Talk:Hawaiian language/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

No Hawaiian Wiki Link.

http://to.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peesi_tali_fiefia The Hawaiian Wiki is not listed in the languages side bar on Wikipedia. It would be really helpful if it was. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.19.236.142 (talk) 03:22, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Language politics

Hawaii talk page archives

POLITICS BEHIND LANGUAGE POLICIES

1. I just visited your Hawaii Talk Page and reviewed your archived stuff --- 1, 2, 3, 4 --- ALL of it. Wow! So much tension! But I understand it. People care about what's being done here, and they want to put in their two cents, as do I.

2. Regarding a purported movement away from "Hawaii" and toward "Hawai`i", and toward use of Hawaiian spellings (with macrons and glottal stop symbols), I believe that those who see such a movement are themselves proponents of such a movement, and they are viewing the world through movement-colored glasses. Hawaii's population is over one million, but only one thousand or so are native speakers of Hawaiian, only about 0.1%. The percentage of part-racial Hawaiians is much higher, but is not close to being a majority. It's fact that some state government organizations and officials have endorsed the promotion of Hawaiian language, through various means, and it's a somewhat popular cause. However, politicians are doing it largely out of self defense. It would be political suicide to appear to be anti-Hawaiian, or un-Hawaiian, due to the loud and publicly made complaints that would be made by Hawaiian activists. Politicians want to get the Hawaiian vote, just as they want to get every other vote. Many businesses, also, want to project a Hawaiian image, even when their business has no necessary relation to "Hawaiian-ness". Every given place on Earth is subject to the effects of LOCAL PRIDE, but in Hawaii it's nearly an obsession for many people, no doubt exacerbated by living on rather small geographically isolated islands. Here, being "local" means being "Hawaiian", by race, by residence, by name, by pronunciation, by spelling, or by something. In spite of --- (a) Hawaiian being an "official" language; (b) any government office using "Hawai`i" in their seal; (c) a newspaper using Hawaiian spellings; (d) some newscasters using Hawaiian pronunciations; (e) the existence of some immersion schools; or (f) Governor Lingle using a "v" when she says "Havai`i" --- the vast VAST majority of Hawaii residents will not become fluent in Hawaiian. If you got a random sample of 10,000 Hawaii residents (1% of our population), gave them a pen and blank piece of paper, and let them freely write "the H-word" on their paper, without trying to influence their action, most people would write "Hawaii", NOT "Hawai`i".

3. Regarding the use of the words "`okina" and "kahakoo", as if they need to be, or should be, used, that is a choice which will lead to lots and lots of unnecessary confusion for readers. "`Okina" is nothing more than a Hawaiian word for a symbol to represent a glottal stop. Various symbols have been used for this purpose in written Hawaiian. None of them are actually Hawaiian by origin. All of them were described with English words before ever being called an "`okina". The "apostrophe", "single quote", "back tick", "U+02BB" --- all of these have served as the "`okina". But it is not at all necessary to use the Hawaiian name "`okina" for this letter, any more than it would be necessary to use the Hawaiian name "muu" for the letter "M". Likewise, "kahakoo" is nothing more than a Hawaiian word for "macron". In fact, it was generally called "mekona" (Hawaiianization of the word "macron") before "kahakoo" became more used. There is no need at all, in English writing, to use the names "`okina" and "kahakoo" instead of "glottal stop" and "macron". Many readers of English do not know the terms "macron" and "glottal stop". But you can bet your buns that far FAR fewer readers of English will know the terms "kahakoo" and "`okina".

Agent X 09:13, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Reasons for decline of Hawaiian language

I'm a haole living in Hawaii (near Keola's place of employment) and was a little surprised to see that the article, along with mentioning people voluntarily teaching their kids English instead of Hawaiian, doesn't make any mention whatsoever of any official discouragement of the use of Hawaiian, particularly the law prohibiting use of Hawaiian as the primary language in schools from 1896 to 1987. While official discouragement may very well not have been a primary factor in the decline of the language (it has been pointed out elsewhere that by the time of the 1893 overthrow, there were only 28 schools statewide using it as a primary language), it seems disingenuous to entirely omit mention of this.

Dan 22:39, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Good point. Can you do the edits? I'm swamped. Zora 09:43, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

NO SUCH THING AS "OFFICIAL DISCOURAGEMENT" OF HAWAIIAN LANGUAGE

1. Hey Dan and Zora, check this out: http://www.angelfire.com/hi2/hawaiiansovereignty/hawlangillegal.html

Dr. Kenneth Conklin, a prolific writer, has a webpage that focuses on "Hawaiian Sovereignty" and other Hawaiian-related matters, including Hawaiian language. Conklin skillfully debunks the preposterous lie that Hawaiian language was made "illegal" from 1896 to 1987. Don't worry if you have been DUPED into believing that lie. You weren't the first and you won't be the last. This sort of thing happens all the time, 365.25 days per year.

2. As Conklin points out, there was an 1896 law which guaranteed that children in Hawaii would have equal access to an English-medium education. It accomplished that by requiring the use of English as the main language of instruction in government-certified schools. English-medium education was the most popular and most desired educational mode of the time, not only for racially Caucasian kids, but for racially Hawaiian kids as well. Witness the fact that in 1885, eleven years BEFORE the 1896 law, the prospectus of the Kamehameha Schools announced that instruction will be given IN ENGLISH (not Hawaiian).

3. The 1896 law specifically PROVIDED for the teaching of languages other than English in the English-medium government-certified schools, and specifically PROVIDED for such teaching to be specifically approved under the relevant law. Thus, it was 100% LEGAL to have the teaching of Hawaiian (or any other language) specifically approved under the 1896 law.

4. The 1896 law DOES NOT say anything like "Teaching in Hawaiian is hereby outlawed" or "hereby made illegal" or "hereby officially discouraged". That law does not even mention Hawaiian language at all.

5. One might complain that the 1896 law, while allowing Hawaiian as a SECONDARY avenue for education, "prevented" Hawaiian-medium instruction as the PRIMARY avenue. This complaint is totally false, because residents of turn-of-the-century Hawaii were free to set up and run non-government schools which could use any desired language, including Hawaiian, as the PRIMARY medium of instruction. Racially Japanese residents of Hawaii in fact did just that. They established Japanese-language schools for their kids. Many Japanese kids attended BOTH a government-based English-medium school, AND a community-based Japanese-medium school. Those kids were certainly immersed in bi-lingual educational opportunities and activities. Any residents of Hawaii, whether racially Hawaiian or otherwise, could have chosen to set up a non-government (community-based) Hawaiian-medium school for their kids. They wouldn't even have to make it a formal thing, if they wanted it to be casual and free. Or, they could make it as formal as they like, and charge tuition as they like. The example of the Kamehameha Schools is again important. They were totally free to choose Hawaiian, but their free choice was English.

6. Another important point highlighted by Conklin is the fact that, around 1925, the U.S. federal courts ruled that schools can use ANY LANGUAGE OF THEIR CHOICE as the PRIMARY MEDIUM OF INSTRUCTION. There was a Hawaii case that was decided in favor of this freedom. It started in the district court, went to the 9th circuit court, and went to the supreme court. At all three court levels, the courts ruled in favor of language freedom. So the claim that Hawaiian language was "officially discouraged" from 1896 to 1987 can be described, perhaps, as "disingenuous".

7. Dan expressed surprise at the fact that most native speakers of Hawaiian eventually made the free choice to NOT pass on the Hawaiian language to their own children, with the deliberate hope that withholding Hawaiian would boost their children's abilities in English. Well, the truth can be surprising to some people, but that's no reason to hide the truth. I personally interviewed a woman whose parents were native speakers of Hawaiian and friends of Queen Liliuokalani. She told me that her parents spoke Hawaiian to each other, but never to her. There's nothing detrimental about being bi-lingual, so the withholding of Hawaiian language by native-speaking parents was not justified. Their intentions were good (to help their kids), but their appraisal of bi-lingualism (or mono-lingual Hawaiian ability) was bad.

8. A FINAL POINT --- Living, natural, human languages do NOT originate in schools, and they are NOT perpetuated by schools. Living languages are perpetuated by being transferred from parent to child. The transfer process essentially takes place in the home during the first four or five years of the child's life. The child's brain automatically and subconsciously analyzes and acquires the vast majority of the subconscious language skills and subconscious language knowledge from the speech behavior and speech content of the parents. So, by the time children are old enough to attend grade one in primary school, they already "have" their native language. A school CANNOT take away a child's native language or replace it with another. A school CAN help a child to acquire an additional (second) language, but it cannot subtract, delete, nor erase any native-language abilities. Thus, there is no way that a law requiring English-medium education could cause the decline of the Hawaiian language. Also, there is no way that Hawaiian-medium education, per se, could create native speakers of Hawaiian. Granted, some children might develop excellent abilities in Hawaiian language, but true native-speaker ability requires native-speaker parents from birth through age five.

