The Hawaiian language (or ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi) was once the primary language of the native Hawaiian people; today, native Hawaiians predominantly speak the English language. A major factor for this change was an 1896 law that required that English "be the only medium and basis of instruction in all public and private schools". This law prevented the Hawaiian language from being taught as a second language. In spite of this, some native Hawaiians (as well as non-native Hawaiians) have learned ʻŌlelo as a second language. As with others local to Hawaii, native Hawaiians often speak Hawaiian Creole English (referred to in Hawaiʻi as Pidgin), a creole which developed during Hawaiʻi's plantation era in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with the influence of the various ethnic groups living in Hawaii during that time.