03-15-2014, 09:30 AM
As a side note...
There are many very local areas where Hawaiian IS the spoken language... most of us forget that speaking Hawaiian in public & esp. at school, was not only frowned upon, but forbidden, It is a very new thing (less than 2 generations) that it has not only been taught in school but encouraged in public.
Families here are now able to not only speak Hawaiian at home, but to have their children educated in immersion schools. Although many look at this as the 're-birth' of this language, it is more correctly the public re-interest in a language that has survived and progressed.
In this multi-culture, multi national tourist area, it might be that we do not notice when a speaker is speaking one particular language, as I have heard Hawaiian spoken on the bus, at WallyWorld, at the beach, and at the university... in fact, I hear it far more often than French & German...granted that proves nothing more than I do not hear that many French or German people talking to each other...
There are many very local areas where Hawaiian IS the spoken language... most of us forget that speaking Hawaiian in public & esp. at school, was not only frowned upon, but forbidden, It is a very new thing (less than 2 generations) that it has not only been taught in school but encouraged in public.
Families here are now able to not only speak Hawaiian at home, but to have their children educated in immersion schools. Although many look at this as the 're-birth' of this language, it is more correctly the public re-interest in a language that has survived and progressed.
In this multi-culture, multi national tourist area, it might be that we do not notice when a speaker is speaking one particular language, as I have heard Hawaiian spoken on the bus, at WallyWorld, at the beach, and at the university... in fact, I hear it far more often than French & German...granted that proves nothing more than I do not hear that many French or German people talking to each other...