Mahalo Meaning: Hawaiian Words for Your Oahu Trip

Mahalo means thanks or gratitude, and to thank. The standard Hawaiian dictionary, by Mary Kawena Pukui and Samuel Elbert, also gives it a second sense: admiration, praise, esteem and respect. So a mahalo carries a little regard along with the thanks.

To turn it up, add nui loa. The dictionary’s own example is mahalo nui loa, thank you very much. Say it the way you would say thanks anywhere: to the driver, the server, the person who holds the door. You do not need any other Hawaiian to use it, and nobody expects you to.

One sign trips up first-time visitors. You will see MAHALO stamped on trash cans and printed on receipts. It is still thank you (for using the bin, for your purchase), not the word for trash.

Pukui-Elbert defines aloha as love, affection, compassion, mercy, sympathy and kindness, and also as a greeting used for both hello and goodbye. The greeting is the part visitors hear; the first meanings are the ones residents mean.

Hawaiʻi put that idea into state law in 1986. The Aloha Spirit statute (HRS 5-7.5) says aloha “is more than a word of greeting or farewell or a salutation” and defines it through five words whose first letters spell the word itself:

• Akahai: kindness, expressed with tenderness.
• Lōkahi: unity, expressed with harmony.
• ʻOluʻolu: agreeable, expressed with pleasantness.
• Haʻahaʻa: humility, expressed with modesty.
• Ahonui: patience, expressed with perseverance.

The law does not order anyone to be nice. It says state officials may consider the Aloha Spirit in their work. Pukui-Elbert adds that the time-of-day greetings, aloha kakahiaka (good morning) and aloha ahiahi (good evening), arrived after contact with Europeans.

The goodbye you will hear most after aloha is a hui hou. Pukui-Elbert lists “a hui hou aku” as goodbye, till we meet again, built from hui (to meet) and hou (again). Add kākou, “we” meaning three or more people including the listener, and a hui hou kākou becomes until we all meet again.

Hawaiian is written with 13 letters, according to the Hawaiʻi Tourism Authority: five vowels (a, e, i, o, u), seven consonants (h, k, l, m, n, p, w) and the ʻokina. Every word you read on Oʻahu is built from that set, which is why the state fish, the humuhumunukunukuāpuaʻa, looks the way it does. It became the state fish in 1985, lost the title when that law expired in 1990, and got it back for good in 2006.

The ʻokina is a glottal stop, the catch between the two halves of “uh-oh,” and it counts as a consonant (University of Hawaiʻi). It is written as an open single quote: ʻ. The kahakō is the line over a vowel, as in Kalākaua Avenue in the photo at the top of this page. It lengthens and stresses the vowel, and it can change the word. UH’s own example: depending on its marks, “pau” can mean completed, smudge, moist or skirt.

The marks are not decoration. Hawaiʻi with the ʻokina is the Hawaiian spelling of the islands’ name. The state’s legal name, set by the 1959 Admission Act, is written “Hawaii”, and changing the federal spelling would take an act of Congress (Hawaiʻi Board on Geographic Names). State law has allowed the ʻokina and kahakō in government documents since 1992, and since 2023 it has required state and county letterhead to spell Hawaiian words consistently (HRS 1-13.5).

Written Hawaiian is younger than the language. The first Hawaiian spelling book, the Pīʻāpā, was printed in 1822, and pīʻāpā is still the Hawaiian word for alphabet. This site writes Oahu and Waikiki without marks in titles, the way most visitors search for them; in the text of this guide we use the Hawaiian spellings.

Most names on the map are Hawaiian descriptions. These meanings come from Place Names of Hawaiʻi (Pukui, Elbert and Mookini), the standard reference.

These turn up on signs, menus and in directions. Meanings are from Pukui-Elbert.

• Eat the vocabulary: ʻono and pūpū are easiest to learn at the table. Our self-guided Oʻahu food tour and best poke on Oʻahu cover where.

In 1896 the Republic of Hawaii made English “the medium and basis of instruction” in all public and private schools (Act 57). The state Department of Education says the law essentially banned Hawaiian from the public school system, and by 1900 there were no Hawaiian language schools left. The rule stood for 90 years, until the Legislature lifted it in 1986 (ʻAha Pūnana Leo).

The revival started with preschools. Hawaiian language educators founded ʻAha Pūnana Leo in 1983 and opened the first Pūnana Leo, “nest of voices,” in Kekaha, Kauaʻi, in 1984. In 1987 the Department of Education opened its first Kaiapuni (Hawaiian immersion) classes at two elementary schools, and about 3,700 students were enrolled in Kaiapuni by the 2023-24 school year. Since 1978 the state constitution has named English and Hawaiian as Hawaiʻi’s two official languages.

For the history behind the words, plan a few hours at Bishop Museum’s Hawaiian Hall, and see our things to do on Oʻahu guide for the rest of the island’s cultural sites.

The English-based talk you hear between many locals is not Hawaiian. It is Pidgin, which linguists call Hawaiʻi Creole: a full language that grew out of the sugar plantations in the late 1800s and early 1900s, when workers from China, Portugal, Japan, the Philippines, Korea and elsewhere worked alongside Hawaiians (University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa). Its words come mostly from English, but Hawaiian shaped a lot of its grammar.

Pidgin showed up as its own language in the Census Bureau’s 2015 survey tables, which listed 350 languages spoken at home. Headlines called that official recognition. It was not: the Census lists languages, it does not make them official.

A few Pidgin words, with meanings from UH Mānoa’s Pidgin pages:

Since 2024 the shaka, thumb and little finger out with the three middle fingers curled, has been Hawaiʻi’s official state gesture. The law ties it to sharing aloha, and notes that several origin stories exist, all of them placing its start in Hawaiʻi.

• Use mahalo and aloha freely. They are everyday words, not phrases reserved for locals.
• Try the place names. Say every vowel in Kalanianaʻole Highway and Waimānalo; a near miss lands better than a mangled shortcut.
• Keep kamaʻāina for residents. It means born here, so it is not a word to claim on a week’s visit.
• Listen to Pidgin, do not perform it. It is how people talk to each other, not a souvenir accent.
• Read the marks. The ʻokina and kahakō change meanings; Pukui-Elbert is free to search on Wehewehe. Getting around between the places you can now pronounce is in our Getting Around Oahu guide.