Indo-Pacific Languages – University of Hawai'i at Mānoa

Indo-Pacific Languages and Literatures

The Department of Indo-Pacific Languages and Literatures is the largest language-teaching unit at the University of Hawaii. The 14 languages that we teach are located primarily in the Pacific and in Southeast Asia, but we also teach Hindi, Sanskrit and Arabic. We teach some of the largest languages in the world (Arabic, Hindi, Indonesian) with more than 250 million speakers but also small Pacific island languages with no more than 50,000 speakers.

Indo-Pacific Languages and Literatures (IPLL) provides an opportunity without parallel elsewhere in the country for students to acquire an in-depth knowledge of the languages and cultures of that part of the world that encompasses more than 25 percent of the Earth’s population and an unusual diversity of peoples.

Pacific, Southeast Asian languages, Arabic, Sanskrit, Hindi and Urdu are taught in the Department. The coverage of these languages is unique in the United States: this is the only department in the country to offer a BA degree in Philippine Language and Literature (Filipino or Ilokano) and the only one to offer every national language of Southeast Asia.

Languages taught by the Department’s instructors on a regular basis include: Arabic, Cambodian (Khmer), Chamorro, Filipino, Hindi, Ilokano, Indonesian, Maori, Samoan, Sanskrit, Tahitian, Thai, Tongan, and Vietnamese. Additional languages and topics may be offered on an as-needed basis.

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Indo-Pacific Languages and Literatures

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