7 facts to know about the Hawaiian Language in the 21st Century

One of the world's unique dialects has suffered to rise from adversities during the early 20th century. Today, many revitalization efforts have brought the language back to life, but it continues to face obstacles in an ever modern society.

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The official flag of Hawaiʻi

If students spoke the Hawaiian language in schools during the early 20th century, teachers would punish them, even if Hawaiian was there native tongue. This is one of many reasons that ultimately led to the decline of Hawaiian speakers at the time. However, as time aged and society culturally progressed and became more inclusive, the Hawaiian language slowly made a remarkable comeback, all thanks to initiatives such as the "Aha Pūnana Leo" immersion school system, for example. The Hawaiian language has made tremendous progress more than ever, but this unique dialect still faces obstacles today. So, here are seven of the advances and challenges of the Hawaiian language in modern society:

1. The number of native speakers alive is dwindling

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The number of living native speakers has now dwindled to less than 1,000 (by some estimates less than 500), many of whom are elderly people living in remote rural areas of the state. The only continuing native speaking community consists of a couple of hundred people who live on the small private island of Niʻihau, which lacks regular electrical or phone connections to the rest of the state. The immersion schools thus suffer from isolation from any native speaking community, and, due to the geographical disperson of the schools over several islands, they also lack sufficient contact with each other. And since the immersion schools are relatively small, most have been placed in the midst of larger English-medium school sites, thus making immersion education even more difficult.

2. There is a lack of immersion school resources

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The immersion program is hampered by a lack of textbooks and other pedagogical materials in Hawaiian. At Ānuenue School on Oʻahu, parents and community volunteers are invited in for "cut and paste" sessions, where Hawaiian translations of American textbook pages are cut and pasted on to the original textbooks. This is of course an unsatisfactory solution, due not only to the immense time and effort involved. "The main problem is that this imposes a perspective from outside the islands," says Laiana Wong, a Hawaiian language instructor and a member of the Hawaiian language lexicon committee. "We need to develop original materials in Hawaiian that can reflect our own culture, perspective, and reality." Developing such materials, and other aspects of the immersion program, also involves a huge update of the Hawaiian lexicon, which had badly stagnated due to 100 years of linguistic repression.

3. The Hawaiian language is going digitally advanced

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Like other indigenous peoples, the Hawaiian people are seizing new technologies to help overcome its challenges. For years, video has been an important educational and linguistic tool, capturing and preserving the voices of Hawaiian native speakers.

More recently, developing computer programs in Hawaiian has been a major focus of Hale Kuamoʻo, a center for Hawaiian-medium education and culture at the University of Hawaiʻi, Hilo. The center's philosophy has been not only to develop computer content in Hawaiian, but also to make necessary changes in menus, commands, and alerts in order to provide a total immersion computing experience in Hawaiian.

To put this in practice required changes in all the immersion schools' Apple Macintosh computers' operating systems in order to allow the menus and commands to handle Hawaiian diacritical marks. Incorporation of diacritical marks is crucial, since they define meaning in Hawaiian. A short-term solution for modifying fonts was found using ResEdit. For a more permanent solution, Hale Kuamoʻo has entered into an agreement with Apple, Inc. that will allow the Hale Kuamoʻo staff to completely translate the Macintosh operating system into Hawaiian. This translated version of the Mac OS will be freely available to the Hawaiian language immersion program, as well as any public or private educational institution that deals with Hawaiian language education. It will also be included on future versions of the system software CDs distributed with the Macintosh computers. This will be the first time that the Mac OS will be available in an indigenous American or Polynesian language.

This process has also involved coining new Hawaiian words for various computer operations. Keeping with the philosophy of the immersion program, to the extent possible words have been chosen which reflect Hawaiian traditions and culture rather than simply being transliterations of English. The word for upload,

hoʻouka, is the same word used for loading gear into a canoe, for example. In some cases, though, terms chosen by the lexical committee face competition from popular transliterations. For example, a term for computer, lolo uila ("electric brain"), coexists with the English transliteration kamepiula; one reason for this may be that the brain is associated with spirituality in Hawaiian tradition while thinking is centered in the stomach.

