻOkina
ʻOkina combines ʻoki, 'cut', with an ending like the English '-ing'. An older name for it was ʻuʻina, 'snap', and early missionary printers sometimes wrote it as a plain apostrophe.
Q 18People in Hawaii often give directions with the Hawaiian word 'makai', which points toward what?
The sea
The sea is where makai points, because kai is the Hawaiian word for it. Its opposite is mauka, and locals drop both words into everyday English.
Q 19Kamaʻāina, the Hawaiian word for a local resident who qualifies for discounts, literally means what?
Child of the land
Child of the land is the literal sense of kamaʻāina, and the word applies whatever a person's ancestry. Shops and hotels offer a 'kamaʻāina rate' to anyone with a local ID.
Q 20Which volcano on the island of Maui has a Hawaiian name that means 'house of the sun'?
Haleakalā
Haleakalā means 'house of the sun'. In Hawaiian legend the demigod Māui's grandmother lived in its crater and helped him capture the sun, forcing it to cross the sky more slowly.
Sheltered harbor, or 'calm port', is the usual translation. The same roots turn up across the Pacific: Whangaruru, near the tip of New Zealand's North Island, is a matching name.
Q 24Which Hawaiian word, seen on 'keep out' signs, is a cousin of the Polynesian word that gave English 'taboo'?
Kapu
Kapu rules once barred Hawaiian men and women from eating together. King Kamehameha II ended the system in 1819 by sitting down to a meal with women.
Q 25Which Hawaiian word means thanks or gratitude, as well as admiration, praise and respect?
Mahalo
Mahalo may be a newer way of saying thanks than it looks. An 1865 Hawaiian wordbook lists the word but gives no Hawaiian term for gratitude, and early visitors reported that there was none.
Q 26Which song did the future Queen Liliʻuokalani of Hawaii write around 1878 after a horseback trip on Oʻahu?
Aloha ʻOe
Aloha ʻOe, 'farewell to thee', was inspired by a parting embrace she saw at a ranch, and her companions hummed the tune on the ride back to Honolulu. It became her most famous song.
Q 27Which Hawaiian word for a person who is not Native Hawaiian is now applied mainly to white people?
Haole
Haole technically means anyone foreign rather than local. A popular fable breaks the word into parts meaning 'without breath'.
Q 28The loose, brightly patterned Hawaiian dress called the muʻumuʻu has a name that means what in Hawaiian?
Cut off
Cut off describes the original garment, which lacked the high yoke and long sleeves of the formal holokū. It began as a plain cotton undergarment that doubled as a housedress and swimsuit.
Q 29Which Hawaiian word for a woman has also become surfing slang for a female surfer?
Wahine
Wahine means a woman or a wife in Hawaiian, and at the card table it is also the word for the queen. It descends from an ancient Polynesian root, fafine.
Q 30What does the name of the Pūnana Leo preschools, opened on Kauaʻi in 1984 to revive Hawaiian, mean in English?
Language nest
Language nest is the usual translation, though the two words literally say 'voice nest'. The first school opened illegally, because teaching through Hawaiian was still restricted by law.