I heard one story where this local girl from the Big Island got into school in upstate New York, maybe Cornell? The students there judged her for speaking pidgin and called her "anti-intellectual". She wasn't offended, and actually liked the nickname and embraced it, and even referred to herself that way. She thought they were calling her "Aunty Intellectual."
A come on haole Thomas was that a story or a joke? I got a good story for you, true story. I was working on a construction job when at lunch time these haole traveling electricians from the mainland decided on lau-lau plate for lunch. One haole ask the other do you eat the whole thing and the other haole replied, yes it’s delicious. Ok, leaves and all?
Pidgin's spontaneous formation as a creole, as a use language, is actually a testament to the effort and fortitude of our forebears to succeed in a challenging, disadvantaged environment. They had neither the time nor money to spend on concerted learning, and yet they succeeded in bridging huge economic and sociocultural barriers to almost instinctively create a means of communication and build community across a myriad of cultural and ethnic groups. Pidgin should not be denigrated, but celebrated proudly.
You're so right about Hawaii people meeting outside of Hawaii. I was stationed in Texas for about a year and I ran into another guy from Hawaii. We just started talking story and the people around us were asking us what language we were. speaking. Too funny.
Watching this video made me chuckle and smile 😄 because I could relate to and understand everything you talked about. Yes, I think the key is knowing when to turn it on and off. When traveling around the country, I can always tell who is from Hawaii just by hearing the tone, inflection and vocabulary in their speech. 😂Too funny!! Thanks for another great video topic!
Yeah, I think it's fun to just be able to tell someone is from Hawaii. When we were in Japan, I could just tell by the way some people walked and waited for the elevator.
In New Mexico we "code switch" from English to Spanish and mix the two languages along with regionalisms that are about as close to such a familiar language. It is fun for familiarity with cousins and family! Like you said, 10 seconds into the conversation you know where they are from.
I love hearing pidgin used in conversation, and you are right about people trying to speak it and sounding forced and offensive lol. Makes Hawaii and it's people such a special place
My good friend Nikkei nisei obaachan told me this story when I was in Hawaii to learn ENGLISH at HPC. A Hawaii local lady passed interview working for United Airlines. But she needed to go to an English conversation school in Chicago for that work. I was shocked😂 Even though I can’t speak pidgin but understand as local boyfriend taught me some. I just fell in love in pidgin English. I bought 3 or 4 of “Pidgin to Da Max” books. After 30 years later I still love to read them❤
Haha. I’ll drop a story here. I memorized two of those books just for fun. Later I was flying to Hawaii on Hawaiian airlines from East Asia and I spoke only in pidgin. I got so much attention and free goodies from the stewardesses who thought I was local. So those books do work quite well. I love pidgin! So much soul!
Thank you so much for validating the reason Hawaiian pidgin is a part of the culture of the islands. It was really difficult for me to adjust and adapt to life on the mainland after growing up on Oahu. I am hapa haole and have always felt like a stranger in a strange land on the mainland amongst haole kine. I reminisce quite a bit about the simpler life of growing up in a rural town and will always cherish my childhood in paradise.🌺
I am 70 today and have lived in Hawaii since 1956. My mom was very strict about using correct english with the correct grammar when we were kids in Hawaii. Years later in school and after getting a job this made a big difference for me and my ability to be a lot better off during retirement. Growing up with Pidgin in Hawaii I am just fine understanding and speaking with locals and they quickly realize I am a local Haole. If all you know is Pidgin in most cases you will not go as far as someone who speaks correct and proper english.
Even when not speaking pidgin, if you listen closely, you can almost always detect something in the tone and inflection that says, "local." Our regional accent is not American/mainland standard. I was born and raised in Hilo, and like several commenters, my parents discouraged my speaking pidgin. I picked it up anyway, and even after living on the mainland for 40+ years, I can still turn it on and off at will. Every so often, I will run into someone that has that certain something in their speech. I will then slowly let my local accent come out, a word here, the lilt at the end of a sentence there, until the other person invariably asks, "Are you from Hawaii?" At which point the floodgates will open.
