Papale Ka Alala Trucker

This old phrase was translated by Mary Kawena Pukui as, "It is the crow, a loud-voiced bird". She also wrote, "Said of a person that talks too loud". If you've ever heard the alala's voice, it it's hard to ignore. This is what I hope for the Hawaiian language. I hope people that become proficient speakers of the language speak with confidence, the way a leo nui (loud voice) person does speak. I hope to hear it more and more that it becomes impossible to ignore, as it was in Hawaii traditionally.

Olelo Kupuna

This phrase is on all of the hats to push "ancestral speech/language" to the forefront of learners of the language. My ancestors were native speakers of their language, unlike many of their descendants. They had a distinctly Polynesian sounding way of speaking. As the descendants of these kupuna and even non-Hawaiians, let their speech be the end result we seek. A language is not simply a make up of words and sentence structures, it has a sound. When we wear the hat, we endeavor to perpetuate native speech and to be confident to speak what we know everywhere we go.