Hawaiian Pidgin
Hawaiian Pidgin is an English-based creole language spoken in Hawaiʻi. An estimated 600,000 residents of Hawaii speak Hawaiian Pidgin natively and 400,000 speak it as a second language. Although English and Hawaiian are the two official languages of the state of Hawaiʻi, Hawaiian Pidgin is spoken by many residents of Hawaiʻi in everyday conversation and is often used in advertising targeted toward locals in Hawaiʻi. In the Hawaiian language, it is called ōlelo pai ai. Hawaiian Pidgin was first recognized as a language by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2015. However, Hawaiian Pidgin is still thought of as lower status than the Hawaiian and English languages.
Despite its name, Hawaiian Pidgin is not a pidgin, but rather a full-fledged, nativized and demographically stable creole language. It did, however, evolve from various real pidgins spoken as common languages between ethnic groups in Hawaiʻi.
Although not completely mutually intelligible with Standard American English, Hawaiian Pidgin retains a high degree of mutual intelligibility with it compared to some other English-based creoles, such as Jamaican Patois, in part due to its relatively recent emergence. Some speakers of Hawaiian Pidgin tend to code switch between or mix the language with Standard American English. This has led to a distinction between pure "heavy Pidgin" and mixed "light Pidgin".
History
Hawaiian Pidgin originated on sugarcane plantations in 1835 as a form of communication between Native Hawaiians, who spoke Hawaiian, and foreign immigrants, who spoke English and other languages. It supplanted, and was influenced by, the existing pidgin that Native Hawaiians already used on plantations and elsewhere in Hawaiʻi. Since such sugarcane plantations often hired workers from many different countries, a common language was needed in order for the plantation workers to communicate effectively with each other and their supervisors. Hawaiian Pidgin has been influenced by many different languages, including Portuguese, Hawaiian, American English, and Cantonese. As people of other backgrounds were brought in to work on the plantations, Hawaiian Pidgin acquired even more words from languages such as Japanese, Ilocano, Okinawan and Korean.The article Japanese loanwords in Hawaii lists some of those words originally from Japanese. Hawaiian Pidgin has also been influenced to a lesser degree by Spanish spoken by Puerto Rican settlers in Hawaiʻi. As there were eventually more immigrant families who brought their children to the plantations, these children learned the language from their parents as well as English at school. Over time, a new pidgin language developed from all of the different language backgrounds which became many of the children's first language. This was the origin of Hawaiian Pidgin, which was used and is still used by many Hawaiian and non-Hawaiian people who live there.
Hawaiian Pidgin was created mainly to provide communication and facilitate cooperation between the foreign laborers and the English-speaking Americans in order to do business on the plantations. Even today, Hawaiian Pidgin retains some influences from these languages. For example, the word stay in Hawaiian Pidgin has a form and use similar to the Hawaiian verb noho, Portuguese verb ficar or Spanish estar, which mean but are used only when referring to a temporary state or location.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, Hawaiian Pidgin started to be used outside the plantation between ethnic groups. In the 1980s, two educational programs were established which were taught in Hawaiian Pidgin to help students learn Standard English. Public school children learned Hawaiian Pidgin from their classmates and parents. Living in a community mixed with various cultures led to the daily usage of Hawaiian Pidgin, which caused the language to expand. It was easier for school children of different ethnic backgrounds to speak Hawaiian Pidgin than to learn another language. Children who grew up learning and speaking this language expanded Hawaiian Pidgin as it was their first language, or mother tongue. For this reason, linguists generally consider Hawaiian Pidgin to be a creole language.
Hawaiian Pidgin is said to have since been decreolized, especially in Oahu, Hawaiʻi, which holds the largest population of the islands. This is due to capitalism and economic changes on the islands that were implemented by the United States. Furthermore, tourism and technology have made the English language more utilized in Hawaii, which has led to the endangerment of Hawaiian Pidgin. Hawaiian Pidgin was also not taught in public education nor does it have its own writing system. Consequently, Hawaiian Pidgin was thought of as a "low social status" language and is only a memory of the plantations that many want to forget. This brought upon racial discrimination to those who spoke the language, which excluded children from school who spoke Hawaiian Pidgin. Even though people were against Hawaiian Pidgin, the language has since been strengthened and supported by young people who honor Hawaiian Pidgin and its origins. Hawaiian Pidgin is an integral part of Hawaiian identity and efforts to encourage and solidify pride in the language are becoming more common.