Interesting piece! Thank you for sharing! Having been born in the southeastern US and raised in a very rural part of the south, I had a very thick drawl growing up and it was almost it's own language based on English, Gaelic and Creole which had cooked for a few hundred years in the southern heat. When I go back there I can still turn it on but for the most part I have grown out of using it. What is interesting is when I went to Hawaii for the first time I met friends of friends who were locals who grew up on Oahu , Maui and the Big Island and they spoke nothing but pidgin and I had absolutely no trouble understanding what they were saying although it was completely different in every way form the southern drawl that I grew up with. I could understand parts of English words and how they had morphed into different words but were just close enough for me to get the gist of what they were saying and understand the entire conversation. The people I were with though were not from the south had a much more difficult time following the conversations although they could still sort of follow along. I guess that being from somewhere that had almost it's own form of language loosely based on English with other languages thrown in it was to my advantage in understanding another language loosely based on English with other languages thrown in. I also had no problem reading and understanding the copy of "Da Jesus Book" that was gifted to me because I had taken such a liking to the dialect. Now mind you, I can not speak Pidgin nor do I try out of respect because I am not from Hawaii but for the most part I can understand and enjoy it.
That's interesting that you were able to pick it up based on some of the sounds. And I have a tough time understanding Southern accents. Don't get too much of that over here.
This video hits the spot. Born and raised on Oahu and left for college, people looked at me like I was stupid and talked down to me cause I partially spoke pidgin. And I say partially cause my pidgin isn’t heavy and I don’t force it (as you mentioned in the video it does sound off when forced). And it sucks cause my school had no other people from Hawaii so I slowly “corrected” my speech but when I’m back home it just slips back. I remember my first time back at home, I was in the Aiea Times Supermarket and got goosebumps when I heard pidgin, it was a moment of “I’m home”. One thing that I couldn’t change was the way I said no. The tone we carry when we say no is so different and some people still ask, or even laugh, at how I say no. But it’s okay, it is a part of me and reminds me when I’m from. P.S. Please ignore my username, I made this account when I was like 7 😂
As a born and raised Georgia boy, I grew up with that southern twang and using country phrases but tend to switch to a less identifiable accent and verbage. Oft times, I was called upon to translate when my east Tennessee colleagues were speaking and I also quickly roll back into the twang and verbage when I speak to relatives so I can easily relate to your experiences. Having lived a few years on Oahu, sadly I am no longer there, I loved hearing pidgin and the vocal lilt of the locals. There are several socials that I follow just to hear that lilt and pidgin. Many mahalos for the content.
This vid hit the spot; I've been fortunate to grow up around the world going to American system schools overseas so speaking "proper" English wasn't an issue, but it was an interesting reverse cultural shock for the four years of high school in HI (Big Island for one and O'ahu for three). Since the O'ahu school was boarding, it was like living an immersion course in pidgin, which in retrospect was not a bad thing because it's absolutely true that if you know and understand pidgin you can tell someone is from the HI simply from the inflection in their speech, it's very distinct and some people will never lose it. But it always leads to a great conversation afterwards. One thing I noticed was it seemed like in your older videos you would say/pronounce Honolulu and Hawai'i like a mainlander would, but in this video I did detect the proper pronunciation for the city and state, and I think it's important for outsiders to learn how to properly say these place names. I look forward to future videos from Hawai'i.
Nah, Chris, it IS ice shave! 😁 Omg, I was cracking up! In Hilo, we say "da da kine." Just like your used to to...lol. When you mentioned try, I was on the floor laughing. When I lived in Cali, I inadvertently told my co-worker "try come." She gave me this strange look and said "I don't have to try. It' s not that hard! 😆 Craziness!
Its important to know how Pidgin was made. The plantation owners (white English speakers) and the workers were from many different places with different languages. They adapted and made their own language that takes words from all of their native languages including English. That's what makes it so special. It was a group of diverse people coming together to find a way to communicate. Its one of the reasons I find language so inserting.
Interesting video, thanks for making it! I watched it wondering though if you would mention about the Hawaiian accent, that’s different than pidgin. Maybe another video? There’s a certain way, an accent that people in Hawaii speak with that’s different than pidgin, yeah? … :) the “yeah” is only one marker, like how Canadians say “eh” but also in the tone and rhythm, like how you’re speaking when you’re not trying to speak pidgin. It’s really cool and endearing, you can always tell if someone is from Hawaii even if they’re not speaking pidgin, what do you think?
