Launching of Kaniʻāina, Voices of the Land, Hawaiian Spoken Language Digital Repository

Kaniʻāina, Voices of the Land,” the first online bilingual digital repository of ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi by L1 speakers. Kaniʻāina is currently being developed as part of an NSF/NEH-sponsored cross-campus collaboration between ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi scholars and activists at the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo’s Ka Haka ʻUla O Keʻelikōlani College of Hawaiian Language; and language documentation and digital library/archiving specialists at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa’s Department of Linguistics and Kaipuleohone UH Digital Language Archive. Kani‘āina will allow interactive access to recordings, transcripts and implement a procedure for crowdsourced transcription through the Ulukau Hawaiian Electronic Library, a bilingual digital library interface for Hawaiian language materials. In addition to providing an interface for listening to spoken ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi recordings, Kaniʻāina, in partnership with the Kaipuleohone Digital Language Archive, will also properly preserve those recordings and transcripts permanently in a world-class digital language archive. Kaniʻāina grows out of decades of successful cutting edge immersion-based language education and statewide interest in promoting ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi use at every level. This project represents a continuing refinement of the methods of language documentation and unparalleled technologies for preserving, disseminating and mobilizing four decades of documentation of spoken ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi.