Who Needs 26 Letters?
How many states have their own language? Hawaiian is an ancient Polynesian tongue that manages to get by with only 12 letters (the five vowels plus h, k, l, m, n, p and w). The language that brought us such words as ukulele and wiki of Wikipedia fame was banned for more than a century and came close to disappearing before a movement took hold in the 1970s to preserve it. Now one of the state's official languages, it's spoken by thousands and provides the state's official motto: "Ua mau ke ea o ka aina I ka pono," which means "The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness." (That was supposedly the response of Hawaii's king to the end of a five-month British occupation in 1843.) Its latest sign of strength: Google introduced a Hawaiian version earlier this month.