Demographics and status
A five-year survey that the U.S. Census Bureau conducted in Hawaiʻi revealed that many people spoke Hawaiian Pidgin as an additional language. As a result of this, the U.S. Census Bureau in 2015 added Hawaiian Pidgin to the list of official languages in the state of Hawaiʻi.In the last few decades, many residents of Hawaiʻi have moved to the US mainland due to economic issues. As a result, thousands of Pidgin speakers can be found in the other 49 states.
Historically, teachers and policymakers have debated whether growing up speaking Hawaiʻi Creole English hinders the learning of Standard English.
Phonology
Hawaiian Pidgin has distinct pronunciation differences from standard American English. Long vowels are not pronounced in Hawaiian Pidgin if the speaker is using Hawaiian loanwords. Some key differences include the following:- Th-stopping: and are pronounced as or respectively—that is, changed from a fricative to a plosive. For instance, think becomes, and that becomes. An example is "Broke da mout".
- L-vocalization: Word-final l is often pronounced or. For instance, mental is often pronounced ; people is pronounced .
- Hawaiian Pidgin is non-rhotic. That is, r after a vowel is often omitted, similar to many dialects, such as Eastern New England, Australian English, and British English variants. For instance, car is often pronounced cah, and letter is pronounced letta. Intrusive r is also used. The number of Hawaiian Pidgin speakers with rhotic English has also been increasing.
- Hawaiian Pidgin has falling intonation in questions. In yes/no questions, falling intonation is striking and appears to be a lasting imprint of Hawaiian. This particular falling intonation pattern is shared with some other Oceanic languages, including Fijian and Samoan.
- In certain words, the sound /ts/ assimilates to /s/. Examples include: what's becoming wass and it's becoming iss. This feature is also found in African-American Vernacular English.
| Front | Central | Back | |
| High | |||
| Mid | |||
| Low |
Others include:,, and.
| Labial | Alveolar | Postalveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |
| Plosive | p b | t d | k g | ʔ | ||
| Nasal | m | n | ||||
| Fricative | f v | s z | tʃ dʒ | |||
| Approximant | ɹ l | j | w |
Grammatical features
Hawaiian Pidgin has distinct grammatical forms not found in SAE, although some of them are shared with other dialectal forms of English or may derive from other linguistic influences.Forms used for SAE "to be":
- Generally, forms of English "to be" are omitted when referring to inherent qualities of an object or person, forming in essence a stative verb form. Additionally, inverted sentence order may be used for emphasis.
- When the verb "to be" refers to a temporary state or location, the word stay is used. This may be influenced by other Pacific creoles, which use the word stap, from stop, to denote a temporary state or location. In fact, stop was used in Hawaiian Pidgin earlier in its history, and may have been dropped in favor of stay due to influence from Portuguese estar or ficar.
- To express past tense, Hawaiian Pidgin uses wen before the infinitive form of the modified verb.
- To express future tense, Hawaiian Pidgin uses goin, derived from the going-to future common in informal varieties of American English.
- To express past tense negative, Hawaiian Pidgin uses neva. Neva can also mean "never" as in Standard English usage; context sometimes, but not always, makes the meaning clear.
- Use of fo in place of the infinitive particle "to". Cf. dialectal form "Going for carry me home."
Regional varieties
For instance, while standard Pidgin uses “wen” as a past tense verb marker, Kauai speakers are more likely to use “had”.
Another example is shave ice being “ice shave” on the Big Island.
Hawaiian Pidgin has different varieties that vary depending on the island. Hawaiian Pidgin is considered more decreolized than other pidgins/creoles in the Pacific region. The continuum of the language across the islands has been created due to decreolization and some islands having more metropolitan growth than the others.