Fostering the Growth of Budding Community Initiatives: The Role of Linguists in Tokelauan Maintenance in Hawai‘i

Abstract

This paper discusses our involvement in the language revitalization project initiated by the Tokelauan community in Central O‘ahu, Hawai‘i. Nearly 1,000 people of Tokelauan descent live in Hawai‘i. Several elders have observed that a language shift from Tokelauan (Polynesian) to English and/or Hawai‘i Creole English is taking place in the community. Our involvement in the project illustrates several fundamental issues about language revitalization: (1) the need for collaboration not only between linguists and community members, but also among linguists with different areas of expertise, (2) the significance of balancing the needs of the community with those of researchers, (3) the importance of publicizing our research, and (4) the question of who is responsible for protecting the language right of immigrant populations.