"Three years ago, we didn't know we could do streaming audio. Three years from now, we don't know what the technology will look like," said Jack Keppeler, project manager for Baibala Hemolele, which means "Holy Bible."

The Baibala Hemolele project is just one of a growing number of efforts to provide access to Hawaiian-language documents dating a century and a half to the decades when the Hawaiian language was first put in writing.

Some of these projects are simply photographing documents so they can be made available to researchers without damaging the originals. Some are converting the photos to searchable text files, and some are going the extra step of adding diacritical markings — 'okina or glottal stops, and kahako or macrons — to ease the understanding of early texts by modern readers. Others are further translating the documents into English.

Baibala Hemolele is doing all these, and also plans to create an audio version and perhaps later a printed Hawaiian Bible in English and Hawaiian with diacritical markings and an accompanying DVD.

"The Bible in any country is pretty much the document that is one of the most important pieces of literature," said Sarah Keahi, newly appointed senior editor for the Baibala project.

There is clearly a religious aspect to the work, but Keppeler said the Hawaiian Bible also is an important document in the understanding of the Hawaiian language, and can be a valuable tool in understanding Hawaiian world views at a critical period in the Islands' history.

Keppeler said it took missionaries and others from 1822 to 1837 to complete the translation into Hawaiian, using texts in the original Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic.

"It's a miraculous work because they were thoroughly schooled in the classic languages," he said. "It was very scholarly, very well done, and it laid down the cornerstone for the (Hawaiian) language being a written language."

The translators included Hawaiians who had learned the classic languages.

The senior editor overseeing the work, Alberta Puanani Hopkins, died last fall. Retired Kamehameha Schools Hawaiian language teacher Keahi took over the task a few weeks ago. She said she remembers going to Kawaiaha'o Church with her grandmother, who carried a Hawaiian Bible. Keahi's Hawaiian-speaking grandmother was born at 'Ualapu'e on Moloka'i in 1878.

"I know this would please my grandmother a lot," she said.

A computer program does the initial conversion of unaccented text to a draft that includes diacritical markings. Keahi said she checks the text for accuracy, not only of the diacriticals, but also such things as whether Hawaiian words should be run together or be split into separate words.

The Web site for Baibala Hemolele already has images of pages from early Hawaiian Bibles and searchable text for the books of the Bible. Keppeler said the project hopes to have the New Testament available with diacritical marking by the end of summer, and the Old Testament by sometime next year.

Meanwhile, Kamehameha Schools Hawaiian language teachers Ipo Kanahele Wong and Keola Wong are working on reading the Bible aloud into sound texts that will eventually be online.

"We found what we believe are the best people we can find to read it," said Jon Rawlings, biblical language scholar with Baibala Hemolele and interim pastor at Kailua Baptist Church.

Rawlings said the audio files may end up being among the most important parts.

"What we are finding is that there are a lot of Hawaiians who know the language, but didn't grow up hearing it, and a lot are just not sure how to pronounce it. This should help," he said.