Agent X 21:58, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Someone who writes diatribes on a free website isn't "prolific". You obviously don't know his true background and most importantly intent. Mamoahina 21:04, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

AMENDMENT TO (8):

Hey! From reading these pages, I gather that language is a very political topic in Hawai'i. I'd like to note, however, that from a logical and linguistic point of view, "A FINAL POINT" is not true. Imagine you lived outdoors all your life; could you learn a native language? Of course! So, in a physical sense, there's nothing crucial about the language of your "home" over the language of your "school" or whatever. Also, consider children raised without parents; can THEY acquire a native language? Yes! So, the native language your parents speak is not a necessary condition on the native language your speak. In fact, to argue otherwise is circular and ridiculous! And I do mean RIDICULOUS -- in a logical sense, not personally. If you believe that being a native speaker of X requires your parents to be native speakers of X, and if your parents became native speakers of X because their parents were native speakers of X, and so on, then you get an infinite regress. Either (1) there have never been any native speakers of X, or there have ALWAYS been native speakers of X (which is preposterous). What matters for one to develop a native language is sufficent contact at a crucial age (i.e. before and through puberty). This criterion could certainly be provided by a school. I don't see why you would argue otherwise. Language transmission might OFTEN happen through parents and home, but these are not necessary. So, again, I don't understand why you would try to use these as limiting factors for how a native language might be transmitted, unless (1) you have political reasons or (2) you just didn't think it through. Anyway, I hope this helps. Kids can develop native language abilities in schools. If you like, I've seen research on this from Canada.

1. Imagine you lived outdoors all your life; could you learn a native language? Of course!

   "In the home" doesn't mean "in a house". It means "with the people who raise the child, the family".

2. Also, consider children raised without parents; can THEY acquire a native language? Yes!

   If a child is orphaned and raised by their aunt and uncle, or brothers, or other people -- you have heard of adoption, haven't you? It doesn't need courts and seals to work culturally. Replace "parents" with "raisers" and you have the way it is and it works.

3. if your parents became native speakers of X because their parents were native speakers of X

   Trace English back 800 years and you'll see it warp gently and slowly into Middle English. Another 800 and we call it Old English, or Anglo-Saxon. But nowhere along that line can you reasonably say, e.g., "In 1450 it was English, but in 1449 it was middle English. Your arguments are preposterous.

-- Thnidu (talk) 04:01, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

P.S. One may, of course, have more than one native langauge.

--163.1.87.11

Ken Conklin is a racist who hates all things Hawaiian. He has no diploma or formal education in Hawaiian language or Hawaiian history. Thus, he is nothing more than an amateur hobbyist. The FACT is about the banning of the Hawaiian language is that it is TRUE! It was not the legislature or town governments who banned it, but it WAS the schools´ administrations. I have talked to elderly native speakers who spoke of being hit with rulers for speaking Hawaiian at schools. That is a fact, just as cell phones and other electronic devices are banned in many schools now, so was the Hawaiian language. Wait! There are no laws on the books about taking electronic devices to schools and so there is a myth of banned cell phones now???? hahahaha Schools ban cell phones now, and they banned Hawaiian then. You people make me laugh. It is so sad that people have to be so infintessimally explicit nowadays.

Moved decline of Hawaiian language lower down in the article and removed POV language

I'm not quite sure when all that stuff was added, but it was POV as heck. Language like "Conklin demonstrates that whining Hawaiian activists are completely wrong" -- or something like that -- has no place in an Wikipedia article. Plus whoever did this huge dump of material from Conklin's website concentrates all of his/her fire on the clearly mistaken claim that the government banned Hawaiian. I'm not sure how widespread this belief is now, and we need cites for it. But ... that doesn't begin to deal with claims which I'm sure I've read, though I don't have cites at hand, that prohibiting the use of Hawaiian in schools (along with Japanese, Chinese, Tagalog, etc.) contributed mightily to the decline, as did the general social prejudice against Hawaiians. People were not anxious to take up a stigmatized identity.

I'm going to ask some other editors to help. We may also want to move this controversy to a breakout article. Surely the Hawaiian language article ought to be about language, not Hawaiian politics. Zora 07:23, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Hey Zora, I tried to take a stab at reducing the political nature of the cite of Conklin's stuff - we might just be able to cite the law Conklin cites, and remove the pro/anti-sovereignty antagonism entirely...referencing Reinecke instead might also be useful (John E. Reinecke, "Language and Dialect in Hawaii: A Sociolinguistic History to 1935." Edited by Stanley M. Tsuzaki. Honolulu: Universiry of Hawaii Press, 1969. Reprinted 1988. Paperback edition February, 1995.).

You're absolutely right, it seemed of a tone and tenor entirely out of proportion to the mild mention of claims that it was banned...hopefully M.ana will join in and help out too. --JereKrischel 08:44, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Recent political edits

I've taken out the reference to alleged colonialism, as well as the assertion that a Republic of Hawaii law was overturned in the 1980s without a citation - perhaps a more specific reference would be helpful, since I would be surprised if Republic laws stayed on the books much past the Organic Act of 1900. Also, uncited "small bilingual communities" seems to be a stretch to describe anyone not on the island of niihau. I like to POV removal of the Conklin material, but it seems that the pendulum swung the other way a bit.

--JereKrischel 17:19, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I would guess that "small bilingual communities" refer to Kaiapuni families, specifically on the islands of Hawai'i, Maui, O'ahu, and Kaua'i (I think). These people have created living and working environments in which Hawaiian is the dominant medium for communication; go check it out. But since they all live in a second society of English and Pidgin speakers, they speak those languages too. So rather than cut out "small bilingual communities" someone should add "small multilingual communities", since "Pidgin" is a language (I mean linguistically, not politically).

--163.1.87.11

Hawaiian not endangered, according to Wikipedia criteria

Umm......the endangered language page doesn't consider Hawaiian an endangered language. It actually state's that it's not one.CharlesMartel 04:38, 24 March 2006 (UTC)CharlesMartel

HAWAIIAN IS NOT AN ENDANGERED LANGUAGE

1. Excellent point, well taken (above) by CharlesMartel on 24 March 2006. Hawaiian is definitely NOT on the Wikipedia "Endangered language" page. The page states that an endangered language has "so few surviving speakers that it is in danger of falling out of use". Thanks to the Niihauans, Hawaiian is NOT endangered (and NEVER has been). The page explains a scenario where a language with not that many speakers is not in danger --- "In contrast [to an endangered language], a language with only 100 speakers might be considered very much alive if it is the primary language of a community, and is the first (or only) language of all children in that community.". That statement fits Niihau quite well (although Niihau has closer to 200 residents).

2. While Hawaiian is correctly NOT ON the list, Maori is oddly ON the list. Use of Maori is stronger than use of Hawaiian.

3. The Wikipedia "List of endangered languages" page also does NOT list Hawaiian as endangered, and this is the page which specifically points out that Hawaiian "has school instruction ... from kindergarten through college".

4. Hawaiian is ON the Wikipedia "List of revived languages" page. Well, again, Hawaiian has never been "revived" on Niihau because it was never endangered in the first place.

5. One might claim that Hawaiian WAS "partially endangered", and then "partially revived", on SOME of the islands, but it does NOT currently meet the Wikipedia criteria to be an endangered language. At any rate, the article needs to be edited so that it no longer makes the incorrect statement that "Hawaiian is an endangered language".

Agent X 17:54, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

A professional linguist dissents

Sure, Wikipedia knows all. NOT. Professional linguists affirm that Hawaiian is endangered. How do I know? I am one of them! What a blissfully naive individual you are, if you believe that Hawaiian is NOT in immediate danger of extinction, even within a few generations. Sure, Ni'ihau is quarantined off from the rest of the islands. But for how long? That population is extremely small and, as its members may move between Ni'ihau and the rest of the islands, the community is not impervious to the effects of English. The Ni'ihauans basically live there by the grace of that Haole family who own their island. Really, it's ridiculous to conceive of Hawaiian as "safe". If NOTHING changes, well, the language would never die. Sure. People could go on speaking it on Ni'ihau, as you suggest. But what is history if not a record one upheaval after another? The world is changing PROFOUNDLY and Hawaiian has very little stored away for a rainy day. Gosh, it must be such bliss to be so ignorant! Are you daft?? Why would you try to brush off the threat of extinction? Could it be to muffle the cries of death? One only imagines your motivation. Do you honestly think that ignoring the problem will solve it? Something must be done! Open your eyes. Much is being done, yes. But this is LIFE SUPPORT! Furthermore, the Wikipedia "Endangered language" page doesn't hold much water for me. For instance, how do I know that you didn't edit it? How do I know that you don't have some nefarious agenda? If I were Wikipedia's designers, I'd be angry. Your misleading sophism damages its credibility. Voltaire3001 06:34, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Hinton and Hale do not speak for all linguists. Neither do you. You might or might not be a "professional linguist" as you claim. In the field of linguistics, there tends to be disagreement on nearly every conceivable point. If Hawaiian is endangered, what are you going to do about it, that is, besides despairing and worrying, and throwing insults at people whose views are different from yours? Are you going to have children and raise them as native speakers of Hawaiian? Or are you going to insist that others must do that even if they don't want to? You are failing to admit the validity of AgentX's point regarding the free will of the people of Niihau. Perpetuating Hawaiian is a free choice to be made by them --- not imposed by you or any other self-proclaimed professional linguist.

