Perhaps the Sandwich Island’s Mission owes an apology to the literary world for having reduced to writing a language of such variety and extent as the Hawaiian, and published so many books on it, without having given any account either of the genius, structure or peculiarities of the language. Many reasons, however, exist why so little has been done in this respect. The want of leisure in any member of the Mission for setting down to labors purely literary, is one reason. The want of proper materials heretofore, for authority, is another. But the reason that has had the greatest influence is, the (act that those who came first on the ground and acquired the language by the ear and by mixing with the natives, soon became independent of helps and needed neither a vocabulary or a grammar of the language: and those who came later, and most needed such helps, felt that they were not well qualified for the task of making them. But however the majority of the Mission may feel with regard to an apology in their behalf, the compiler of the following Vocabulary feels that an explanation is due from him respecting the manner in which the work...

Ke anahonua. Oia ka mea e ike ai. Ke kumu o ke ana aina a me ka holo moku he mea ia e pono ai ke kulanui lahainaluna.

Ka mea e maa’I ke ana ma ka hana. He wahi hoakaka. O ke anahonua ka mea e ike ai i ke ano o na mea i hoopalahalahaia, oia na kaha, a me na ili, a me na paa. Hoike mai no ke anahonua I ke ano o ia mau mea pakahi, a me ko lakou ano, ke huiia....