4. Hawaiian is an inspiration for the revival of other indigenous languages

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The revival of the Hawaiian language is now being used as a model for how other indigenous languages can be revitalized.

Advocates of endangered languages gathered at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa last year for the fifth International Conference on Language Documentation and Conservation. The conference included a field study of Hawaiian medium language schools — public schools where the curriculum is taught entirely in Hawaiian — in Hilo, Hawaii, to see what lessons can be applied to saving other languages. Advocates came from Okinawa, Japan; Singapore; Australia; New Zealand; Canada; and several states, according to the University of Hawaii.

“The Pūnana Leo preschools continue until today based on the simple rule: If you speak only in Hawaiian to the children, they will begin to speak it back to you,” said Larry Kimura, associate professor of Hawaiian language and Hawaiian studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo.

According to Kimura, it takes three generations of native speakers to reestablish a language; Hawaiʻi is now seeing its third generation of new Hawaiian native speakers — defined as children who are raised with Hawaiian at home until they are 3 or 4, he said.

After graduating 17 classes of students from K-12 Hawaiian medium schools, enrollment continues to rise, with some of those graduates now sending their own children, according to Kimura. Advocates now want to take the next step and expand Hawaiian medium education to the university level.

The education system goes beyond just language immersion, Kimura said, and also incorporates Hawaiian educational philosophy.

5. The Hawaiian language is available on airlines

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Passengers flying Hawaiian Airlines will soon get a complimentary language lesson as the company amplifies efforts to preserve traditional Hawaiian by incorporating it into everyday business. Cabin announcements and crew instructions were given in English and Hawaiian on a flight in April, marking the first time the language was utilized on a flight headed to the mainland. The mission is for flight attendants to provide a one-of-a-kind cultural experience by engaging with guests in both ʻōlelo Hawai’i and English as preservation of the Hawaiian language continues to be a hot issue on the islands.

6. Hawaiian interpreters are available in local courts

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The state Judiciary will provide interpreters to those seeking to speaking Hawaiian in court to the extent reasonably possible. The policy change was announced after a judge rescinded a bench warrant for a University of Hawaii professor who spoke Hawaiian in court. The incident sparked outrage among Native Hawaiian activists, and raised questions about how Hawaiian — an official state language — can be used in courtrooms.

The Hawaii State Judiciary states, "there is no legal requirement to provide Hawaiian language interpreters to court participants who speak English but prefer to speak in Hawaiian. In those cases, judges have the discretion to grant, or deny, a request for an interpreter."

7. Hawaiian continues to gain traction today

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Fighting for the use of Hawaiian in public spaces continues to be a long drawn out fight.

Many speakers look to foreign countries for examples of how more than one official language can thrive.

Canada’s website is translated into both English and French. Hong Kong public transit announcements are made in both English and Cantonese. In New Zealand, court opening and closing announcements are made in both English and Maori. In Finland, only about 5 percent of the population speak Swedish but you can use either Swedish or Finnish for official state business.

In Puerto Rico, Spanish is taught in schools and English is taken by all students as a second language. Local court proceedings are generally conducted in Spanish and federal courts in English. On a smaller scale on Guam, where most people speak English, the island’s airport includes signs and announcements in both English and Chamorro.

There are also measures in both chambers to add Hawaiian language to traffic signs and to translate the constitution into Hawaiian. It’s unclear how much that would cost, but another measure to translate the constitution and other parts of the Judiciary’s website that failed last year sought to appropriate $25,000.

Governor Ige is also behind a measure that would create a preference for people with basic Hawaiian language proficiency in state jobs related to public information.

“If there are two people that are equally qualified if one was a Hawaiian language speaker they would have a slight advantage,” Ige says. “That way folks are encouraged to learn the language as not just this novelty or badge of pride, it’s actually functional.”

The Hawaiian language is indeed a unique dialect, and it was unfortunate that I never had the opportunity to learn it growing up myself. Although English and Spanish were the only two languages I've ever known fluently, it would have been useful to understand the Hawaiian language, something that truly runs through my blood and veins. Nevertheless, I can envision the vast amount of opportunities the language has ahead shortly, and I hope others take advantage of the language before it's too late.