At any rate, compare how easy it is to speak your own first language with your own children in your own home, as opposed to deliberately stifling yourself and speaking only a foreign language in your own home to your own kids, 24/7. And what motivation would a resident of Niihau have for speaking all English and no Hawaiian to her kids? They don't have to speak English there. But they can if they want to. It's not your place to decide. Voltaire3001 is not the King of Niihau.

Another point is that people who advocate the view that Hawaiian is endangered can seek money, in the form of grants and/or donations, for projects to "save" or "perpetuate" the language. But if people acknowledge that Hawaiian is not endangered, then the sympathy money will not be available for the personal projects (pockets) of the self-appointed saviors. There is monetary motivation for perpetuating the notion (scam?) that Hawaiian is "endangered". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.248.10.61 (talk) 00:55, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

It's true! Linguists are in the business for the money. It is *very* lucrative. Personally speaking, I own five yachts, a million billion jets, and Ni'ihau. ;-)

Seriously, though, I don't contest the rights of Ni'ihauans. If they want to stop speaking it, fine.

You want to say that Hawaiian is *not* endangered. You presume it in the way you write, for example when you say "if people acknowledge that Hawaiian is not endangered." I don't understand why. Maybe you're angry. Write a biography or something!

I want to say that Hawaiian *is* endangered, because I was surprised to see that someone had said it wasn't. I bet that most other linguists would be too, not just Hale (were he alive), Hinton, Nettle, Romaine, Crystal, etc., etc., etc.

Think of it this way. What if the Ni'ihauans wanted to preserve their language? What if by some strange PR campaign, no one would believe that their language was under threat? Now, wouldn't *that* be a terrible slight to the Ni'ihauans? Why not tell it like it is and give them a choice? Why deprive them of that?

So, if either of us is disrespecting the Ni'ihauans' free choice, I think it's you. And I bet you're not "King of Ni'ihau" either (even though you didn't sign your post...). Voltaire3001 09:46, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

You are missing the point, or evading it. And thereby, you are disrespecting the Niihauans. Just in case you really don't get it, I'll make it clear for you ---

Your writing ("Think of it this way") above suggests that if Hawaiian language were "under threat" on Niihau, then the Niihauans would need to cry to others in order to get linguistic help and be linguistically saved by outsiders. You suggest that a "strange PR campaign" could cause outsiders to regard Niihauans as liars (people who cried wolf), with the result being that the outsiders would not rush in and gallantly save and perpetuate the Hawaiian language on Niihau. Then you try implying that I lie ("Why not tell it like it is") and that I deprive Niihauans of some unspecified choice.

The falsehood (and absurdity) of your suggestions is transparent to the intelligent reader. The main point that you fail to get is that it is not the kuleana of outsiders to rescue the Hawaiian language on Niihau (or anywhere else). You imply that they might become unable to care for themselves, linguistically. You imply that they may require "linguistic rescue" by outsiders due to being incompetent to take care of themselves. That is how you are disrespecting and insulting them. You are suggesting that they may become intellectual weaklings and/or helpless victims who cannot manage their own linguistic affairs.

Contrary to your suggestions, the truth is that Niihauans, including the Robinson family, have been independently and successfully managing their own affairs for over a century now. They do not need to be saved, in any way, by any outsiders. They have their own ship, helicopter, businesses, etc. In addition, there are many Niihauans who reside off Niihau. Some Niihauans are quite annoyed by misguided do-gooders who constantly, and wrongly, presume that they are in some kind of "danger" and need to be "saved" by some outsiders. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.248.1.18 (talk) 17:42, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I think you're reading into my words something that isn't there. If Ni'ihauan is going to survive, it is going to survive because of the Ni'ihauans. They are necessary. It is the outsiders who are powerless to save the language without the Ni'ihauans' help. But I think we agree on this.

You seem offended by the suggestion that Ni'ihauans "might" need help, if they decide to preserve their language. Note: I don't know whether they will *actually* need help. The point is hypothetical -- both because the Ni'ihauans might not want to preserve their language, and because there's some chance that the language might survive on its own.

But what if the Ni'ihauans do want to preserve their language? What if they also want to improve its chances of survival (for example, by seeking outside help)? Would you deny them that? I put this question to you. And I would challenge you to justify how denying them that option is not itself disrespectful.

Anyway, the point under discussion, in case *you* forgot is endangerment. Is Ni'ihauan endangered? Yes. As best as the experts can forecast, the probability of the language surviving (even just a few more generations) is slim. And I am very sad to say this.

But I feel it would be disrespectful to hide this fact, precisely because it might reduce the options available to the Ni'ihauans. Voltaire3001 22:34, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Please argue your case sine ira et studio. As a professional linguist you must be used to doing so. Of course, the fact that Hawaiian is missing on some obscure Wiki list does not prove anything. Of course, a language with only one hundred odd speakers is in a precarious situation and quite obviously potentially endangered. But as long as on one island intergenerational transmission is uninterrupted, the language is not in immediate danger of falling out of use and finally dying out. I grant you that one tsunami or one outbreak of influenza may push it over the brink. But as of now it seems to me that the danger is not an immediate but only a potential one.

But then, of course, I may be wrong. In that case all you need to do is name a reliable source to back up your claim. Unoffensive text or character 16:26, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Dear "Unoffensive text or character", thanks for your reply! Incidentally, you assume too much about linguistics (and academics in general); there's actually a lot of anger and fondness in professional linguistics (as evidenced by the Semantic Wars). Furthermore, *shouldn't* people sometimes get mad in academic discussions? For example, when the Holocaust is denied?

Still, I'll take your point about heckling. I'll also take your challenge to produce a citation; there are many! Pick up any popular book on language death and you'll probably find Hawaiian. Romaine and Nettle's (2000) "Vanishing Voices" comes to mind (from Oxford University Press, no less ;-). Voltaire3001 23:28, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

P.S. "as long as on one island intergenerational transmission is uninterrupted, the language is not in immediate danger of falling out of use".... Note: strictly speaking, your point is tautological. Uninterrupted intergenerational language transmission *is* linguistic survival. So, if the language survives, it survives. Obviously. The point is that survival itself is in question. It relies on a lot of things staying the same, when there is no guarantee that they will and no recourse if they don't. Greater trends suggest that the present balance is fragile. Voltaire3001 00:26, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Here are some revealing quotations from the Ni'ihau page; do you still think that Ni'ihau's "isolation" makes Hawaiian safe?

"Many residents of Ni'ihau had been employees of the Ni'ihau Ranch until the Robinson family finally shut down the operation in 1999; it had not been profitable for most of the 20th century. Many of the residents ended up on federal welfare, although these benefits will expire soon. The Robinson family has been considering alternative economic options to keep their residents employed, such as an increased economic role for the U.S. military (an earlier 1999 proposal to establish a missile testing program on the island fell by the wayside), or increased tourism. Either of these would erode the relative isolation that the residents currently enjoy.

"The Native Hawaiians are not isolated from the outside world, however: Ni'ihau is subject to regular droughts that occasionally force the population to evacuate to Kaua'i temporarily, until their fresh water supply is replenished by rainfall." Voltaire3001 01:45, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Dear Voltaire, thanks for your reply. Point (sine ira et studio) well taken.

I think we are in agreement on the status of the Hawaiian language, we just use different terminology. I regard a language as endangered when intergenerational transmission is no longer taking place in all or most of the families. In languages like Yucatec, you will find communities where Yucatec is moribund, as only elderly persons have any knowledge of the language, and you will find places where everybody uses the language on an everyday basis, and then there are communities where some of the younger people speak Spanish but most still use Yucatec. So on a whole, I would call Yucatec endangered.

With Hawaiian (please correct me if I am wrong), the situation is that the language is moribund or even extinct everywhere but on Ni'ihau, where it is very much alive and thriving. So where does that leave us?

