Languages In the World (34 page)

As of 2001, native speakers of Hawaiian accounted for less than 0.1% of the population. In recent years, a Hawaiian language revival has been on the way. Although the number of native speakers today – estimated at 8000 – is still small, it is growing. The revival has
been successful for a number of reasons that are particular to the history and culture of Hawai‘i.

First, there still exist populations known as
kipuka
who live in areas bypassed by development and non-Hawaiian settlements, and who have maintained the traditional way of life, which necessarily means maintaining the use of Hawaiian in daily life. The island of Ni‘ihau, in particular, has retained native speakers, because it has been privately owned since 1864 and is not open to outsiders. The island of Ni‘ihau is the only place in the world where Hawaiian is the first language and English the foreign language.

Second, there is a 20% native population by ancestry that makes for a powerful voting bloc when it comes to deciding the use of public funds for creating and maintaining immersion schools and the necessary Hawaiian language materials to go along with those schools. The curricula of these schools are based on traditional cultural practices (chanting, fishing, taro farming, canoeing) but also include modern features, such as sports teams. Furthermore, there is another 40–50% of the population who historically came from other regions in the Pacific (as opposed to the mainland United States). This population is sympathetic to preserving island culture, one that has survived in spite of colonization and Westernization, such that there exists a strong local sense of dress, food, and customs, in short, a sense of “Hawaiian-ness.”

Third, and most important in this context, is the ideology about the Hawaiian language that is in play – and it is almost the opposite of the ideology that surrounds many Native American languages on the mainland in at least two ways:

1. There is no federally recognized Hawaiian political identity, which means there is no issue of tribal identity or unique ownership of language. Already in the nineteenth century, with diverse populations arriving on the island, there was a sense of openness, such that those incoming populations at first learned Hawaiian (while later generations shifted to English). The lack of ownership makes it easier for a language to revive in a population with diverse backgrounds, especially one that already has a sense of Hawaiian-ness. Language then serves as a strengthener of a culture that is already there, rather than as a lifeline to rescue a dying culture.
   
2. Hawaiian culture lacks the strong elder-orientation found in many Native American cultures. Although Hawaiians do respect their elders, there is less of a sense of deference to the elders' wisdom and therefore more of an openness to integrating aspects of modern life without feeling that the new – having football teams in high schools, using the latest technology – threatens traditional life. This openness has made the Hawaiian language more accessible and attractive to the younger generation (Cowell 2012).
   

Finally, it is good news for the Hawaiian revival that there are now radio stations that broadcast in Hawaiian as well as ‘Ōiwi TV that reaches over 220,000 households.

Classify the following 30 languages according to the language families presented in this chapter. Provide at least one branch in your classification (e.g., Polish is in the Slavic branch of Indo-European). In addition, name at least one place (city, province, nation, etc.) where the language is spoken.

• Afrikaans
  
• Aymara
  
• Cebuano
  
• Chamorro
  
• Chukchi
  
• Dyirbal
  
• Fijian
  
• Gujarati
  
• Hausa
  
• Kannad'a
  
• Khmer
  
• Lithuanian
  
• Luo
  
• Malagasy
  
• Maltese
  
• Maninka
  
• Miskito
  
• Mohawk
  
• Navajo
  
• Oriya
  
• Otomí
  
• Papiamentu
  
• Pirahã
  
• Somali
  
• Tajik
  
• Tigrinya
  
• Tok Pisin
  
• Uyghur
  
• Welsh
  
• Xhosa
  

Sketch a map depicting the full reach of Indo-European from the Indian Subcontinent in the East to the British Isles in the West. Use a different color to sketch the following branches: Albanian, Armenian, Balto-Slavic, Celtic, Germanic, Hellenic, Indo-Iranian, Italic. Label as many languages in each branch where they are spoken.

1. Discussions of the human genome are rarely found in books whose primary subject matter is language. Was its inclusion here surprising to you? What does it do for your understanding of human language to consider it in this context?
   

2. What is the value of historical linguistic reconstruction? What can the work of philologists tell us about historical population movements? What can the work of philologists tell us about culture?
   

3. Why are all models of representing historical relationships among languages necessarily imperfect ones? How does this inform your understanding about what language is?
   

4. Why are linguists especially interested in studying language isolates?