Shootz! Hawaiian Pidgin has been described as proof of evolution - a highly engineered system formed by spontaneous organic growth. Given the wide diversity of completely different language systems in close proximity in the early Hawaiian plantations, Pidgin was how the workers communicated with one another, slowly converting their own languages into a hybridized English and then combining them. People hearing it for the first time often describe it as sounding like someone with a travel-language guide and that's really not far off. Unlike many other creoles around the world, Hawaiian Pidgin is unique in that the pronunciation and rhythm are essential components of communication. * It drops/simplifies all sounds that certain languages have difficulty pronouncing and uses only letters/sounds common to all in the community * It drops most prefixes and suffixes, as well as tense/case variations of words, relying on context and the communicators' mutual knowledge of the subject being discussed * The English word "a" always becomes "one" (which makes it match nearly every other language in the world, so only confuses Americans/British) * It drops nearly all words except the essential noun/verb/adverb/adjectives, simplifying sentence structure and eliminating confusion from differing grammatic systems * By eliminating the extra words in a "full sentence", Pidgin relies on the rhythm/inflection of the speakers to convey any understanding normally expressed by grammar. This is the biggest reason why Pidgin can't be faked or forced...the rhythms don't just sound nice, they are an essential part of the language...if you don't feel it flow, it doesn't come out right. * Hawaiian Pidgin is a very communal language, and (as explained in your explanation of "da kine") relies very heavily on everyone involved having a pretty good idea what each other are talking about * As languages go, Hawaiian Pidgin is incredibly powerful - it can convey an amazing amount of information extremely efficiently. Try explaining something to visitors who speak different languages and we all find ourselves defaulting to at least some aspects of Pidgin.
Thanks for the vlog, really enjoyed it. Always feels like home hearing pidgin. When I was going the UH, one professor told the class most of you guys are bilingual (pidgin and english). He got a good laugh from the class. :)
The origins are neat. Put fresh of da boat Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, Portuguese in the middle of a sugar cane field and mix in native Hawaiians and the end result is Hawaii pidgin. It binds us even today. I remember doing a business call and then finding out the person on the other side was from my generation and my hood. The pidgin just naturally comes out even though we speak standard English for work. I do however think there is some laziness to pidgin. It’s origins is that it is a simplification of words or the selection of words that 5 other nationalities will learn so they can understand each other. I think children gotta be able to up their vocabulary when needed. This is not just Hawaii pidgin, but children that pick up other US state and regional slang should be able to revert to speaking straight textbook English one or two months before an SAT exam. This actually increases students SAT scores. Now debating if SAT is useful or racist is a whole nuther topic…just saying kids should also learn to up their vocab A-game and not rely on ‘very’ and ‘dakine’ to explain their thoughts.
Actually, this doesn't seem to be documented well all in one place, but pidgin was massively contributed to by ... the Chinese. There were booklets Chinese immigrant workers took with them on their journey to the US West Coast to work, and I was shocked to see comics from around the year 1900 with one of the characters being a duck (Peking duck, get it?) speaking pidgin! Saying bumbye and all that. Comic was set in the US West.
Great video. As a mainlander, I’m always waiting for the unexpected short little pidgin “hot takes” (?) that you sprinkle throughout your videos. They really crack me up. Please keep doing that, they’re so spontaneous and hilarious. 🤣
Hawaiian Pidgin is a beautiful “slang” and I don’t like to think it makes people sound ignorant. It should be embraced as part of the culture. In my mind it’s no different than east coast/west coast or dirty south slang. It’s region specific and that is what makes it unique and beautiful.
Happy to find your video. I learned how to walk, talk and swim in Honolulu. From an infant until we moved to Colorado Springs when I was 6y. My parents immersed me in all things local including attending Menehune School. Once we were in Colorado my new elementary teachers sent me to speech therapy. To this day hearing pidgin is so comforting 🤙 ❤
LOL! So I've new Hawaiian friends in my life and while I'm considered a "Howlie" as I look super white, I am actually almost 30% Hawaiian and first generation mainland, I just never got to know that side of my family and most of them are passed on now. That said, my friends have an accent that sometimes I can't understand. I never ever think of them as alliterate or dumb, at all, yet I do find myself saying "what?!". Sometimes I have NO clue what they just said. But that's true of anywhere, really, same with my friends from New York, Boston, France, or other countries. I think everyone has their own "accents" or "slang" and I personally find it endearing. This was a fun video, thank you!
I love it! Thanks for your feelings on this. My husband's family is from OK, but he grew up in Alaska. He always says "used-ta could-a." Sound close to your "used to." How funny. He means the past tense, used to and could have. Hmmm....
