Hawaiian translator

Yes. Ecrivus is a Hawaiian translation agency: we translate into and out of Hawaiian with a specialist who knows the language and its cultural context. The work usually involves genealogical, cultural and personal documents. Because of the small speaker base, we assemble the team per project in consultation.

The UK has no sworn-translator institute, so there is no "sworn translator" as a legal office here, and certified Hawaiian translation is rarely requested. Where official acceptance is needed, we provide certified translation — a signed and dated statement of accuracy — and arrange it on request and in consultation, depending on the receiving authority. This can be escalated to notarisation by a solicitor or notary public, or to an apostille or legalisation through the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). If you are unsure whether certification is needed, we assess that with you in advance.

The ʻokina (glottal stop, ʻ) and the kahakō (macron for long vowels) are meaning-bearing. Dropping them changes the meaning of words — kou as against kōu, for instance. We carry these marks across into the target text precisely, so the text reads correctly.

The most common are genealogical documents, mele and oli, historical texts such as nineteenth-century newspapers, and personal certificates for families with Hawaiian roots. We confirm the approach and the lead time per document type in the quote.

On working days you receive a quote within 1 hour. The lead time for the translation itself depends on document type, volume and whether the source text uses historical spelling, and is confirmed in the quote rather than promised as a fixed turnaround.

For a small, revitalising language like Hawaiian, suitable translators are scarce and mostly trained through academic or immersion institutions. A Hawaiian translation agency takes the search and the coordination off your hands: we select a fitting specialist, arrange review and, where a receiving authority requires it, certification on request, and give you one point of contact for terminology, scheduling and delivery. A skilled freelance translator does excellent work too; what an agency adds is bringing those moving parts together so you are not managing them separately.