I, personally, would call Hawaiian only potentially endangered, as there seems to be no sign yet of beginning abandonment of the language. But I can see your point, of course. The danger, so to speak, is somewhere out there, it has not yet reached the island, but it may do so every day. Unoffensive text or character 12:19, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Huh? You would call Yukatec (with 800,000 speakers) "endangered", but Hawaiian (with only 200 speakers on Ni'ihau) "potentially endangered"?

Yukatec is also spoken in both Mexico and Belize. You can learn to speak it at Harvard. On the other hand, 200 speakers is almost nothing no matter how secure the Ni'ihau culture might be.

But of course, you may call Hawaiian whatever you like. In a sense (and maybe this is your point of view?), I guess that any language is only "potentially endangered" until it's gone. Voltaire3001 09:32, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

I would call any language potentially endangered where intergenerational transmission is still taking place in all or most communities. In the case of Hawaiian, there seems to be only one community: Ni'ihau.

But let's not waste time or energy with discussing labels that will never be fit to describe reality. Every language is different and every possible system of classifying them falls short of reality. Unoffensive text or character 07:30, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, yes, we agree that this is tiresome. I guess, I'll just have to accept that I'm not going to understand why you would insist on calling Hawaiian, with 200 speakers on one island and a shaky prognosis for survival, only potentially endangered, while you're happy to call Yukatec, with 800,000 speakers in multiple domains of use, fully endangered. You are of course free to make up whatever definitions please you, although I wouldn't expect that to be very informative for wikipedia's general audience.

Incidentally, you don't go to a layperson for serious medical questions; you go to an expert, right? Sometimes it's just because they've seen a whole lot more than you have. Moreover, I think you'll find that the linguistics community is in overwhelming agreement about the very real endangerment of Hawaiian. It's not even an interesting question.

I admire your skepticism though it seems suspiciously selective. Voltaire3001 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.25.68.16 (talk) 19:48, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, you certainly had a very long and intensive think about it. (Sorry, no offence intended) Let me just ask for your definition of a endangered language. Unoffensive text or character (talk) 15:04, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Clarification

I don't meant o be pushy or anything; I'm really just curious. I'm having a very hard time buying this "Hawaiian is not an endangered language" thing, even with all this criterion you give. So experts on the Hawaiian language are really quite confident that it will be around as a thriving community language in 100 years? With 200 bilingual native speakers, who could easily choose at any time to let go of the language within a generation, I don't understand the lack of concern. By saying it's not endangered, you feel sure you can leave the language in it's present condition and it will not diminish? I'm also curious about the kind of service provided through Hawaiian. Can you get medical care, testify in court etc. in Hawaiian? Andrew 01:27, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, it went through a period of decline in the early 20th century, but I think the numbers clearly show a significant rebound, and a healthy future for the language. There may never be a Hawaiian only community ever again (just as there may never be a Latin only community ever again), but the future of olelo Hawaii seems quite bright, amongst the entire community of Hawaii, regardless of race.

It is currently one of the two official languages of the State of Hawaii, and its use and study continues to grow year by year.

That being said, the specific "manner of speaking" Agent X mentions amongst people from Niihau may very well be endangered as that island's isolation diminishes. Perhaps that's what you see as "endangered"? --JereKrischel 02:41, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

There's currently a vogue for learning Hawaiian in school, but it's not clear to me that Hawaiian is out of danger. Unless it is being USED, and is a mother-tongue for children, it is merely a curiosity -- like the Latin that British schoolboys had to learn, and then promptly forgot when they left school. Latin was a dead tongue, even though millions of schoolboys were learning it. Zora 04:44, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

So does that mean that Latin is an endangered language, or an extinct language? I guess what I'm trying to understand is whether or not a curiosity can be considered as "extinct" just because it isn't a mother-tongue for children. I remember hearing on NPR recently about a latin rap group (as in classical latin language rap), and I find it difficult to reconcile the widespread, albeit secondary use of a languge, with the thought of it being endangered or extinct. --JereKrischel 05:08, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

NO NEED WORRY ABOUT "DANGER"

1. Regarding medical care "in Hawaiian" --- if there are any medical doctors who speak it, and patients who need/want the service "in Hawaiian", then of course it's possible. As of today's date, I don't personally know of any M.D.s who speak Hawaiian, but there might be some. Would anyone actually die or suffer because a doctor didn't speak Hawaiian? I doubt it. Have any such cases ever been reported? None that I've seen.

2. Regarding court testimony "in Hawaiian" --- courts in Hawaii use court interpreters, but only when necessary. Court proceedings are conducted in English, not in Hawaiian, nor in all of the other languages that are spoken in Hawaii. Potential jurors who lack sufficient competence in English will be disqualified by court clerks, judges, or attorneys. These circumstances are a matter of practicality under today's conditions. Since monolingual speakers of Hawaiian are very rare (probably some young kids on Niihau), the actual need to testify in court in Hawaiian is very Very VERY rare. If there actually were a real, significant need to testify in Hawaiian (i.e., a crucial witness who is truly a monolingual speaker of Hawaiian), then a court interpreter could be obtained, and yes, one could testify in Hawaiian.

3. Some people (not all) who worry about "endangered" languages are guilty of ignoring certain prime motivators of human behavior --- convenience and practicality. Consider the court scenario. In complete fairness to the equal rights of all citizens, regardless of the languages which they speak or don't speak, should courts be expected to conduct proceedings in ALL languages that are spoken in the geographical area under their jurisdiction? For Hawaii, that would be theoretically possible, but PRACTICALLY, impossible. More than twelve different languages are spoken in Honolulu (English, Japanese, Ilokano, Tagalog, Korean, Cantonese, Samoan, Tongan, Vietnamese, Spanish, German, Indonesian, Marshallese ...). Should we have to build 12 different courthouses, and procure 12 different sets of clerks and judges, and find attorneys and juror pools, for 12 different languages? (The court system is already inadequate with only one language in use.) It's clearly IMPOSSIBLE to have ALL services available in ALL languages --- especially court proceedings. The obvious solution to the obvious problem is to use a lingua franca. Today, that's English. (In the far future, it might be Mandarin.) Remember, courts do provide interpreters when they are truly needed.

4. The naming of Hawaiian as an "official language" in Hawaii does NOT require that all or any government services be available "in Hawaiian". It merely makes it clear that Hawaiian CAN be used, NOT that it MUST be used. No lack of services "in Hawaiian" has ever diminished the use of Hawaiian on Niihau.

5. Regarding this question from Andrew (above): "By saying it's not endangered, you feel sure you can leave the language in it's present condition and it will not diminish?" --- this leads to related questions:

• (A) Can anyone predict the future?
• (B) Does anyone have the right to require others to perpetuate a given language?
• (C) What is "extinction", or "death", for a language?
• (D) Can a dead language be "revived"?

As for (A), of course nobody can be sure that Hawaiian (or English) will not diminish, as that would require fortune-telling. As for (B), the answer is no. Language perpetuation is a natural matter which cannot be forced on speakers of Hawaiian, or of any other language. As for (C), different points of view (or definitions) can be taken. In general, linguists call a language "dead" when it has no living native speaker. As for (D), again there are different points of view. One is "once dead, always dead". Another is "if it has a living native speaker, it is not dead now, even though it may have been dead previously".

6. Here's another dimension to the issues --- Proto Indo-European, the ancestor of all Indian and European languages, is "dead". Old English is "dead". Middle English is "dead". But Modern English is "alive". Likewise, Proto Austronesian, the ancestor of all Polynesian languages, is "dead". Proto Polynesian is "dead". But Hawaiian is "alive". Here I'm referring to the existence of living native speakers.

7. What this shows is that living languages are constantly "dying", and constantly being "re-born". The VESSEL and VEHICLE of human language is the human being. Every language dies as its speakers die, and is reborn (re-analyzed and re-learned) with every child who acquires it as first language. (That's the primary reason why languages gradually change over time.) As long as native speakers of Hawaiian continue to make babies who acquire Hawaiian first, as has always been the case on Niihau, Hawaiian will continue to live, forever.

8. We should not worry over what they do, because it's their business, not ours. If they keep Hawaiian, fine. If they abandon Hawaiian, fine. We have no right to tell them what language they can, or should, speak and pass to their children. It's a free choice for them to exercise. Personally, I think they will keep Hawaiian going for a very long time. In fact, I hope they will incorporate Hawaiian language lessons into their current tour business. I would much prefer to visit their island to take language lessons from them, rather than to shoot an animal. We've heard of "eco-tourism", how about "edu-tourism"? Agent X 03:12, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Canadian user dissents

I find the author's claim that Hawai'ian is not endangered to be highly suspect. The fact is that practically every indigenous language across the first world is in decline, (strike one); the United States has a miserable track record when it comes to protecting and sustaining its minority languages (strike two); and Hawai'i itself is less racially/culturally Hawai'ian today than it has ever been in its history (next batter).