Ah howzit Chris🤙🏼 got a story for you. We moved to mainland while I was in 8th grade. Dad enrolled me into school (Southern California area) during the summer and upon entering classes there… well I was in for a big surprise. After a few weeks of school I was called to the principals’ office where I was surprised to see my parents there as well. According to input from my teachers, they thought it was necessary to be sent back a grade or two because I didn’t speak proper English. Yeah wuz Pidgin too da max! Fellow students kept asking where I’m from as it sounds like English but??? I’m from Lana’i but that just seem to bewilder them more, so I would just answer “Hawaii”. Dad asked how my grades were? Principal told us that I was passing all my classes with high scores/grades. Dad finally got them to agree to let me stay in current grade and that if my grades took a considerable drop, we’d revisit the grade hold back. Needless to say I spent a great deal of time trying to learn proper English… mostly by hanging out friends at local teen hang outs…trying to pick up on conversations as well as understand the slang they were using. Passed all my classes and with a little help from friends my “Pidgin English” had slowly diminished enough that I was able to graduate my with my class. 😅😀🤙🏼🤙🏼🤙🏼
Great vid Chris! Adaptive communication...on point. I can turn it on and off depending on my situation and who I am communicating with, had to. But you're right, its fun and almost soulfully reassuring to have almost that secret connection with someone else (especially here on the mainland) who is familiar with Pidgin and you start slinging the slang. Besides the jackets and jeans in warmer temps, you can easily identify most people from Hawaii by their speech here. 😎🤙
I like it. I passed a guy hiking the other day, gave a head nod and thought it was cool when his response was "howzit?", or overhearing someone say to whoever he was talking to on the phone "if can, can". That local touch is nice. I love slang in general, and use a lot of it that I've picked up from different people and places. But, yeah... you've got to be able to turn that stuff off when talking to people who won't pick up what you're layin' down.
Seriously, pidgin cannot be turned off in thick native Hawaiian areas such as Nalo, and the westside. The kupuna used pidgin exclusively so every generation learns it communicate with them. Also it’s not just the words but the way, tone, and inflection. This is how you can tell someone trying, whether born and raised or visitor, is not really a pidgin speaker. It is getting watered down and used less and less as we intermarry and the puna pass on. Really only hearing it fully used in rural areas on all islands. Not just in greetings and small chats, but in long deep serious conversations.
I took a summer math class (because I knew I was behind) at Kaiser High School, had to pay for 'um on my own too, and the teacher was a "Kalihi boy" as he kept reminding us, and was not only given to voicing his opinion on how things ought to be done - like we should have to run a few miles on the track before class - but spoke a very heavy, non-turn-off-able Pidgin. I had to translate for a girl in the class who was so white she was almost transparent.
Dr. April Komenaka of UHH did extensive research on this topic decades ago. Per her results, she was able to have our unique Island language identified as A CREOLE type.
I found this video fascinating. I am from Boston and Boston has a pretty strong local dialect. After college and joining the workforce I was really encouraged to drop the accent because people said it made me sound stupid. I feel comfortable, dropping my R’s and referencing certain words when I’m with my friends from home in Boston. I probably would never do that, though in a professional set. Everything you said in this video was so relatable. I personally love so much when I hear pigeon. I love it because it feels authentic to me. I never want Local dialect to go away, anywhere. I actually noticed it sort of eroding in Boston and I never want the “personality” of Boston or anywhere to go away. I think what you mentioned about switching back-and-forth is probably what the answer is. This must be something that is universal and sort of tribal. I’ll never be a “local” living here, but boy do I love it when people speak pidgin and Hawaiian when I do hear it.
Nice piece. Born and raised in Cali, I had a GF of from Kaneohe who moved up the Bay. So I had a lot of exposure to pidgin with her. I had no idea what she was saying early on and then I started to understand her. She would turn it on or off depending on the conversation. She also spoke proper English very well. She would also end her sentences with a question mark even though she was making a statement. "It's really hot today, yea?". Sometimes I see locals in the hospitality industry in HI, speak pidgin to tourist. And I can see the tourist have that confused look on their face. That the only time I think it's inappropriate for locals to use pidgin with tourist. Lots of good content in your video. Thanks.
@@HelloFromHawaii That one's really jumped out at me since I moved here. Seems like everyone who's lived here for a long time does that. I assume it's because of the English presence in the plantation era, as they use "yeah?" the same way... but that's just my guess.
