<P> Nevertheless, from around 1949 to the present day, there has been a gradual increase in attention to and promotion of the language . Public Hawaiian - language immersion preschools called Pūnana Leo were started in 1984; other immersion schools followed soon after that . The first students to start in immersion preschool have now graduated from college and many are fluent Hawaiian speakers . The federal government has acknowledged this development . For example, the Hawaiian National Park Language Correction Act of 2000 changed the names of several national parks in Hawai ʻi, observing the Hawaiian spelling . However, the language is still classified as critically endangered by UNESCO . </P> <P> A pidgin or creole language spoken in Hawai ʻi is Hawaiian Pidgin (or Hawaii Creole English, HCE). It should not be mistaken for the Hawaiian language nor for a dialect of English . </P> <P> The Hawaiian alphabet has 13 letters: five vowels (each with a long pronunciation and a short one) and eight consonants, one of which is the glottal stop called ʻokina . </P> <P> The Hawaiian language takes its name from the largest island in the Hawaiian state, Hawaii (Hawai ʻi in the Hawaiian language). The island name was first written in English in 1778 by British explorer James Cook and his crew members . They wrote it as "Owhyhee" or "Owhyee". Explorers Mortimer (1791) and Otto von Kotzebue (1821) used that spelling . </P>

How many consonants are in the hawaiian language