The repeated use of Allcaps and the emphatic (read: fanatical) denials of the language's current state are misleading, and cannot be considered NPOV. Upon further reading, one discovers that the only island where Hawai'ian is spoken by the majority of residents is home to only 160 people. The reason for the language's health on that island was due to enforced isolation --- which was recently repealed. The economic future of the island will likely rely on tourism, which will doubtlessly weaken the language's stability as it did with each of the six other Hawai'ian islands.

But even ignoring this fact, how can the fluency of 160 islanders speak to the so-called health of the Hawai'ian language, when 100 years ago it was spoken by 37 000 people? This has to be more than naïveté. This language is in serious trouble, like every minority language on the planet, and something to that effect should be visible in this article. Muckapædia 6h25, 16e Avril 2006 (EST)

I hadn't heard of any repeal of the Robinson's ownership and forced isolation of Niihau - do you have a reference for that?

To respond to your question regarding the language being in trouble, I think that although hawaiian language has suffered a cycle of decline and resurgence, thanks to the isolation of Niihau, and the work of missionaries to develop an alphabet for it and preserve it, it was never endangered. It is especially not endangered today, given the wealth of olelo hawaii resources available.

I also wonder, what do you mean by "minority language"? It seems to be a loaded phrase, indicative of perhaps a bias you feel against english? The fact that other indigenous languages around the world are in decline does not make olelo hawaii in decline (ball one), the United States, and specifically the State of Hawaii has done a great deal to preserve olelo hawaii (ball two), and your implication that an ideal Hawaii must be racially pure is contradicted by the Hawaiian Kingdom constitution of 1840 declaring us humans of one blood (ball three), and culturally, with projects like the Hokulea, which revived a celestial navigation tradition THAT HAD BEEN FORGOTTEN SINCE BEFORE WESTERN CONTACT, we are all more Hawaiian in Hawaii, regardless of our race (walk the batter).

I think perhaps some of your problem is that you categorize kanaka maoli as "indigenous" when in fact they have a history of relatively recent immigration to the islands, do not have a history comparable to Native Americans, and have exhibited voluntary adaptation and integration with every culture they have come in contact with. The hallmark of Hawaiian culture really has been its ability to evolve and change, and its significant lack of "us" versus "them" (with the exception of modern day ethnic nationalists who repudiate the culture of their ancestors). --JereKrischel 19:33, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

The Robinsons shut down their ranch in 1999. More on the Ni'ihau article.

The criteria for a language to be considered endangered are outlined here. Generally, every language in the world save the most-spoken ten percent (of which Hawai'ian is not) is endangered and expected to decline drastically within the next fifty years (read more here). This is a general trend however, and as widespread as it is says nothing specific about the challenges facing Hawai'ian. But it is important to remember that a "wealth of resources" bears no reflection on a language's health.

The statistics show there are 1000 mother tongue speakers of Hawai'ian left in the world. Ethnologue claims that 500 of these speakers are members of the community on Ni'ihau (which is 340 more than the Ni'ihau article estimates but let's leave that alone) and the other 500 are speakers in their 70s and 80s on the main island. The world total for speakers is given as 8000, when one includes second-language learners. While that may seem encouraging, it shouldn't do; Second-language learners have little impact on alleviating the endangered status of a language. The main identifier of a moribund language (according to linguist Michael Krauss and the SIL) is when it is "no longer being learned as mother-tongue by children." That is the current situation with Hawai'ian.

A secondary criteria for endangered languages is an absence of "domains of use." Are there any Hawai'ian immersion schools? Are there Hawai'ian-speaking communities, other than on Ni'ihau? Is it possible to work in Hawai'ian, order food in a restaurant in Hawai'ian, flirt with a local in Hawai'ian, represent oneself in a court of law in Hawai'ian, receive medical attention in Hawai'ian or do {insert completely mundane activity here} in Hawai'ian? I don't know these things, but answering these questions is a good step towards getting an accurate read on the current state of Hawai'ian.

With regard to your post, the phrase "minority language," loaded or not, is used by the United Nations to describe a language spoken by a minority of the population in a given region (like Hawai'ian is in Hawai'i). As for my alleged implication that "an ideal Hawai'i must be racially pure", I said no such thing. What I said was that never before has the population of Hawai'i been less composed of ethnic Hawai'ians (a statistical fact). My purpose in pointing this out is to show that the culture to which the language has traditionally belonged is not dominant in its own territory, and that this is a significant external factor in assessing the long-term health of the Hawai'ian language.

Finally your last paragraph is interesting (despite your reference to "my problem") but is not about the Hawai'ian language.—Muckapædia 9h40, 17e Avril 2006 (EST)

A couple of answers - yes there are Hawaiian immersion schools. Yes there are hawaiian speaking communities outside of niihau, although probably not in the traditional sense - that is to say, they are geographically dispersed, and the language is not a primary one. Hawaiian is an official language of Hawaii (along with english), but the fact that all native speakers of Hawaiian are bi-lingual makes it difficult to address working, flirting, etc...certainly Hawaiian words permeate pidgin english in Hawaii, but I guess that's not what you're talking about.

Regarding your criteria for endangered languages, there seems to be a gap between 2 & 3 (endangered/safe) of Krauss. Although hawaiian does not have a large number of speakers, it does have official state support, and if current conditions continue, it will survive into the next century.

Regarding your statistical fact that the population of Hawaii hase never been less composed of ethnic Hawaiians, I think you're mistaken, but it really depends on how you count. Most self-identified ethnic hawaiians are only part kanaka maoli, and if you exclude them, you are correct. Otherwise, the current percentage of population that is ethnic Hawaiian is slightly more than it was during the last days of the 1800s. U.S. Census statistics differ slightly from Hawaii Health Survey statistics, but are in the general range of 20% (see OHA 2002 Databook). --JereKrischel 16:09, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

One last thing - the Niihau article mentions the ranch closing in 1999, and welfare benefits running out in 5 years (2004), but I haven't been able to find any news references on google past 1999...does anyone know what the current status of travel restrictions to Niihau are? --JereKrischel 16:19, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Kia Ora koutou. Hawai'ian is an endangered language because the language can easily be lost in a generation if an epidemic hits the kanaka Māoli who speak the Hawai'ian language. The Hawai'ian language is also dominated by English - even though it is an official language equal in status to English legally, in reality, it is not equal in being used as an ordinary day to day language. For the majority of the residents of Hawai'i, it is not a normal occurence to use the Hawai'ian language for mundane topics.

As a tangata Māori, it is my duty to try and help promote normal Māori language use amongst other Māori as well as the wider population of New Zealand and the Cook Islands. I'm so thankful for the fact that me and some of my relations have the choice of speaking Māori to each other when ever we want - and talk about what ever we want to talk about in the Māori language.

Maori rahi

Actually, Hawaiian *is* endangered, even according to Wikipedia's criteria

It has been observed above (by CharlesMartel on 24 March 2006) that Hawaiian does not show up on Wikipedia's "Endangered language" page. This appears to be true. But rather than regarding this an unfortunate oversight for that page, this omission has instead been marshaled as evidence that Hawaiian is not endangered. Dear reader, this is untrue. Hawaiian *is* endangered. How do I know? I wish it could suffice to say that I am a linguist, and you should just trust me. But I appreciate that this is unsatisfying. Instead, you might want to ask yourself, if Hawaiian were not endangered, why would there be such an impassioned preservation movement to save it? As evidence of this movement, observe the Hawaiian immersion schools. Of course, contributors like Agent X don't seem to dispute the grave danger of Hawaiian surviving on anywhere in the entire universe EXCEPT for Ni'ihau. Ni'ihau, they suggest, is supposed to be an unassailable fortress of linguistic preservation. I repeat, this is the crux of Agent X's dissent: Hawaiian is supposed to be safe on Ni'ihau, never in danger of extinction. But I object! I would put it to you that this is misplaced, naive, and dangerous optimism.

Happily, there is a lot of airy solipsism to enjoy in Agent X's posts. :-) But who has time to dissect it all? Here's one representative example. Agent X's rhetorical question

• (A) Can anyone predict the future?

can be turned against his/her argument. Of course, no one can predict the future; does Agent X honestly think this was ever in question?? ;-) It's hard enough to predict the present! But that shouldn't stop us from making educated guesses. No, 200 speakers on Ni'ihau is NOT a secure future for Hawaiian. This is especially true as these speakers can leave Ni'ihau to experience the 'modern world' on Kaua'i, O'ahu, etc. Moreover, the preservation of this community depends on the grace of a Haole family who owns their island. So far, the family has tried to keep outsiders off of Ni'ihau. But there is nothing to guard the Ni'ihauans from a whimsical change of heart. I find it dumbfounding that anyone would proclaim Hawaiian as "safe". If history teaches us anything, it is that things change. And Hawaiian has no insurance against a disruption of the status quo. The survival of the language, even on Ni'ihau, is in an EXTREMELY fragile situation.

