Indigenous Language and Culture Revitalization

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10790/4584

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Language, politics, and ideology in Hawaiian language newspaper discourse between 1893 and 1901
(University of Hawaii at Hilo, 2025-05) McGrath, Roy; Ohara, Yumiko; Indigenous Language and Culture Revitalization
This thesis examines how the complex multilingualism of late 19th century Hawaiian society was implicated in the political dynamics of that period. 495 Hawaiian language newspaper articles published between 1893 and 1901 that discussed the sociolinguistic landscape of the time were gathered together into a discourse corpus and analyzed qualitatively using Critical Discourse Analysis methodologies. This research project shows that the contours of linguistic difference across 19th century Hawaiian society, and the barriers to power that they engendered were manipulated strategically by speakers of both Hawaiian and English to their own political benefit. Both languages presented themselves as boundaries to communication, and thus boundaries to ideology, and were used as such to extend, perpetuate, or subvert political power. This study makes some reflective conclusions that relate the findings of this study to the Hawaiian language revitalization movement, namely that the question of language in Hawaiʻi was always and primarily a political one, and any meaningful discussion of the current Hawaiian language revitalization movement must take into account its long and complex political history.
Wóuŋspe Wólakȟota: Pté Sáŋ Wíŋ Tȟa Wóksápe kiŋ Iyóȟlogya Lakȟól Wóophiič'iye kiŋ Sápa Úŋ Hukhúčiyela Owáyawa waŋ Él Églepi (2018-2020)
(University of Hawaii at Hilo, 2024-12) RAMA, MATTHEW; Wilson, William; Indigenous Language and Culture Revitalization
Wówapi Iwóglakela Wówapi kiŋ lé él, Maȟpíya Lúta Owáyawa eyápi kiŋ hé é na oúŋyaŋpi waŋ él yukȟáŋ čha iwówaglake. Hé Sápauŋ iyéčhiŋka-iglúha owáyawa héčha na Wazí Aháŋhaŋ Oyáŋke étu weló. Oúŋyaŋpi k’uŋ hé Pté Sáŋ Wíŋ ečíyapi kiŋ hé é na tȟa-wóuŋspe kiŋ etáŋhaŋ hiyú. Eháŋk’ehaŋ, wóksape úŋ, Pté Sáŋ Wíŋ k’uŋ Lakȟóta Oyáte kiŋ wóopȟe na wičhóȟ’aŋ wakȟáŋ wičhákahi, na ečhél wólakȟolya úŋpi waŋ étkiya awíčhaye. Maȟpíya Lúta Owáyawa kiŋ lé tákuni ákhilečheča šni, na líla wóali óta, yuŋkȟáŋ wówapi kiŋ lé él tȟa wówičala é na tȟa wóečhuŋ é na tȟa wóphiič’iye kiŋ iwówaglake. Tȟokéya owáyawa kiŋ tókheškhe eháŋni úŋ kiŋ iwówaglakiŋ na heháŋl tókheškhe leháŋl úŋ kiŋ iwówaglake. 2018 k’uŋ héhaŋ, Wóopȟe Šakówiŋ wóečhuŋ eyápi waŋ ahíglepi, wayáwa kiŋ wičhákičiyuwáštepi kta čha, na nakúŋ Lakȟól’iyapi úŋ wayáwa kiŋ óta waúŋspewičhákhiyapi. Owáyawa kiŋ ptaŋyétu 2018 heháŋtaŋhaŋ, wétu 2020 heháŋyaŋ iwáŋblakiŋ na iwówaglake. Owáyawa-oúŋyaŋpi k’uŋ iyówalwayiŋ na héčhel wóokaȟniǧe wakhúwa kte, na táku oblúȟloke kiŋ yunáyewayiŋ kte, Ikčé Oyáte tȟa wóuŋspe na Sápauŋ wóuŋspe étkiya, na tókheškhe íčhikȟoyake kiŋ hé. Na agná, táku iyéwaye k’uŋ tȟokátakiya owáyawa wóuŋspe na wóečhuŋ tuktétu k’éyaš íŋyaŋke kiŋ ikȟóyagwayiŋ kte. Héčheš tókheškhe ečhúŋk’uŋpi yuŋkȟáŋ ikčé- wakȟáŋyeža etáŋ makȟówaŋčaya owáyawa él wayáwapi héči hená ówičhuŋkiyapi na taŋyáŋ tȟóuŋyaŋpi gluhá waúŋspewičhúŋkhiyapi kte ló.
