Current Situation and Endangerment

A Brief History of the Endangerment of Hawaiian

Hawaii's first exposure to European settlers came in the form of Captain James Cook who made contact with the islands in 1778. Before this, the Hawaiian language was strictly oral. It had no writing system. However, as with every other landmass Europeans had come across, Hawaii was soon introduced to Christianity. An alphabet and writing system was created in order to translate the Bible. 

An image of Captain James Cook (Wikipedia) 

Swayed by its new European influence, Hawaii functioned as a monarchy from 1795 until 1893 when Queen Liliuokalani was overthrown in a coup porganized by European businessmen. 

An image of Queen Liliuokalani (Wikipedia)

Soon after, Hawaii was annexed by the United States in 1898. Although the Hawaiian language was never explicitly outlawed, it was banned specifically in schools and within the government. Since Hawaiian children were no longer using their native language in school, and because of further exposure and business with the U.S. who spoke mostly English, there was no longer any need for the language. Hawaiian began to die out.

 (Wikipedia) 

Hawaiian's Contact with Other Languages

Obviously, being a US state, Englush has had the biggest impact on the Hawaiian langugae, and not in a good way. The United States governemnt, once they gained legal posession of the islands, banned Hawaiian within both schools and the government. 

Language endangerment begins when a native language is no longer being taught to the youngest generation, and that is exactly what happened when Hawaiian was banned from schools. Although the native language was still legal to use at home, a child's home life is only a small portion of people they interract with and speak to on a daily basis. 

Similarly, a nation's dominant language is normally one that is associated with power and success. Since the Hawaiian language was banned from use within the government, it became known as a "lesser" or "weaker" language. The most powerful peoiple associated with Hawaii spoke English, not Hawaiian. 

Hawaiian Pidgin

Second only to tourism, sugar and sugarcane are the second largest source of income for Hawaii. Even today, laborers from all around the world work in and on these plantations. The interaction of so many people who spoke multiple different languages eventually created what is known today as Hawaiian Pidgin. Hawaiian Pidgin is a creole language composed of Chinese, Portugese, Japanese, Korean, Puerto Rican, Russian, Spainish, and Philippino. 

(Wikipedia) (www.hawaii.edu)

Threats to the Language

Tourism

Hawaii is known worldwide as a great vacation spot. In fact, tourism is Hawaii's number one source of income. Unfortunately, the impact that it's had on the native Hawaiian culture has not been positive. Hawaiian culture has become staged in order to make it entertaining for tourists. The language and the culture have been so engrained into tourism that for many native Hawaiians, neither carries any meaning anymore. Author Trask Haunani-Kay puts it this way, "The place, the people, the culture, even our identity as a 'Native' people are for sale. Thus the word "aloha" is employed as an aid in the constant hawking of things Hawaiian. In truth, this use of aloha is so far removed from any Hawaiian cultural context that it is, literally, meaningless." (Tourism and the Prostitution of Hawaiian Culture).

(edepot.wur.nl) (culturalsurvival.org)

Below are two images, one of Wakiki Beach, one of the most popular Hawaiian tourist attractions and one of Kamokila, a native Hawaiian village.

(www.islands.com)

(villagekauai.com)

Hawaiian Pidgin

This Creole language has gained a lot of popularity. Not only has it become widespread, but its speaker population has begun to overtake that of the Hawaiian speaking population.  

Statehood

Hawaii became a US territory in the year 1900 and the 50th US state in 1959. With so much influence over the small group of islands, English was thrust upon Hawaii and hasn't left. The monster language with millions of speakers threatens to wipe out Hawaiian.

An image of the Hawaiian state flag from (Wikipedia)

Dwindling Numbers

According to worldpopulationreview.com thanks to the results of the US Census taken in 2010, the population of Hawaii is estimated to be around 1,412,690 in 2020. 

Unfortunately, despite the millions living on the 8 islands, as of 2016 the Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism (DBEDT) for the state of Hawaii estimates that there are only 18,610 speakers of Hawaiian. That means that only 1.3% of the population speaks Hawaiian.  

(worldpopulationreview.com) (files.hawaii.com)

Endangerment Scales

UNESCO has created two different rankings from 0 to 5, each with different criteria, to determine the severity of a language's endangerment. One scale rates the severity of endangerment, in broadest of terms, based on the average age of native speakers and wether or not the language is being passed down to the youngest generation. The second scale, in broadest terms, determines a language's severity of endangerment based on the proportion of native speajers compared to the overall population of that community.  

Below are the two endangerment scakes mentioned above (sayitfirst.ca)

Hawaiian today has been implemented into all public schools, so the younger generation uses it, but think of it as learning a foreign lanuage at school. You probably learn enough to pass a test, then forget everything you learned because you don't use it outside of that class. Because English and Hawaiian Pidgin have become so widespread, this is the case for many of the school-age generation. Again, with the implamentation of English, the generation in the workforce prefer that language to Hawaiian because English is associated with better business and more money. That being said, It's really only the grandparent and older generations that consistently use Hawaiian.

As stated before, the population of Hawaiian speakers to the entire Hawaiian population is dangerously low. On the first scale, I would put Hawaiian at a 2 and at a 1 on the second scale. This brings the average rank to 1.5, making Hawaiian somewhere between severely and critically endangered.