As for the Wikipedia criterion that keeps getting quoted, the "Endangered language" page states that an endangered language has "so few surviving speakers that it is in danger of falling out of use". This is crude, but it gets to the point. Indeed, Hawaiian *is* in danger of falling out of use. I can vouch for the linguistics community when I say that we are desperately worried about languages like Hawaiian disappearing, because it is a tragic reality that we witness every day. To its credit, the present movement to preserve the Hawaiian language has been remarkably successful so far. But this success should be seen in a global perspective. The language remains in danger of extinction. The question now is how many more generations will it continue. One? Two? More? Perhaps 10% of the world's languages are "safe", and Hawaiian is NOT one of them. I hope this gives some idea of how dire the Hawaiian situation is.

Now, dear friends, I am going to ask you for a favor. Would you please keep vigil over the Hawaiian page against vandalism from characters like Agent X? When I have tried to edit it to affirm Hawaiian's endangered status, others have unceremoniously edited it back. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to keep up with their reversions. Personally, I would guess that these vandals are Wikipedia hobbyist, who have idiosyncratic personal agendas which Wikipedia lets them broadcast. This is unfortunate both for Wikipedia's users and creators, since it damages Wikipedia's credibility. So, again, I humbly ask any and everyone who reads this to make sure that the Wikipedia page correctly displays Hawaiian as endangered, because it most certainly is.

Mahalo for your help! :-) Voltaire3001 22:35, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Article is Ambiguous on Facts

This wikipedia page as it stands today is ambiguous regarding the numeric facts about the language extinction or lack thereof. "As of 2001, native speakers of Hawaiian amount to under 0.1% of the statewide population." and "Total ~2000 native[1] speakers ~27,160[2]" The wiki article on Hawaii puts the population at about 150,000 so 2000/150K would be 1.3%; 27K/150K would be 18%. As a result of all this I do not know how many people or what percentage. Could this be important in a discussion of extinction? Friendly Person (talk) 16:47, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

pronunciation of kaona

The pronunciation that was there (cow-nah) was admittedly unscientific and Anglicized. Someone changed it to kah-O-nah which is not correct - there is no `okina in front of the "o" so per Pukui and Elbert, the vowels are said together as a dipthong. I just left it at kao-na. Per WP MOS, we are supposed to use IPA anyway, but I don't know how to do that and I find it incredibly non-useful. Makana Chai (talk) 18:41, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Linguistic classification of 'Ōlelo Hawai'i

I am having a problem with the classification of Hawaiian on the main article. It places the language into the Tahitic phylum of the Polynesian language family. Hawaiian is shares 56% of its basic vocabulary with that of Nuku Hiva Marquesan, and only 46% with that of Tahitian. Although exceptions in Rarotongan are found, it is not due to close genetic relationship, but instead to conservativism in retaining old vocabulary in both languages, according to Larry Kimura in his article Native Hawaiian Culture. Should a re-categorization be discussed? -Ano-User (talk) 23:14, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like you have a good source for it. Be bold! Makana Chai (talk) 02:19, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Does this mean that there can be a change of classification in the the Language infobox on the article and have a foot note, or should it remain the same? -Ano-User (talk) 07:20, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I have a feeling there is a WP protocol about this. I would suggest you do some research or ask around. Sorry I can't be more help. I appreciate you wanting to make it accurate. Makana Chai (talk) 18:05, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

As can be gleaned from Polynesian languages, the re-classification is based on the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database.

However, as the results are apparently based on lexicostatistics (essentially the same superficial way of looking at similarities you mentioned) instead of common innovations (the usual way to establish subgroups within a language family), I strongly doubt that the re-classification has been accepted by historical linguists as consensus.

Not only does Ethnologue not reflect it, but a reasonably up-to-date reference work such as Lynch, Ross and Crowley (2002) also still teaches the traditional subgrouping, which Wikipedia should respect (or at the very least, mention).

<rant> Unfortunately, Wikipedia gives too much attention to fads such as results of lexicostatistical analyses when it comes to subgrouping, just because they look neatly "mathematical" and thus, "exact" and "scientific", and "sexier" than the long-established, but, in its essence, more than 100 years old comparative method. This is essentially a form of recentism, but I suppose there are just too few historical linguists (especially those competent in more "exotic" languages) on Wikipedia to object to such fads and insist on the established methods of proving genetic relatedness. </rant>

By the way, your use of the term phylum for a subgroup of a language family is glaringly incorrect; perhaps you meant branch, subfamily or group. If at all, phylum (like superfamily or macrofamily) is reserved for major linguistic groupings with great time-depths whose genetic relatedness is not generally considered established through the comparative method (such as Altaic or Austric). Anyway, I would recommend avoiding terms such as phylum, which are as ill-defined in linguistic as they are in biological taxonomy, altogether. Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:01, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

You are right in saying that I shouldn't have used the term "phylum" to describe the present topic. I did actually mean "branch", "subfamily", or "group", not keeping in mind the bigger picture of the Austronesian language "family." Apparently, I forgot, linguistically speaking (rather than in a biological context), that the Polynesian language group is actually an off-shoot of the bigger Oceanic Austronesian branch of languages. On the other hand, I do not know much about the methods of the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database and they claim not to use lexicostatistics to put languages into subgroups, but from what I've looked at, it seems that they do just THAT...unless I misinterpret their methods.

In addition, I've looked up the the classification of the Hawaiian language on the Database itself and it does not label 'Ōlelo Hawai'i as such. Here is the current structure (Here is the source):

Classification Search:

Austronesian, Malayo-Polynesian, Central-Eastern, Eastern Malayo-Polynesian, Oceanic, Central-Eastern Oceanic, Remote Oceanic, Central Pacific, East Fijian-Polynesian, Polynesian, Nuclear, East, Central,:

(#38) Marquesan

(#52) Hawaiian

(#239) Mangareva

(#654) Marquesan (Nukuhiva dialect)

Tahitic»

(#58) Rarotongan

(#85) Maori

(#128) Rurutuan

(#130) Tahitian (18th Century)

(#173) Tahitian (Modern)

(#235) Penrhyn

(#246) Tuamotu

(#479) Maori (1773)

(#481) Tahiti (1773)

(#589) Manihiki

(14 entries for the node "Austronesian, Malayo-Polynesian, Central-Eastern, Eastern Malayo-Polynesian, Oceanic, Central-Eastern Oceanic, Remote Oceanic, Central Pacific, East Fijian-Polynesian, Polynesian, Nuclear, East, Central")

If there has been a recent change in classification, and making the classification made by the author of the Wikipedia article out-of-date, shouldn't this be a concern? This is, of course, if I am understanding the intention and credibility of the author correctly. -Ano-User (talk) 14:02, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Citations needed

I've placed a [by whom?] citation after the classification of 'Ōlelo Hawai'i under Tahitic because, as I've said above, none of the sources warrant the classification of the Hawaiian language as such. No changes have been made to correct this since I've mentioned it last January. I may just go ahead and implement the change if the original authors of the article won't cite an actual source stating that Hawaiian is currently classified as Tahitic, or change it all together. I'll give it a couple days. -Ano-User (talk) 03:46, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

I've reclassified 'Ōlelo Hawai'i as Marquesic with a "?" after it, seeing that it is a bit contraversial with confidence levels. However, it is still open to discussion if some objects to the classification and has a good source. -Ano-User (talk) 14:37, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

This is not warranted. Hawaiian is definitely Marquesic. For a few sources, a quick google produces [1] [2] [3]. Marquesic is the standard position. I have also taken out a lot of material which doesn't belong in this article, but might belong in Proto-Polynesian since it applies to all Polynesian languages. I also fail to see why it is necessary to cover linguistic methods in this article. That also needs to come out. Hawaiian's history does not go back thousands and thousands of years - that is the history of a group of languages and therefore must be covered at a higher level of article. Kahuroa (talk) 07:52, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Good idea of taking out the unneeded material. I may have put extra material in there to give the article some credence to the Database, but I admit that I tend to get too technical in certain areas. To-the-point information is important in an article that covers a larger amount of information, and technicality can be applied in related articles, such as the Proto-Polynesian and Polynesian languages articles. True, Hawaiian doesn't go back thousands and thousands of years (it developed over a period of 1000, or so, years). In fact, I don't think any truely modern language does, since the rate of linguistic evolution is far faster than, say, biological evolution. As with living things, however, so with human language in that there is a common ancestor. Hawaiian, Modern Marquesan (North/South), and Mangarevan all have a common ancestor in "Proto-Marquesic," but one related contemporary language is not an ancestor of another. Proto-Marquesic (a term I recently coined), on the other hand, probably does go back at least 2000 years by settlers possibly coming from the Ellicean Islands in south-western Polynesia. This would explain the presence of Lapita fragments in the Marquesas islands, but still leaves open the question of why Lapita had not continued to be produced in the Hawaiian islands, the Society Islands, New Zealand, or Rapa Nui (maybe due to lack of materials to make clay?). All this information is necessary to put into the Proto-Polynesian article, but it is also important, at least in part, to mention it in the Hawaiian language article; maybe even the Native Hawaiians article. -Ano-User (talk) 00:30, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Methods of proving Hawaiian's family relationships

Shouldn't all this background info be merged into the dedicated articles? There's no point to repeating it with every language. It's not like the Polynesian affiliation of Hawaiian is controversial. kwami (talk) 22:31, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I see what you're talking about. We don't do that for other languages, so we should be fine moving it. I suspect this section comes from Agent X, a user who tended (before he/she left Wikipedia) to add theoretical information at Hawaiian phonology to a condescendingly redundant degree. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 22:48, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Quite so. But consider the following:

By contrast, Hawaiian and Tahitian have about 152 cognates in the list, so they are estimated as being 76% genetically related,[26] according to the lexicostatistical method.