Ah the Kalanimoku building. I grew up there, spent some great times with my dad who was the Deputy Chief at DOCARE. Mahalo for the fantastic video and for taking a stroll during it in a place that brought back some great memories.
@@HelloFromHawaii It's always been a little banged up, you should've seen the DOCARE offices back then. The tiny newstand that used to be on the first floor had the best bentos in a pinch when I as a brat poking around the offices waiting for my dad to be done.
Nah, My Hawaiian friends don't sound dumb etc, They turn it on and off. I appreciate that they use pidgin when they use it around me. I feel acceptance Some words just make sense. DaKine...🌴🌴Aloha
When I was a kid, around 1979 I had a "book" (more of a comic really) called Peppo's Pidgin To Da Max...I loved it. It would probably been seen as offensive today... I was a a haole kid from Alaska and loved trying to speak pidgin with my dad's local friends. I've looked high and low for another copy of that book but have never seen one.
Loved this video! Fun fact, I did write an actual university linguistics paper on "da kine" back in the day. I touched on the need for contextual awareness. Japanese language is also very context-sensitive! My mom, 20 years away from Hawaii, still says "Chee!" and "You pau?" but I am more of a "Shoots!" kinda gal. Still say "howzit" and "ho, brah!" and "k den!" to local kine frenz. Oh, and "futless" -- it is kinda old, I think.
Love this video. I’ve been on the mainland almost 2 years. I notice I hardly speak pidgin but when da Braddahs come around, it comes out automatically. Wherever I go here I usually don’t speak pidgin. K den, lol 😂 🤙🏼
As a Big Island raised person, I have mixed feelings about pidgin English. Yeah you are right about Big island peeps being real heavy ...lol. I spoke pidgin as a kid in school. My mother wasn't from Hawaii, so I could speak proper English. I you spoke with clean proper English you were bullied in school. That mentality of maintaining the group dynamic in a small community and not standing out is very prevalent in island and especially Asian communities. I also got crap from people that got threatened by anyone that seemed smarter than them. When I left Hawaii, I dropped the pidgin as fast as possible. I still have the accent to a small degree though. I do think pidgin does sound very .....basic. Man....reading pidgin in texting.....yeah...nope. In Hawaii, I agree its a bonding thing. Part of the culture. But if you live anywhere else in the world its prob best to speak clear proper English to communicate with the people around you. Right on bruddah.
Whoa, did you realize what a nice long walk you took? 😄 Anyway, one word that I always hear locals say, even when trying to speak properly is "tay-sez" (tastes). As in: "That apple tay-sez good!" I also recall once when on a trip to California, I met an old friend in a mall food court and of course, we went down memory lane speaking full-on pidgin! An elderly white couple sitting nearby asked, very politely, "Excuse me, but what language are you speaking?" LOL! My friend replied, "Hawaiian English!"
Your intro was so funny, and yes, I understood that. But in 1995, not so much. I was living on Kauai at the time. There was a Yamaha Piano store in Honolulu, and the manager, Russell, had just shipped over a container of pianos to a shopping center in Kapa'a for a weekend sales event. The container arrived, Russell and I were assiting three big Samoan guys unpack the load. Russell (Japanese American) was having a conversation with them. I did not know what language they were speaking, so after the crew left, I asked Russell what language they were speaking. He laughed. "English," he replied. Moral of this story: Learn Pidgin and get accustomed to roosters crowing at 4AM when moving to Kauai from the mainland.
Love your channel. Hawaii dialects are truly unique and are ever-evolving like in all the Japanese prefectures your wife can relate to. Kanto vs Kansai dialects are always misunderstood by both so not surprising that pidgin is one of those unique dialects vs. proper english. Pidgin to da max, brah!
As someone who's born and raised on the island of Oahu, I can understand pidgin, but can never speak it. Which is funny because my parents speak Filipino, thru out my entire childhood, and I STILL have no idea what they're saying till this day, other than the swear words.
My freshman high school English teacher (from Eugene, Oregon) once told me if I write the opposite (not certain that was the exact word he used) of how I speak I would benefit. It really resonated with me. I did really well in his class. It made me do better in school and in writing my papers. Yes, I can switch to proper English when necessary. I think it’s important that one is able to turn off the pidgin in conversation with people depending on what and where that individual is.