Icepansiunkiciyapi: Winuna Se Establishing Women-led Dakota Language Domains
(University of Hawaii at Hilo, 2023-05) Griffin, Erin Amanda; Kawaiaea, Keiki; Indigenous Language and Culture Revitalization
Ohinni Dakota iapi. Wanna anpetu iyohi Dakota iapi kin wounhdakapi uncinpi. This dissertation focuses on the strengths of Dakota womanhood as a catalyst for us to begin speaking the Dakota language across Dakota communities. Dakota Wowicohan the Dakota Way of Life and the seasons provide two critical approaches that frame and guide this research to establish a deeper context and understanding of the findings. Movement through time and space with this framework explores our relationship with the Dakota language since before contact and into the future. With intention, this story starts with the strengths of Dakota womanhood and Dakota identity in relation to creation, land, and kinship. An analysis of the colonization of the Dakota language and the experiences of Dakota women through historic and linguistic documents offers an understanding of how both shifted with colonization and assimilation. The strengths of Dakota womanhood and historic impacts are situated to offer context and lead into a broad description of Dakota language revitalization efforts, illuminating the complexities of this movement and an understanding of its current state and outcomes. This view of Dakota women’s strength and identity and the impact on those and the Dakota language over time situates this research in a position to design new approaches to not only Dakota language revitalization, but Dakota iapi kin wounhdakapi speaking the Dakota language. Utilizing the lessons of the past, Icepansiunkiciyapi Winuna Se is presented here as a method for learning and speaking the Dakota language through the strengths of Dakota womanhood. The implications of this research reveal systemic challenges, but also a pathway to Dakota iapi kin wounhdakapi kte to speak the Dakota language with each other.
The Role of Adult Immersion in Kanien’kéha Revitalization
(University of Hawaii at Hilo, 2023-05) DeCaire, Ryan Oheróhskon; Saft, Scott L.; Wilson, William H.; Indigenous Language and Culture Revitalization
In the face of colonial efforts to extinguish Indigenous language and culture, Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk people) have been working to revitalize Kanien’kéha (the Mohawk language) since the 1970s. However, Kanien’kéha continues to experience greater speaker loss than gain. Through a comprehensive vitality assessment, this dissertation examines the continued causes of Kanien’kéha decline and argues that adult second-language (L2) speakers play a crucial role in revitalization as they are essential for establishing critical speech domains, populating language revitalization structures, and restoring intergenerational language transmission. Kanien’kehá:ka have created full-time adult immersion programs that are uniquely designed to create advanced young adult L2 speakers. This dissertation highlights adult immersion as the most effective and expedient pathway to create speakers, and argues that concentrated efforts to strengthen, expand, and perfect adult immersion are essential in advancing Kanien’kéha revitalization. The foundational components of an effective adult immersion program are described, as well as the challenges that these programs continue to face. As an applied contribution, this dissertation also provides a scope and sequenced curriculum organized into structurally-based units for the second-year of Kanien’kéha immersion programming, a period in program delivery that moves L2 speakers from intermediate to advanced speaking proficiency. Overall, this work seeks to increase recognition and understanding of the importance of adult immersion programs for so that they can become more prominent and stable institutions in strategies to revitalize Indigenous languages.
