Assistant Professor Eve Koller sheds light on the thousands of languages at risk of endangerment in the Pacific region where she was raised.
Most people have used Wikipedia before, but few know where the online encyclopedia got its name. It comes from the word wiki, which means quick or fast in ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i, the indigenous language of Hawai‘i. ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i is one of 1,500 languages indigenous to the Pacific region, and like many, it is severely endangered. Having grown up in Hawai‘i, Assistant Professor Eve Koller (Linguistics) has dedicated much of her research to the languages at risk in the often-overlooked Pacific region, highlighting why preserving these voices matters.
The Vitality of Voices
Koller recently shared her expertise on the Pacific—the world’s most linguistically diverse region—by contributing a chapter to Foreign Languages: Linguistic and Cultural Heritage: Vitality and Threats, a book on language vitality around the world. In her chapter, Koller outlines the criteria used to measure how endangered a language is, including the number of language users, whether that number is increasing or decreasing, how the language is used, and whether the language is actively being taught to the next generation. According to these measures, linguists estimate that over a third of the Pacific’s languages are endangered.
Koller also measures language vitality by examining whether a language is related to any others. She says, “Languages usually belong to a language family, just like people.” However, some languages are language isolates, meaning they aren't related to any other language. Koller explains that these languages are “like an orphan without any relatives.” Once the last speaker of a language isolate is lost, the entire language disappears, with no related languages to help revive it. Despite these vulnerabilities, the Pacific is home to several safe language isolates, more than any other region in the world.
How Language Lives On
While many Pacific languages are at risk, several groups in the Pacific have been working hard to preserve language for quite some time. For example, part of Koller’s work took her to Hawai‘i and New Zealand, where she learned about the unique way these islands preserve their languages. In the 1970s, Sāmoans who had moved to New Zealand created immersion daycares so their children could learn their native Gagana Sāmoa language. The Māori people of New Zealand later adopted the model, titling it kōhanga reo (language nest) to support the revitalization of their own native Te Reo Māori. The model soon spread to Hawai‘i, where similar daycares were created to help children learn ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i. These language preservation efforts have spread to immersion programs in K-12 schools and universities. Other preservation efforts include using Indigenous language in aspects of daily life, such as on local radio or on public signage. Koller reports that the number of native ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i speakers has recently increased to a couple thousand, in part due to preservation efforts.
Koller has come to see language as the mechanism by which stories are passed down from one human to another. She believes it’s important to preserve languages so that these stories can live on. “Truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come,” Koller says. As she studies the past, present, and future of these endangered languages, she comes to understand truth through the stories preserved within them.
Although efforts are in place to preserve the voices of the Pacific, Koller says more work remains. Her next project, studying Hawai‘i Creole English, or Pidgin, continues that effort to highlight the many diverse languages in the region. The Pacific often gets overlooked in the linguistics field, possibly due to its remote location. Despite the distance that separates many of the islands scattered throughout the region, Koller hopes to see more study of these voices, especially those at risk of endangerment. With thousands of languages spoken in the Pacific, countless voices remain unheard, and Koller hopes humanity comes to understand that “all languages are created equal.”
Read Koller’s chapter on the linguistic situation in the Pacific via Research Gate.