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One could argue that Niʻihau Hawaiian is the closest we've got to early forms of the language spoken in the islands. However, the language may be dying out. One interviewee noted the more frequent use of English amongst younger Ni`hau residents and expressed worry that when young speakers use English, they'll start to think in English, possibly leading them to abandon the Hawaiian way of thinking, and perhaps the language. Niʻihau speakers don't use diacritical marks like ʻokina (glottal stop) and kahakō (macron), which have become invaluable aids for language learners. They do, however, use "t"s and "r"s in place of "k"s and "l"s (e.g. ke aloha= te aroha, Ni`ihau style) - something that isn't taught in universities and immersion schools. Hawaiian language scholar Keao NeSmith says there's a history there. He says missionaries were confused by the Hawaiian language when they arrived. They were determined to translate the Bible into Hawaiian, but they couldn't figure out when to swap the "t" for the "k" and the "l" for the "r". So they created a standardized alphabet that dropped the use of "t'"s and "r"s. NeSmith says Niʻihau speakers chose not to alter their spoken language. But the missionary system gained a stronghold in the rest of the islands through the 1800s. Many of the Hawaiian language documents developed during this period, including newspapers, would become a go-to repository for the revitalization of the ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi a century later as the number of native speakers began to decline.

UH-Manoa's Institute for Hawaiian Language Research and Translation provides access and research capacity into the extensive archive of Hawaiian language materials, making more than a century of historical documentation about Hawaiian knowledge and experience available for study. Browse through the Hawaiian Language Newspaper database to view side-by-side scans of original Hawaiian language articles, along with their English translation!

The University of Hawaii's Academy for Creative Media will provide every accredited school in Hawaii with copies of the Disney film Moana that have been dubbed in Hawaiian. This is the first Disney film to be dubbed in Hawaiian, and this version stars Auli'i Cravalho along wit local Hawaiian speakers. This dub was made in hopes of spreading the Hawaiian language, which almost went extinct.

The World in Words takes a trip to the Hawaiian Islands to meet some of Hawaii's native speakers on Ni`ihau. How have they managed to hold onto the language? What struggles do they face going forward? Is the variation of Hawaiian that Niihau speakers use different from the language spoken by the activists leading the Hawaiian revitalization movement, a.k.a. "university Hawaiian"?

Languages often adapt naturally to the world around them. Speakers create new words to communicate new concepts. But when a language isn't spoken widely enough to adapt on its own - as with Hawaiian - it may need help to move things along. The Hawaiian language has nearly 30,000 words. But up until the late 1980s, the language didn't have words for subjects like soccer, computer or recycling. So a group of linguists and language advocates formed a lexicon committee in 1987 to invent new words. The committee has created at least 7,500 new words since its inception. Many of the committee's entries have been published in a modern Hawaiian language dictionary called Māmāka Kaiao. Much of the group's work helped to make Hawaiian teachable in language immersion schools. But some are skeptical of the committee's work. One interviewee noted that there is a small group creating words that we "need" now, but it's unclear why that word was chosen or how. Even the pronunciation of new words can be confusing, she adds. Disagreements among Hawaiian speakers may seem like bad news for spreading the language. But Larry Kimura, UH-Hilo Hawaiian language professor, says it's a sign that the language is growing. He said the lexicon committee helps speed up what would have been an otherwise natural process of ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi adapting to the world around it.

This paper is about the Hawaiian language in the form of education in our islands. It analyzed how attending a Hawaiian language immersion school affects students. After interviewing students who attend Papahana Kaiapuni (a Hawaiian immersion school), they found that students were more invested in practicing traditional Hawaiian values, and influenced cultural pride among family members. Attending the school also positive community views and about both Hawaiian language and cultural revitalization efforts.

JRR Tolkien's classic, _The Hobbit_, is about to be issued in `ōlelo Hawai`i, thanks to the work of translator, Keao NeSmith. Hawaiian is one of the most endangered of the Polynesian languages. It's hoped that "Ka Hopita" will legitimize Hawaiian as an everyday language and boost the efforts of a new generation of Hawaiian speakers. "Ka Hopita," which is set to be published on March 25 (a date important to Tolkien fans because it's the day that Bilbo Baggins came home from his adventures), is the first Tolkien novel to appear in an indigenous language of the United States.

This article really perplexed me at first. We always talk about how we have to save Hawaiian, and yet, according to this article by the Honolulu Magazine, there are much more keiki speaking 'Olelo Hawaii than in the 1980's. We have made a great leap forward regarding the spread of Hawaiian language and culture, but this article delves into whether this spread is enough.

While more people do speak Hawaiian now than 30 years ago, thanks to revitalization efforts, the question is whether formal language training alone can help truly revitalize a language, especially since the native speaker population is dying out. As you know, for a language to truly live, it should not just be surviving in academic contexts, but be utilized in normal, everyday contexts. Weʻre a long way from that point--but thereʻs hope. :-) E ola mau ka `Ōlelo Hawai`i!

Sherry Broder, local attorney, speaks about the legal status of Hawaiian as an official language and the 2018 arrest warrant issued for a Maui professor who spoke Hawaiian in court and the debate over using Hawaiian Language in court. Currently the state is not legally required to provide court interpreters for people who prefer to use `Ōlelo Hawai`i but who can also speak English.