KANÓN’SEN, REVIVING, REVITALIZING, AND REAWAKENING A DORMANT PRACTICE AND LANGUAGE AMONGST THE ROTINONHSIÓN:NI PEOPLE
(University of Hawaii at Hilo, 2023-05) hemlock, kanentokon; Saft, Scott; Indigenous Language and Culture Revitalization
This dissertation provides a critical analysis of Rotinonhsión:ni tattooing history and traditions that have gone dormant over two centuries ago, and it also describes the work that has inspired the revival into Rotinonhsión:ni society in the 21st century. Onkwehón:we research methodologies such as Irocentrism, Voiceability, and Storywork have all been utilized in the process of gathering and analyzing the information associated with Rotinonhsión:ni tattooing traditions, and the efforts being undertaken to revitalize the practice in a culturally congruent manner. Several parts of this work are provided as an auto-ethnography, as my personal experiences as a scholar practitioner in the tattoo revival for the Kanien’kehá:ka and Rotinonhsión:ni are interconnected to this body of research.Many different movements and experiences associated with Kanien’kehá:ka and Rotinonhsión:ni language and culture revitalization, as well as struggles for self-determination are described in this research. These actions show the historic pathways that were created which led to the revival efforts currently being undertaken today to reinvigorate Rotinonhsión:ni tattooing traditions. The description of these movements, experiences and struggles provides a glimpse into the epistemology, cosmology, ontology, and axiology that make up the Rotinonhsión:ni culture and traditions that continues today. This dissertation is the first comprehensive collection and analysis of Rotinonhsión:ni and Kanien’kehá:ka tattooing traditions from a Kanien’kehá:ka perspective and place. This is a first step toward telling our story as Onkwehón:we who are working to breathe life back into a practice that was lost to us for over two centuries.
Ka Unuhi ʻIa ʻAna O Nā Palapala Hemolele Kūmau ʻEhā O Ka ʻEkalesia O Iesū Kristo O Ka Poʻe Hoʻāno O Nā Lā Hope Nei I Loko O Ka ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi
(University of Hawaii at Hilo, 2021-08) Housman, April; Perreira, Hiapokeikikāne K.; Indigenous Language and Culture Revitalization
This dissertation focuses on four standard works used in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) and the Reformed Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (RLDS)—The Holy Bible, The Book of Mormon, The Doctrine and Covenants, and The Pearl of Great Price—which were translated into the Hawaiian language between 1828 and 1914 when Hawaiian was the language spoken by the majority of the population. The Hawaiian translations of the latter two books are out of print, but through the research of this dissertation and the concerted effort of volunteers, digital copies are now widely accessible to anyone in the world. The first section is an account regarding the history of three main groups of missionaries who arrived in Hawaiʻi—the Calvinists in 1820, the LDS missionaries in 1850 and the RLDS missionaries in 1890—concentrating on their translation of the holy scriptures, the translation processes used and the key people involved. The second section expounds on “hua lekikona” known as lexical items borrowed from ancient contexts along with newly created words. Many of the religious terms found in the scriptures are not available in dictionaries, and not easily accessible to families who speak Hawaiian. Therefore a comparitive analysis of language found in scriptures is presented as a means to contribute to the revitalization of Hawaiian in the religious domain. Lastly, new revised copies of The Doctrine and Covenants and The Pearl of Great Price in Hawaiian using modern orthography are included in the appendices.