How can you determine the cognates without resort to comparative linguistics. Granted, Polynesian linguistics are largely undisputed, but this "argumentation" is a vicious circle. It isn't really different from the largely discredited mass comparison. All the best 157.157.186.24 (talk) 20:31, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

V

The letter V appears in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights at least once. Article 2: Ua noa i nā kānaka apau loa nā pono kīvila i helu ʻia ma kēia hōʻike, me ka hoʻokae ʻole i ka lāhui, i ka wai hoʻoluʻu o ka ʻili, i ke kāne a i ʻole ka wahine ka ʻōlelo, ka hoʻomana, ka manaʻo politika a me nā mana’o ʻē aʻe, ka ʻāina a pilina paha i hānau ʻia ai, ka waiwai, ke kūlana hanauna a me nā kūlana ʻē aʻe.

How can that be when V was dropped in favor of W?--31.17.92.168 (talk) 00:24, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Probably an archaism or Anglicism. You can also spell the word in question with w. Pono kīwila means "civil rights", kīwila being a borrowing from English civil. See p. 163. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:23, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Hawaiian language materials

Grammar

https://archive.org/details/cu31924026915888

https://archive.org/details/ashortsynopsism00alexgoog

https://archive.org/details/grammarofhawaiia00andrrich

https://archive.org/details/shortsynopsisofm00alexrich

Dictionary

https://archive.org/details/ahy2563.0001.001.umich.edu

https://archive.org/details/englishhawaiiand00hitc

https://archive.org/details/ofhawadictionary00andrrich

https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofhawa00andrrich

https://archive.org/details/englishhawaiiand00hitcrich

https://archive.org/details/cu31924026916167

Phrase book

https://archive.org/details/hawaiianphraseb00ltdgoog

https://archive.org/details/hawaiianphrasebo00bishrich

Comparison

https://archive.org/details/ahy2548.0001.001.umich.edu

Hawaiian texts

https://archive.org/details/kabukeaoheluhelu00hono

https://archive.org/details/kabaibalahemolel00bibl

https://archive.org/details/hehoakakaolelono00emer

https://archive.org/details/kealakaioiahoihe00dina

https://archive.org/details/hemaukuhikuhipil00kels

Algebra book

https://archive.org/details/nahaawinamuaoka00bailrich

Bible

https://archive.org/details/gospelaccordingt00hawarich

https://archive.org/details/kekauohahoukokak00bibl

https://archive.org/details/hebukewehiwehihu00clar

https://archive.org/details/hebukewehiwehihu000clar

Hula songs

https://archive.org/details/unwrittenliterat1909emer

https://archive.org/details/unwritten00emer

https://archive.org/details/unwrittenlitera02emergoog

https://archive.org/details/unwrittenliterat20299gut

https://archive.org/details/cu31924026916415

English Lessons for Hawaiians

https://archive.org/details/englishlessonsfo00olesrich

English language accounts

https://archive.org/details/voyagearoundworl00camp

https://archive.org/details/contributionsofv00remy

Rajmaan (talk) 23:23, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Lexicostatistics

I'm removing the section talking about "lexicostatistics", as it is not accepted as reliable or credible by most linguists, and judging by this talk page I'm not the first person to object to it. -70.181.197.24 (talk) 09:35, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Oahu Dialect sic

i am wondering why a sic was placed after Oahu dialect? i don't see anything wrong with stating it is a different dialectDomsta333 (talk) 00:27, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

@Domsta333: Where on the page is it? --Thnidu (talk) 07:34, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Thindu, go to the Niiau section. Domsta333 (talk) 12:40, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

@Domsta333: Thanks, I see it now, and I'm about to remove it. -- Two 2½ bits of advice:

1. Unless you're sure that someone's watching a page, like their own Talk page, use Template: Ping or something similar when addressing them, to make sure they know your comment is there.
2. Double-check your spelling of their user name; best way is to copy and paste it. Even if you had used {{ping|thindu}}, I wouldn't have gotten a notification, because I'm thnidu, not thindu.
   1. Be careful with spelling in general, especially in foreign languages. The section is titled Niihau, with an "h" — not "Niiau".

--Thnidu (talk) 04:47, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

w ~ v

@174.70.104.122: You summarized your revision as

(Moved "w ~ v" from sonorant to fricative/sonorant to reflect a more accurate showing of the two sounds, similar to how t ~ k is in merged alveolar/velar elsewhere on the table.)

I'm reverting it because

1. it's unreferenced
   and
2. that makes it inconsistent with the main article, Hawaiian phonology.

--Thnidu (talk) 22:43, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

The sixth paragraph from the top of the page

Hello! I think that the sentence "the Hawaiian language takes its name from the largest island, Hawaii (Hawaiʻi in the Hawaiian language), in the tropical North Pacific archipelago where it developed, originally from a Polynesian language of the South Pacific, most likely Marquesan or Tahitian" should be revised, especially at the last part of the sentence as bolded, unless there is a reliable citation. Because the usage of "most likely" seems like an assumption without a backup source. What do you think?--Ha.nguyen7 (talk) 03:31, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Substratum.

Is there any substratum in Hawaiian? --Yomal Sidoroff-Biarmskii 12:53, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Written Hawaiian

In my opinion, the paragraph that discusses about the introduction of diseases could be elaborated a little later into this portion of the page. For example, the end of the following paragraph talks about the decrease in number of Hawaiian native speakers, this discussion would be a great follow-up as a reason. What do you think?--Ha.nguyen7 (talk) 03:52, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

After reading the article, I couldn't find any portion about the kākou. Is there one? If not, I would suggest it be added because it is a crucial part of the language

Bradenms (talk) 20:29, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

I agree with Braden, that there's nothing covering the topic about the kākou. Maybe find an article and elaborate on it so people who are curious about it can read about it too. Corinaquach (talk) 20:32, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

If you are referring to the kahakō (the thing that shows the vowel is long; e.g.: ē), it is mentioned in the orthography section later on. I recommend combining the sections on "Written Hawaiian" and "Orthography". Thanks for your comments, everybody! CatLizLee (talk) 20:08, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Neo Hawaiian vs Traditional Hawaiian

I am not familiar with the topic so cannot know where this falls wrt WP:FRINGE but I believe it merits more than one external link explaining the emergence of linguistic differences between revived and traditional Hawaiian. Catrìona (talk) 22:23, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Removal of information

The following information was removed due to lack of sources. You can help by citing and replacing the information. (Note: I am not an expert but most of it seems plausible).

In 1820, Protestant missionaries from New England arrived in Hawaiʻi, inspired by the presence of several young Hawaiian men, especially Obookiah (ʻŌpūkahaʻia), at the Foreign Mission School in Cornwall, Connecticut. The missionaries began to learn the Hawaiian language so that they could form relationships with the locals and publish a Hawaiian Bible. To that end, they developed a successful alphabet for Hawaiian by 1826, taught Hawaiians to read and write the language, published various educational materials in Hawaiian, and eventually finished translating the Bible. Missionaries also influenced King Kamehameha III to establish the first Hawaiian-language constitutions in 1839 and 1840.

The increase in travel to and from Hawaiʻi during the 19th century introduced a number of fatal illnesses such as smallpox, influenza, and leprosy, which killed large numbers of native speakers of Hawaiian. Meanwhile, native speakers of other languages, especially English, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, and Ilokano, continued to immigrate to Hawaiʻi. As a result, the actual number, as well as the percentage, of native speakers of Hawaiian in the local population decreased sharply, and continued to fall throughout the nineteenth century.

