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Hawaiian is a Polynesian language that was historically spoken by the native people of Hawaii. It matters as a significant part of Hawaiian cultural identity and heritage, though it had experienced decline and is now the subject of revitalization efforts.
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Hawaiian (ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi, pronounced [ʔoːˈlɛlo həˈvɐiʔi]) is a critically endangered Polynesian language of the Austronesian language family, originating in and native to the Hawaiian Islands. It is the historic native language of the Hawaiian people. Hawaiian, along with English, is an official language of the U.S. state of Hawaiʻi. King Kamehameha III established the first Hawaiian-language constitution in 1839 and 1840.
In 1896, the Republic of Hawaii passed Act 57, an English-only law which subsequently banned Hawaiian language as the medium of instruction in publicly funded schools and promoted strict physical punishment for children caught speaking the Hawaiian language in schools. The Hawaiian language was not again allowed to be used as a medium of instruction in Hawaii's public schools until 1987, a span of 91 years. The number of native speakers of Hawaiian gradually decreased during the period from the 1830s to the 1950s. English essentially displaced Hawaiian on six of seven inhabited islands. In 2001, native speakers of Hawaiian amounted to less than 0.1% of the statewide population.
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18th-century establishments in North AmericaAnalytic languagesCritically endangered languagesEndangered Austronesian languagesEndangered languages of OceaniaEndangered languages of the United StatesHawaiian languageIndigenous languages of HawaiiLanguage articles citing Ethnologue 25Language articles with Linguasphere codeLanguages attested from the 18th century