KA NAʻI AUPUNI: THE EMERGENCE AND DEVELOPMENT OF A TRUE HAWAIIAN LEADER
(University of Hawaii at Hilo, 2020-12) Warfield, Shadd Keahi; Wilson, William H.; Indigenous Language and Culture Revitalization
This study explores a primary historical biography authored by Joseph Mokuʻōhai Poepoe entitled “Kamehameha I: Ka Liona O Ka Moana Pakipika.” Poepoe published the first of his series of articles on November 27, 1905 and concluded on November 16, 1906 within the Hawaiian periodical Ka Na’i Aupuni. The purpose of this study focused on thirty-seven of 288 articles in this series, that after careful translation, interpretation and analysis were utilized to inform the researcher of the contributing factors that led to the emergence of Kamehameha as a leader. This study analyzed these first thirty-seven articles that reflect Kamehameha’s birth through early adulthood years as written by Poepoe. This study aims to: 1) inform indigenous practitioners, teachers, students, and Hawaiian communities of the additional value offered through utilizing primary Hawaiian source documentation as a data source and 2) develop a deeper understanding and appreciation beyond translation of Hawaiian texts for the purpose of enhancing Hawaiian leadership. The research inquiry that guided the study was: 1. Can we learn from primary source documents what factors if any contributed to the development of Kamehameha as a leader? 2. Can moʻolelo presented through primary Hawaiian language documents contribute vital information on a concept, i.e., leadership through a historical character (Kamehameha), and assist us in learning about the development of leadership? 3. What themes emerged in the series of articles that identified and supported these characteristics of Kamehameha’s development as a leader? Through the parameters of the thirty-seven articles analyzed for this study, Kamehameha was raised and mentored under the supervision of three key family members: Naeʻole, Alapaʻinui and Kalaniʻōpuʻu. Three themes also emerge as the premise of the foundation for Kamehameha’s leadership development: family, values and mentoring/training. The findings of this study underscore “learned values” that emerge from within an extended family system that can enhance knowledge and applications of Hawaiian and indigenous leadership development within the twenty-first century and beyond.
I LĀLĀ MAU NĀ HULA ILALAOLE, HE KĀLAILAINA I NĀ KUHI LIMA O NĀ HULA A JOSEPH KEALIIKUIKAMOKU ILALAOLE-O-KAMEHAMEHA
(University of Hawaii at Hilo, 2020-05) Harman, Kekoa L.; Iokepa-Guerrero, Noelani; Indigenous Language and Culture Revitalization
This dissertation analyzes the kuhi lima, hand motions that accompany hula chants, within the 18 hula developed by Joseph Kealiikuikamoku Ilalaole-o-Kamehameha. Ilalaole, a native Hawaiian speaker and a descendant of Kamehameha I, was born in 1873 in Kaueleau, Puna, Hawaiʻi. Ilalaole’s hula are significant in that they both honor his royal lineage and, given their continued relevance, serve as a bridge between 19th century and contemporary culture. His hula constitute an influential canon within traditional Hawaiian dance and, while this dissertation focuses on these 18 hula specifically, it aims more broadly to provide a template for scholars of indigenous languages to better understand the relationship between language, culture, and dance. Prior scholarship on dance has primarily utilized labanotation. The challenge of documenting indigenous dance through labanotation, however, is that such a method may preclude contemporary indigenous language speakers as well as some hula practitioners from actually utilizing such scholarship given the more esoteric format of labanotation. This dissertation aims to provide a more accessible frame of reference, namely still images of the kuhi lima, for understanding traditional hula. The first portion of my research consisted of compiling the lyrics, as well as researching the historical context surrounding such lyrics, of each of Ilalaole’s 18 chants. These lyrics are the foundation of the dances themselves and hula could not exist without such lyrics. The lyrics imbue the corresponding movements with meaning. The kuhi lima along with the au wāwae, foot movements, provide the concrete, visual focus that emphasizes the meaning of the lyrics that are so deliberately chanted during the hula. The second portion of my analysis encompassed the filming of each of the dances and of identifying the huaʻōlelo, the words of the chants, that are emphasized through the kuhi lima. Still images from that filming are used throughout this dissertation to illustrate the relationship between the huaʻōlelo and the kuhi lima. While a traditional dance cannot have a corresponding motion for each huaʻōlelo, the particular huaʻōlelo emphasized, and the physical manifestation of that huaʻōlelo, may provide some insight into how a native Hawaiian speaker understood and engaged with the 19th century world. As the focus of this dissertation is the intersection of indigenous language, culture, and dance, it is the hope that this research imparts energy and momentum to future scholars in those disciplines so that they may further strengthen the Hawaiian language, the primary fiber that binds the character, outward behaviors, and traditional practices that together comprise the essence of Hawaiian being.
