When the first missionaries arrived in Hawaii in 1820, they converted the oral Hawaiian language to a written language so that they were able to convey the messages of the Bible to the Hawaiian people.īy 1826, the missionaries had created a Hawaiian alphabet. They noticed that the language was similar to Tahitian and Maori. ![]() Cook and his men recorded the Hawaiian language for the first time in 1778. ![]() History of the Hawaiian Languageīefore Captain Cook's arrival in Hawaii in 1778, Hawaiian was strictly an oral language. Nevertheless, only about 0.1% of the people who live in Hawaii speak its native tongue today. Hawaiian is being taught in language immersion schools, and one can even obtain a Master's degree in the Hawaiian language from the University of Hawaii. ![]() However, a Hawaiian language “renaissance” has occurred over the past 40 years, and today more people are interested in learning the language again. The Hawaiian language has had a tumultuous history and was at one point even expected to be extinct by the end of the 20th century. ![]() The Hawaiian language (ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi) is one of the oldest living languages in the world.
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