Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 11, Number 5, 1 May 1994 — ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi finds its plaee in the computer age [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi finds its plaee in the computer age

by Jeff Clark The Hawaiian language looks to be one of the high-performance vehicles on the information highway, now that Leokī is on line. Leokl is a computer bulletin board; this is a service that lets users communicate via computers equipped with modems, whieh send messages through telephone lines. Leokl was developed by Hale Kuamo'o, the Hawaiian Language Center based at UH-Hilo. and 'Aha Pūnana Leo, ine. The system operates only in 'ōlelo Hawai'i. When you want to

save a file, you don't hit "save" - you hit "mālama." It is the first Macintosh-based service on Hawai'i FYI, the publicly funded statewide information network. Although it will eventually be expanded to include Hawaiianspeaking computer users outside the school system, Leokī was established to provide an eleetronic link between the Kula Kaiapuni Hawai'i, the Hawaiian language immersion programs active in schools on O'ahu, Maui, Kaua'i, Moloka'i and Hawai'i. Students and teachers ean now post notices, send and receive

files and "E-mail" (electronic messages), and chat with eaeh other via their keyboards. Leokī creates one big eommunity out of the little pocket eommunities of Hawaiian-speaking students on the different islands, said Keiki Kawai'ae'a, who was charged with putting the system together. Speaking at the Hawai'i Information Network and Technology Symposium held in Waiklkl last March, she added that teachers will now be able to share curriculum and lesson plans in a matter of minutes instead of

relying on the postal service, whieh ean take days. Kawai'ae'a was assisted by Keau Nesmith and Keola Donaghy, a Wailuku-based computer programmer who operates a bulletin board of his own called MauiLink. Nesmith learned to speak Hawaiian from his grandmother, and is a former employee of the Utah-based W ordPerfect Corporation , whieh develops computer software. He says _ his current gig is I a perfect melding of the two experiences. "My job was to eome up with the translation

for all of the options on the (computer) menus," Nesmith said. Mueh of the English lingo associated with computers was invented only recently, and Nesmith had to do the same with Hawaiian. "Many of the technological terms as far as computer usage is concerned that we talk about today so freely, we weren't able to talk about so _ freely maybe 10-15 years ago - in English," he said. "So as the rest of the world moves into the 21st century, the Hawaiian _ world ... also must move along." Donaghy's role was to estab- L

lish the network itself. "I started out on this about three years ago when I started learning the language, and one of the things that really motivated me was an article by a fellow who was very very critical of our program, and it really really upset me. This is the answer to him. I was very very angry at the time, but if he was here today I would thank him. Because if it had not been for that article - one of his big arguments was, how do we expect our ehildren to function in today's technological society if we teach them in Hawaiian?" Choking back tears, and motioning to the image of the computer screen projected on the wall behind him, Donaghy answered that question triumphantly but with humility: "This is how we do it."

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