The Oral Literacy Approach
(University of Hawaii at Hilo, 2020-05) Green, Jeremy D.; Wilson, William; Indigenous Language and Culture Revitalization
Since 1998 reversal of language shift efforts (Fishman, 1991) at Six Nations of the Grand River Country (Ohsweken, Ontario, Canada) have steadily been transitioning from a focus on domain reclamation through culture-based immersion education programs for school age children to second language learning and proficiency development of adults in full-time adult language immersion programs (Green & Maracle, 2018). This shift in focus has placed emphasis on exploring and determining the relationship between language typology and structure, culture, language learners, second language acquisition and second language teaching and learning. A theory and model of second language teaching and learning and second language acquisition for the Mohawk language is emerging that is premised on the unique language structures of Mohawk as a polysynthetic language and the contexts and settings within the language is taught, learned and used. This model is called the Oral Literacy Approach. Encouragingly, through research, experimentation, practice, application and reflection we are coming to understand what teaching methods and approaches best fit to teach and learn Mohawk based on a 'right-method-for-the-right-time-for-the-right-learner-for-the-right-level of speaking proficiency' approach. This dissertation presents these second language teaching methods and approaches in a manual format designed for ease of use by Mohawk language teachers. The second language teaching methods and approaches are organized through the Oral Literacy Approach.
HAA DACHX̱ÁNXʼI SÁANI KAGÉIYI YÍS: HAA YOO X̱ʼATÁNGI KEI NALTSEEN / FOR OUR LITTLE GRANDCHILDREN: LANGUAGE REVITALIZATION AMONG THE TLINGIT
(2018-12) Twitchell, X̱unei Lance Arron; Wilson, William H.; Indigenous Language and Culture Revitalization
The Tlingit language has experienced drastic losses over the past two decades in terms of total number of speakers and places where the language is used. This steady decline in speakers was drastically accelerated as the last generation who grew up in a time when Tlingit was the primary language of homes and communities reach their sixties, seventies, eighties, and nineties. The youngest first language speakers are in their 60s, although most of them are in their eighties because intergenerational transmission severely declined in the second half of the 1900s, and has only recently returned with a few families who have committed to speaking with their children. Recent estimates have determined that the Tlingit language has about 80 birth speakers of various levels, and 50 second language learners that could be considered at the “intermediate” level or higher according to ACTFL scales. There are probably only 10 speakers remaining who could be considered fully fluent and capable of higher forms of speaking, and most of them are over 70 years old. This combines to create an unprecedented crisis for the Tlingit language, which will require massive shifts in cultural values, ways of living, institutional cultures, and educational practices if the language is going to survive the next 50 years with more than a handful of speakers. Instead of merely surviving, or preserving, the goal of the Tlingit Language Continuity Movement is to have 3,000 speakers of the language by 2050. The current population of the Tlingit people is about 20,000 and of Tlingit territory is around 100,000. This means that 3,000 speakers would be 15% fluency among the Tlingit people and 3% within Tlingit territory, rising from 0.65% and 0.13% respectively. This dissertation documents some of the events that have led to massive language decline, and proposes a series of interconnected methods that would result in language revitalization. In particular, increasing adult fluency, creating safe acquisition environments, mending a people and their language, and following a 30-year action plan is the proposed method to revitalizing the Tlingit language. These chapters are based upon the following research methods: reviewing published Tlingit language materials and recorded Tlingit language, documenting Tlingit language speakers and their thoughts on language learning and use, and incorporating theories from sociolinguistics, language revitalization, and post-colonial decolonizing methodologies.

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