E Ola Mau Ka Olelo Hawaii: The Future of Native Hawaiian Language

“E ola mau ka olelo Hawai’i” (long live the language of Hawai’i) is the motto for all children and teachers who are associated with the Punanaleo and Kulakaiapuni Hawaiian Language Immersion Schools throughout the state of Hawaii. Growth and success of this program can be traced to the same success in other countries in preserving their native languages which at one time were almost extinct much like here with the Native Hawaiian Language. The culture began to revive its ancient practices and now grows to blend with contemporary times. There is a concern that this program will not benefit all children because some of them will have difficulty adjusting to two ways of teaching at the same time. However, Immersion schools continue to be of great demand and spread across the state. Hawai’i should definitely support the spread of immersion language schools to provide more opportunities for the students to learn and preserve the language and culture of Hawai’i. Immersion schools in Hawai’i are successful because the organizers first studied the immersion schools that had already existed in other countries. Immersion schools are defined as places of education where a student is totally immersed in an inherent language but learning the courses and classes of a conventional program. The Maori language of New Zealand was in jeopardy so immersion schools began (May, Hill and Tiakiwai) In New Zealand and between the 1930’s and 1960’s, the number if Maori that could speak in their native tounge dropped from about 96.6 percent to only 26 percent (“Bilingual Education in Aotearoa”). There was a whole generation of Maori who didn’t know how to speak their language. This led leaders to fear that Maori would become a dead language unless serious efforts to revive the language and encourage more people to speak Maori again. Their serious efforts to educate by immersion programs began in 1980’s (May, Hill and Tiakiwai). This was also the case in Canada when many of the