Old Habits Die Hard

I recently read a report (there is a summary of it in the January newsletter of Ogmios) on the state of the Hawaiian language in Hawaii. I was shocked at how few people speak Hawaiian. I was also shocked to learn that Hawaiian was not taught in public schools, and until recently not even in private schools (which explains why so few people speak it). I always thought that most native Hawaiians spoke the language. Whenever you see Hawaii on TV or in movies, the people always seem to use the local lingo to describe things, or use colorful phrases for the tourists. I don't believe everything I see on TV but Puerto Rico is a US territory and everyone there speaks Spanish as well as English, so I, and probably everyone else, assumed it was the same in Hawaii. I was wrong.

The 'Old Habits' I'm referring to in the title belong to the US government. Until very recently, it was actually illegal to teach Hawaiian in public schools, except as a foreign language. And even then, it didn't get a whole lot of support. This is a policy left over from the imperialist days of the late 1800's and early 1900's when the US government sought to squash any streaks of nationalism in it's newly acquired territories. I'm not suggesting that the US government necesarily fears this nationalism today, but rather the inertia of it's bloated bureaucracy prevents reversing this and similarly ridiculous and anachronistic laws without an
enormous effort from someone. It usually takes a large and motivated popular movement to create that change. The Hawaiians seem to be doing just that.

What shocks me most is not that governments do this, or have trouble undoing what they have done, but that people let it happen. Within just a few generations, there are now only a few thousand native fluent speakers of the language. Not only was it not taught in schools, but it was abandoned in the home, too. It's not surprising that people would choose to learn a language (in this case English) out of necesity for survival, but it is shocking that people would completely abandon their native tongue for it. The US government made it illegal to teach the language in public schools as a native tongue, but didn't ban its use altogether. The Hawaiians themselves let that happen. We all know that the situation was similar (or worse) among the native Americans on the continent, but do they have the political ability or will to do as the Hawaiians have begun to do? Doubtful. Hundreds of languages of North America have been lost forever, and many more are facing extinction. I don't know yet what I can do to help, other than create
awareness of this ongoing problem.

I've added a second Language Tips page, as one was just getting too unwieldy.