This is a super interesting article + podcast/interview about the last native speakers of Hawaiian. You learn about life and language on the Island of Niihau which is something we will never get to experience. It's 30 minutes and they discuss the tensions between second language speakers and native speakers of Hawaiian, evolution versus engineering of a language, the English influence over the Hawaiian accent, and more.

From the Zippys.com website: Did you know that Hawaiʻi is the only US state to have two official state languages - English and Hawaiian ('Ōlelo Hawaiʻi)? The month of February is designated as "Mahina 'Ōlelo Hawaiʻi" (Hawaiian language month) by the Hawaiʻi State legislature, various county councils around Hawaiʻi, and by other organizations. The purpose for the month is to celebrate and normalize the use of 'Ōlelo Hawaiʻi in everyday life, as well as to perpetuate the Hawaiian culture. Zippy's is proud to celebrate all of the cultures in Hawai'i that make our home a special place in the world. For the month of February, Zippy's is supporting Mahina 'Ōlelo Hawaiʻi Month by giving you an opportunity to learn a little bit of the language and to see what the Zippy's menu looks like in 'Ōlelo Hawaiʻi! Check out the Papa Kuhikuhi Mea`ai o ka Hale `Aina `o Zippy's in PDF form here. (Makemake `o Kumu Cowell i ka Pā Zip!)

Like the Islands themselves, ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi (the Hawaiian language) is a living, breathing part of the native culture. This reflection of the two, the symbiotic relationship between land and language, is displayed in details such as how many words and terms exist in Hawaiian for rain alone: more than 200.

Increasing demand is sparking conversations around Hawai`iʻs constitutional duty to provide access to ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi, or Hawaiian language education. It's been three years since the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court ruled that the state has a constitutional duty to provide immersion education. The case involved Chelsa-Marie Kealohalani Clarabal. She wanted an immersion education for her daughters on Lānaʻi where there was no such program. "The legal landscape at the time was there was no case law that we could cite," said Honolulu attorney Sharla Manley who represents the Clarabal ʻohana. "There were three provisions of the state constitution - one being the official languages provision, the other provision being the Hawaiian education provision and thereʻs the provision for traditional and customary practices," Manley told HPR. But no court had enforced any of these provisions when it came to ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi until the Clarabal case.

Abstract: The speech community of the Hawaiian Islands is of theoretical interest to both the sociologist and the linguist. The reasons for this are clear. In the first place, it has a linguistic repertoire which is characteristic of multilingual societies. This is a direct consequence of the influx of immigrant labor from China, Korea, the Philippines, Okinawa, Japan, and Portugal and their social and linguistic contacts with the native Hawaiians and the English-speaking colonialists. Hence, Hawaii is a veritable laboratory for sociolinguistic research. Secondly the varieties of speech range extensively and in accordance with the social demands of solidarity and status. This is particularly evident in the phenomenon of code-switching where a native speaker of Hawaiian Creole can either shift towards a dialect of English or towards a variety of immigrant speech when the social context of the situation demands it. Finally, the study of Creole languages such as the one to which this paper is directed has some very interesting implications for the "sociology of knowledge" because a Creole speaker attributes a different cognitive saliency to the lexical relations "push/pull," "bring/take," and "come/go" when he speaks Hawaiian Creole, then when he switches to standard English. These sundry concepts and their relevance to the field of sociolinguistics are the central topics of this paper.

This year, the 2024 Merrie Monarch Hula Festival is paying tribute to the 40th anniversary of the Hawaiian language revitalization movement. All the hula [dances] and songs [mele] selected for Wednesday's Hōʻike Night performances were either choreographed or composed for the Hawaiian language revitalization movement over its 40-year history. Mele provides a conduit for language proliferation and perpetuation.

"Hawaiian, it was like a flame that went out, then psshw," Kuuwehi Hiraishi makes a sound of a gas burner igniting, "it came back." She's referring to her own Hawaiian language proficiency after returning to the Islands from the Mainland, going from hardly speaking the language to using it regularly in her work.

Article, by Punahou alumna Alia Wong, profiles Kaipo`i Kelling, a Hawaiian language immersion teacher, the near-devastation of the indigenous language due to missionary contact, and the subsequent revitalization of `ōlelo Hawai`i.

House Bill 157, introduced by State Representative Diamond Garcia, proposes requiring and implementing the teaching of the Hawaiian language, ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi, for public school students grades K through 12. The proposal would appropriate $5 million to create ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi curriculum and hire teachers to implement the program. The state Department of Education said in a statement they strongly support expanding ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi in public schools. The DOE currently offers it as a language course at 32 of its 64 high schools and Hawaiian language immersion is an option at 22 of its schools statewide. DOE officials say they would need to look at their ability to teach ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi at every grade level in all schools because qualified Hawaiian language teachers are already a high-need area with recruitment challenges.

Hawaiian culture and traditions are being preserved in many different ways, most of which are showcased at the Merrie Monarch Festival every year. Hula is one of the main traditions practiced, but hula can only exist if the Hawaiian language does, as the dance is a performance of oli and mele. Before westernization, the Hawaiian people did not write down anything, but rather passed down stories through oral traditions such as oli and mele. ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi, an official state language, is required to be taught in public schools now.

This article gives a history recap, a Ni'ihau dialect lesson, and a unique perspective on the differences between how Ni'ihau natives speak versus the modern Hawaiian language we hear more commonly. I've met the interviewee in this article and she's a very well-respected and well-known kumu in Hawai'i.