− − As the status of Hawaiian fell, the status of English in Hawaiʻi rose. In 1885, the Prospectus of the Kamehameha Schools announced that "instruction will be given only in English language" (see published opinion of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Doe v. Kamehameha Schools, case no. 04-15044, page 8928, filed August 2, 2005). Around 1900, students began to be punished for speaking Hawaiian in schools, and the number of native speakers of Hawaiian diminished from 37,000 at the turn of the twentieth century to 1,000 in 1997; half of these remaining are now in their seventies or eighties (see Ethnologue report below for citations). Due to immersion programs the number of speakers has risen to 24,000 according to the 2011 US census.

− − There has been some controversy over the reasons for this decline. One school of thought claims that the most important cause for the decline of the Hawaiian language was its voluntary abandonment by the majority of its native speakers. According to Mary Kawena Pukui, they wanted their own children to speak English, as a way to promote their success in a rapidly changing modern environment, so they refrained from using Hawaiian with their own children. The Hawaiian language schools disappeared as their enrollments dropped: parents preferred English language schools. Another school of thought emphasizes the importance of other factors that discouraged the use of the language, such as the fact that the English language was made the only medium of instruction in all schools in 1896 and the fact that schools punished the use of Hawaiian (see "Banning" of Hawaiian below.) General prejudice against ethnic Hawaiians (kanaka) has also been blamed for the decline of the language.

− − A new dictionary was published in 1957, a new grammar in 1979, and new second-language textbooks in 1951, 1965, 1977, and 1989. Master's theses and doctoral dissertations on specific facets of Hawaiian appeared in 1951, 1975, 1976, and 1996.

− −

Kaona or hidden meaning

− According to Mary Kawena Pukui and Samuel Elbert, kaona (kao-na) is a "Hidden meaning, as in Hawaiian poetry; concealed reference, as to a person, thing, or place; words with double meanings that might bring good or bad fortune." Pukui lamented, “in spite of years of dedicated work, it is impossible to record any language completely. How true this seems for Hawaiian, with its rich and varied background, its many idioms heretofore undescribed, and its ingenious and sophisticated use of figurative language.” On page xiii of the 1986 dictionary she warned: "Hawaiian has more words with multiple meanings than almost any other language. One wishing to name a child, a house, a T-shirt, or a painting, should be careful that the chosen name does not have a naughty or vulgar meaning. The name of a justly respectable children's school, Hana Hauʻoli, means happy activity and suggests a missionary author, but among older Hawaiians it has another, less 'innocent' meaning that should not concern little children. A Honolulu street (and formerly the name of a hotel) is Hale Leʻa 'joyous house', but leʻa also means orgasm."

− − Understanding the kaona of the language requires a comprehensive knowledge of Hawaiian legends, history and cosmology.

Hawaiian-language newspapers were published for over a hundred years, through the period of the suppression. Very few pro-Hawaiian papers made it through the period of the overthrow of the kingdom and the subsequent Act 57. Most papers that survived that period had a distinctly pro-U.S.Annexation perspective. Pukui & Elbert (1986:572) list fourteen Hawaiian newspapers. According to them, the newspapers entitled Ka Lama Hawaii and Ke Kumu Hawaii began publishing in 1834, and the one called Ka Hoku o Hawaii ceased publication in 1948. The longest run was that of Ka Nupepa Kuokoa: about 66 years, from 1861 to 1927.

Children are taught Hawaiian as a first language, and learn English at about age eight. Reasons for the language's predominance on this island include:

• Niʻihau has been privately owned for over 100 years;

−

• visiting by outsiders has been only rarely allowed;

−

• the European-American owners/managers of the island have favored the Niʻihauans' continuation of their language;

−

• and, most of all, because the Niʻihau speakers themselves have naturally maintained their own native language, even though they sometimes use English as a second language for school.

− − Native speakers of Niʻihau Hawaiian have three distinct modes of speaking Hawaiian:

−

1. an imitation and adaptation to "standard" Hawaiian;

−

1. a native Niʻihau dialect that is significantly different from "standard" Hawaiian, including extensive use of palatalization and truncation, and differences in diphthongization, vowel raising, and elision;

−

1. a manner of speaking among themselves which is so different from "standard" Hawaiian that it is unintelligible to non-Niʻihau speakers of Hawaiian.

− − The last mode of speaking may be further restricted to a certain subset of Niʻihauans, and is rarely even overheard by non-Niʻihauans. In addition to being able to speak Hawaiian in several different registers, most Niʻihauans can speak English as well.

References for Removal of information

Reflist added by Peaceray (talk) 17:24, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Catrìona (talk • contribs) 16:59:55, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

Ordering the letters of the Hawaiian alphabet

I believe it was originally A-E-H-I-K-L-M-N-O-P-U-W, but for some reason the order changed one day. When was this?? Georgia guy (talk) 17:59, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

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• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20061012031659/http://www.ling.sinica.edu.tw/publish/LL2.1-15-Li-supplement.pdf to http://www.ling.sinica.edu.tw/publish/LL2.1-15-Li-supplement.pdf
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100209071913/http://wold.livingsources.org/vocabulary/30 to http://wold.livingsources.org/vocabulary/30
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• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100531191931/http://www.mauimagazine.net/Maui-Magazine/May-June-2008/Hale-Pai/ to http://www.mauimagazine.net/Maui-Magazine/May-June-2008/Hale-Pai/

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Sorry to be a pedant but..

Sorry to be a pedant but this article says that for various reasons, Hawaian waned from the 1830s to the 1950s, but there was increased interest in the language from 1949. Would this mean that the article should say that Hawaian waned from the 1830s to the 1940s?Vorbee (talk) 17:28, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

'Ōlelo Hawaiʻi' Language Revitalization Efforts

I am interested in 'Ōlelo Hawaiʻi', specifically the current language revitalization efforts, should this be a whole new page, or a section in the history segment of this page? SonrisasdeSocorro (talk) 23:06, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Hawaiian Duolingo course

The recent launch of a Hawaiian language Duolingo course must merit a mention in the revival section? Culloty82 (talk) 18:26, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

How many speakers?

The text says

Today, there are about 1,000 native Hawaiian speakers and around 8,000 people who can speak and understand the language fluently according to the UCLA Language Materials Project.

The infobox says

speakers = ~24,000

date = 2008

This is a non-trivial difference, about 3 to 1. Which is right?

--Thnidu (talk) 04:08, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

The 1,000 number is outdated. The 24,000 number is closer to what it is today.

129.67.117.243 (talk) 22:12, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Orthography: Glottal Stop: History

Some of what was written here seemed outdated to me. Specifically:

Today, many native speakers of Hawaiian do not bother, in general, to write any symbol for the glottal stop. Its use is advocated mainly among students and teachers of Hawaiian as a second language, and among linguists.

The reference was published in 1994 and overlooks the explosion of Hawaiian speakers coming out of the language revitalization movement, who tend to use glottal stops in their writing. I've updated the text above with the following:

Subsequent dictionaries and written material associated with the Hawaiian language revitalization have preferred to use this symbol, the ʻokina, to better represent spoken Hawaiian. Nonetheless, excluding the ʻokna may be easier to interface with English-oriented media, or even be preferred stylistically by some Hawaiian speakers, in homage to 19th century written texts. So there is variation today in the use of this symbol.

129.67.117.243 (talk) 22:31, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

References

Use of cquote

The use of cquote lends unhdue weight to the quotes it is used on, and is contrary to the WP:MOS, specifically, MOS:BLOCKQUOTE. The undue weight violates WP:NPOV Unless ther eis a policy-based reason to use cquote, I will remove it again, as merely "repect previous editor's preference" is not valid when that preference violates policy. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 01:37, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Language revitalization

I recently heard an interesting article about the difficulties and pitfalls of the Hawaiian language revitalization. Might be something to use for this article: https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-07-28/last-native-speakers-hawaiian --87.150.2.173 (talk) 19:09, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

This would be a good section to add to this article. Here is some information I would add under Language Revitalization: Native Hawaiian children have the opportunity to attend primary school and high school taught completely in Hawaiian. Most teachers in these schools learned Hawaiian as a second language through the University of Hawai'i. Hawaiian immersion schools teach content that both adheres to state standards and stresses Hawaiian culture and values. The existence of immersion schools in Hawai'i have developed the opportunity for intergenerational transmission of Hawaiian at home. Starsandgalaxies (talk) 03:10, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

References

On an online Hawaiian dictionary

http://web.archive.org/web/20210211011424/http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2004/Apr/04/ln/ln21a.html/?print=o talks about Ulukau, an online Hawaiian dictionary WhisperToMe (talk) 17:18, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Kaisyj172.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 23:09, 16 January 2022 (UTC)