Hale Kuamoʻo Hawaiian Language Center

Website: https://olelo.hawaii.edu/khuok/hk.php
Email: hkuamoo@hawaii.edu

The Hale Kuamoʻo was established by the Hawaiʻi State Legislature in 1989 to support and encourage the expansion of the Hawaiian language as a medium of communication in education, business, government and other contexts of social life in the public and private sectors of Hawaiʻi and beyond. It is an excellent training ground and provides valuable job experience for UH Hilo undergraduate and graduate students. As an outreach division of the college, it provides services for Hawaiian-medium, Hawaiian-immersion, Hawaiian language serving institutions, schools and organizations, and other native peoples, especially of North America and the Pacific interested in language and culture revitalization. It also functions as an incubator for the initiatives of the college that address the Center’s eight (8) focus areas listed below. The Center is the largest producer of curriculum, books and support materials printed in the Hawaiian language and includes a Hawaiian digital library called Ulukau that maintains the largest online Hawaiian dictionary with over a million hits per month.

The Center focuses on:

1. Development of instructional materials for use in the state’s Hawaiian medium schools;
2. Research of the Hawaiian language;
3. Creation of new vocabulary, dictionaries, and grammatical terminology;
4. Production and distribution of literature for radio, newspaper, television, computer technology, telecommunications, and other related arts and media;
5. Teacher in-service;
6. Development of K-12 Hawaiian medium laboratory schools;
7. Outreach to other nations and people interested in language & culture revitalization;
8. Connection of local and global communities through internet-based services such as the Kualono and Ulukau Hawaiian Digital Library.