As someone from mainland to island life - It's hard to NOT to speak pidgin when you engage in dialogue with locos! I've picked it up unintentionally to the point my wife will hear me speak with a co worker whos local and call me out on it, and I don't even notice I'm doing it. I definitely think it's something that is second nature when engaging with a diverse group of individuals
This is sort of what I always wonder about. If you’re a native English speaker who moves to some place with a creole, pidgin, or even just a dialect with an extensive dialect vocabulary, will people be okay with you trying to learn to talk like a local, or will they view it as you sort of making fun of how they talk?
Oh fo days! Had me rolling with the ‘Use to to’…. Same like ‘Just put em on da dakine!’ LOL. My pidgeon wasn’t too bad. My hardest habits were ‘lah dat’…’ova dea’…’you like some’. Being aroung the military families meant adjusting my vocabulary. But most of them already been to Hawaii and enjoyed our “accent”. 😁. Yah…I know right!! What accent??? 😆😂 Nice video. Mahalo 🤙🏼
I grew up in Palolo, up at the end of the valley. Mom did not allow pidgeon in the house, we had to speak "good english." But, in 9th grade I entered Kamehameha and speaking English well helped me in the interview for the school. Later, I lived on Kauai for 3 1/2 years and picked up their pidgen and would sometimes stand outside of myself and wonder who was talking!
I was born in '86. In Germany. My family Moved to Hawaii when I first started Kindergarten/1st grade. I didn't really speak any English and all I knew was German(and I'm Mexican/American). Naturally I picked up Pidgin as my dialect and assumed that's how everyone spoke. Years later we moved to the Mainland and it was difficult. Especially in school, it was very hard to "assimilate" with my peers. Educators assumed I was "slow and ignorant" because I spoke Pidgin. I was Forced into ESL(English second language) and eventually the school system "programmed" me to speak and enunciate fully and correctly. I was blessed to Move back to Hawaii in my high school years, got to meet old friends and it felt like home for me. I never really picked Pidgin back up, aside from some simple phrases-Howzit, shoots, coz, brahdah, sistah. I still use these phrases to this day, even though I live in Denver. When I go back to Hawaii for vacation I throw some of the Pidgin around the locals(definitely when I'm getting pakalolo) and they swear I'm Kama'aina. It makes me feel good, to feel like I belong to the culture and island even if I don't live there. I traveled all over the world as a kid, I never truly had a "home" or a real identity. You don't really find too many Mexican/Americans that speak German and Hawaiian Pidgin but not Spanish. Especially in my travels. I always felt like an outsider everywhere I lived other than Hawaii. Aside from my rambling.....Pidgin is a beautiful dialect. It's an Amazing slang that makes it so unique. It is sad to know that in the 90s, that on the mainland, in my experience that it was frowned upon and made me feel uneducated. When in fact it's the complete opposite of that negativity. Pidgin is something, especially when on the mainland that brings locals together. We have this sense and feeling of belonging when we are away from home. And I feel that's what makes Pidgin so amazing. Its a form of Identity in a world that can sometimes feel Alien and foreign.
I’m from Hawaii born and raised there but now live on the mainland. Got married to a woman from Texas. Once in a while I speak pidgin to her. She gets pissed off at me and says I sound crazy. When we get into an argument I speak pidgin to upset her more.
I lived in Singapore for 6 years and it has its own pidgin called singlish. It was a lot of fun to pick it up and helped me fit in as a foreigner. Hearing pidgin here in Hawaii is cool, but I don't really use it myself. I guess I haven't lived in Hawaii long enough.
Aloha…Live on the big island and love talking story with locals….I do construction work and when I first moved here,on job sites the only thing I understood were the cuss words,yeah.
As a grade schooler in the midwest on the mainland we had what we called pig Latin. it was at Catholic schools where we were exposed to Latin and combined it with local slang. The teachers hated it which made it all the more appealing as a way to belong and speak surreptitiously to your friends. We seemed to outgrow it in high school , although certain common phrases and words would occasionly come out.
@@HelloFromHawaii I'm not sure, the Catholic church stopped teaching Latin in 1967 but Latin is still used in services. Kids are pretty resourceful so I imagine it exists in some form along with the local slang.
Pig Latin for you may have been different than what it was for us in my community. For us pig Latin was just taking the first letter off every word and putting it at the end of the word and then adding "AY". So " You are tall" became "Uyay areyay alltay."
