Hawaiian Pidgin
Hawaiian Pidgin English, also known as Hawaiian Creole English or simply Pidgin, is a creole language based on English that is widely spoken by residents of Hawai‘i. Although standard American English is one of the official languages of the State of Hawai‘i, Pidgin is used in everyday conversation, and is often used in radio and television.
History
Pidgin English originated as a form of pidgin Hawaiian used among whites (especially Portuguese), Hawaiians, and Chinese. As trade with the United States increased during the late 19th century, pidgin Hawaiian evolved into pidgin English. Also, as other nationalities were brought in to work in the plantations, such as Japanese, Filipinos, and Koreans, Pidgin English acquired words from these languages.
Even today, Pidgin English retains some influences from these languages. For example, the word stay in Pidgin has the same meaning as the Portuguese verb estar, meaning "to be" when referring to a temporary state or location. (Sakoda & Siegel, 2003, p. 1-13)
In the 20th century, Pidgin started to be used outside the plantation between ethnic groups. Public school children learned Pidgin from their classmates and eventually it became the primary language of most people in Hawai‘i, replacing the original languages for the most part.
Today, most people born or raised in Hawai‘i, regardless of racial and socioeconomic background, can speak and understand Pidgin to some extent, and many consider it an important part of local culture. However, some consider it substandard, as corrupted or rhotic. That is, r after a vowel is often omitted, similar to the New England dialect. For instance, car is often pronounced cah, and letter is pronounced letta.
It also has distinct grammatical forms not found in SAE:
- Generally, forms of English "to be" are omitted when referring to inherent qualities of an object or person. Inverted sentence order can also be used for emphasis.
- Da baby cute. (or) Cute, da baby.
- The baby is cute.
- When the verb "to be" refers to a temporary state or location, the word stay is used.
- Da book stay on top da table.
- The book is on the table.
- Da water stay cold.
- The water is cold.
- To express past tense, Pidgin uses wen (went) in front of the verb.
- Jesus wen cry. (DJB, John 11:35)
- Jesus cried.
- To express future tense, Pidgin uses goin (going) in front of the verb.
- God goin do plenny good kine stuff fo him. (DJB, Mark 11:9)
- God is going to do a lot of good things for him.
- To express past tense negative, Pidgin uses neva (never).
- He neva like dat.
- He didn't like (want) that.
For more information on grammar, also see Sakoda & Siegel (References, below) and the Pidgin Coup paper (External links, below).
Literature
In recent years, writers from Hawai‘i have written poems, short stories, and other works in Pidgin. This list included well-known Hawaii authors such as Lois-Ann Yamanaka and Lee Tonouchi. A Pidgin translation of the New Testament (called Da Jesus Book) has also been created.
Miscellaneous
Pidgin has its own sign language, called Hawaiian Pidgin Sign Language. Most users of Hawaiian Pidgin Sign Language are between the ages of 70 and 90. Ethnologue lists it as "nearly extinct," as most deaf people in Hawai‘i use American Sign Language with some local signs.
