Geoff Pullum made the assertion at the Symbolic Systems Forum that "Hawaiian is almost a dead language," which prompted a (presumably Hawaiian) audience member to object that the are a number of Hawaiian schools which teach the language, among other revival techniques. Pullum responded, "Well, I studied Latin in school as well. The number of native speakers is declining, and Hawaiian will eventually die."
So, who is right? It turns out that it's very difficult to tell how many native speakers still exist. When someone asked "Ask Yahoo!" how many people still speak Hawaiian, he was not really given a clear answer, with some somewhat questionable statistics from the 1990 census (are these native speakers, fluent speakers, people who speak it at home, people who know a few phrases, or what?). The Hawaiian revival organizations, like the audience member, tend to claim that their techniques are working, but a recent conference in O'ahu put on by 'Ahahui 'Olelo Hawai'i tried to gather as many native speakers as possible...and found only twenty-five. Even the Ethnologue database, usually a reputable source about languages of all types, seems to have pretty old data...data which supports the claim that, while Hawaiian may be used more, the number of native speakers has failed to increase substantively.
Is there hope, then? A number of linguists point to the revival of Hebrew in the 20th century as a case of a once-dead language springing back to life, now with millions of native speakers (mostly in Israel). Some note that Hebrew never really "died" but rather was relegated to "low" forms such as Yiddish or official religious ceremonies--but one could argue that the combination of Hawaiian Creole English (commonly known as "Pidgin"...listen to a sample here), the preschool immersion programs, and ceremonial uses (such as in the lu'au and hula) are similar. While I share some of Prof. Pullum's skepticism about the new programs and their ability to produce native speakers, I doubt that Hawaiian will ever be truly dead.
"How many people speak Hawaiian?"
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