What is Josephine in Hawaiian?
Josephine is Iokepine in Hawaiian, said ee-oh-keh-PEE-neh. This is a recorded form rather than an invented one: it is how the name was written in Hawaiian-language newspapers, church records, and family Bibles from the 1800s onward.
How Josephine became Iokepine
When the first Hawaiian alphabet was printed in 1826 it was fixed at thirteen letters, the five vowels and h, k, l, m, n, p, w, plus the ʻokina. Every foreign name had to be written with those letters and no others, so Hawaiians wrote what they heard, swapping each missing sound for the nearest one the language had.
In Josephine J became I, S became K, and a vowel was slipped between the consonants that ran together. Hawaiian does not run two consonants together, and every syllable ends on a vowel.
How to say Iokepine
Say it ee-oh-keh-PEE-neh. Hawaiian vowels never change value: a is “ah”, e is “eh”, i is “ee”, o is “oh”, u is “oo”. Every vowel is sounded, so there are as many syllables as there are vowels or vowel pairs. The pronunciation guide covers the whole system.