Thank you for joining me for this episode of Speaking Tongues- the podcast in conversation with multilinguals. My guest this week is Kainoa, the founder of Hālau ʻŌlelo, A Free Virtual Hawaiian Language School and frankly, Hālau ʻŌlelo is a whole entire Hawaiian culture experience! It’s a vibe, ya'll! 

In this episode Kainoa talks to us about growing up in a farming community in Hawaii and how the languages of Japanese and Spanish were often encouraged to kids to learn as a second language. He teaches us about Hawaiian pidgin, its grammar and structure and tells us why this language is so significant to Hawaiian culture and history. We learn some Hawaiian history and how this history has affected the usage and growth of the Hawaiian language. We also learn about Hawaiian language revitalization efforts and we compare words and pronunciations across Polynesian cultures. We even learn about the culture and traditions of Hawaiian lei making and receiving. I ask you also as you listen to this episode to pay attention to the choice of words that Kainoa uses to describe the Hawaiian landscape. It indicated to me that it is impossible to talk about Hawaiian language without discussing the richness and abundance of the landscape. 

Now, before you get to listening, I just want to mention that this is one of our longer episodes and I purposely kept it this way as there is a LOT of information that I wanted you all to hear. I learned so much from Kainoa and his stories kept me on the edge of my seat; I truly could have talked with him for hours. So before you continue listening, go settle in, grab a cup of tea and maybe a pen and paper to take notes, as I did while we talked!. Big thank you and true “mahalo” to Kainoa and Hālau ʻŌlelo for sharing your story and for educating us all on Hawaiian language and culture. If you enjoy this episode, don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review the Speaking Tongues Podcast on Apple Podcasts so that other language lovers like ourselves can find the show! And, If you’ve been a long time listener of the show or a recent listener, you can now support the show on Buy Me a Coffee dot com. Links to all platforms are in the show notes!

To Find Hālau ʻŌlelo:

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Instagram: @halauolelo

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