Hawaiʻi Sign Language

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If you are not me, you should not be here! Assume that everything here is wrong and that I don’t know what I’m writing about, cuz I don’t.

What is HSL?

Hawaii Sign Language (HSL), or more properly Hawaiʻi Sign Language, is a dying sign language indigenous to the Hawaiian archipelago. Through the efforts of Linda Yuen Lambrecht and others, it was finally recognized and documented as a natural language in 2013.

One unique aspect of HSL is its lack of classifiers. I think every other sign language in the world has classifiers. I wonder why HSL doesn’t have any.

HSL Info

Endangered Language Archive: HSL. By James Woodward and Linda Yuen Lambrecht.
A Sketch of Handshape Morphology in Hawai’i Sign Language. By Samantha Rarrick. Published 2015.
- Documents the lack of classifiers in HSL.
Ethnologue on HSL.
- Calls HSL endangered, but also says the HSL has no L1 signers.
HAWAII in HSL. Video by Crissy Akana Holmes.
- It looks like HANDSOME or HAWAII, but with the 1-handshape instead of the H-handshape.

Media

LYL’s IG where she offered a Zoom HSL class.
The Fight to Save Hawaii Sign Language from Extinction. By Corinne Chin. Published 2021-10-08 on CNN.
- Has a video where multiple HSL signers share their opinions about whether HSL should be saved or not. Big disparity in opinion.
- Gives one of the lowest number of HSL signers: “But experts estimate that fluent HSL users number in the single digits.”