@@thor9838 It was more of a code for us, we applied it to Latin but it can be applied to almost any language. By applying it to a dead obscure language like Latin it became harder to decipher.
Very good video talking about Hawaiian Pidgin. While I'll admit that I kinda used is less as I grew older (though I'm trying to get back into it), this video made me feel glad to be from Hawaii.
I was lucky because my 6th grade teacher had a sort of game to make us kids speaking proper english. He called it Correction, where we'd have tickets that we would collect when catching a classmate saying things incorrectly. When I went to school on the mainland, it made the transition much easier. But same as you, if I came across a fellow Hawaii person, pidgin came out naturally. I don't know about you, but I have a very difficult time writing in pidgin. Proper english, no problem. Mahalo for this video. BTW, before you said "...used to to" I never heard it before. Must be either your familiy or something that came about after I moved to the mainland.
That sounds like a fun game. I can't write in Pidgin either. It's not as natural when you write it down and then there are spelling issues on how to write down certain words. And maybe "used to to" was just us, but I've heard others say it too.
When I was teaching one of my cosmetology students said she didnt like going to mainland she felt they even family felt she was dumb. There are many areas in the country that have their own dialects Louisiana creole,South Carolina Low country very similar
LOL brings back some memories of living in Hawaii for 4 years (military family). I never picked up too much Pidgin because my dad didn't think much of it, especially since English was already my second language and I was still learning it. (But then, he discouraged me from talking like neighbors in Mare Island, CA, who would frequently use "aint.") Many years later, after living in CA, I met someone born and raised on the Big Island and we became friends and later, roommates. He had a thing called "RPG Maker" where you could make your own video Role Playing Game. Just for fun, he made one called "Pidgin Quest," where a non-Pidgin-speaking protagonist would travel around, battling things like mongoose, and attaining "PIDGIN POWAH." Dialog options included the more standard English as well as the "correct" option, of Pidgin.
We’re fr California, but have hella fam and friends born raised hella generations on the big island and also on Oahu- we LOVE hearing ppl talk pigeon 😊❤ it’s the coolest thing to hear, our kids are fascinated when they hear it, it’s like the coolest secret language 🌺 low key jealous we can’t speak it lol 😂
Texas transplant here, been on Oahu 20 years now. I think pidgin is brilliant. A simple yet expressive language that people back then from all around the world could understand together. For example, the past tense in any language can be a nightmare to learn. In pidgin, simply put the word WEN in front of any present tense verb, thereby making it past tense. I wen eat = I ate. I wen sleep = I slept. I wen drive = I drove. Brilliant! Plus it sounds so damn cool (majahs) 😎
When I was a kid in the 70s: Uneducated slang. A book about Hawaii even described it as being used by "people too lazy to say the right thing". Now: Super cool language for those mainland haoles who want to move to "the islands" and become instant locals. Why, Oh why someone from the mainland with a college degree would want to sound like a retired sugar worker from Wahiawa is beyond me. A lot of us old-timers can "code switch" on a dime. Frankly growing up being able to speak li'dat and proper English is almost like knowing two languages, and is good for learning how to do impressions. Like, one kid would get an Andy Bumatai record and learn all the stuff, tell it to the other kids, pass it on, etc. I learned all the Andy Bumatai routines 2rd or 3rd hand but the re-tellings were dead accurate.
Great vid, I guess bottom line is a "time and place" if you have a decent command of both worlds ... another fun thing is that there are definite words or phrases used exclusively by different communities within the same island ... in college, even us guys from the same island didn't understand some words used by another local, from a place only 50 miles away on the Big Island LOL so funny learning new words ... eg: guys from the south end said "greeze" instead of the common "grinds" and they would go down to "sea-beach" instead of the place name of that beach ...😛🤣
one way my teaching college writing class (a class meant to teach people how to write the college essay) went about what language we use when we write in college is something like this: yeah, "standard" english is racist/classist, no english is "better" or "more correct" or even "correct" compared to another english (e.g. american english, australian english, indian english.. lots of countries have people who speak an English as a native language). but like, the english we use when writing essays in college/univeristy isnt even standard english. it's basically what is probably most accurately called "Academic English," the lingua franca of the academy/academic world. it's the english you need to learn to write in if you want to contribute to academia. that class was cool and we even saw examples of basically avant garde style academic writing but i think it's still worth learning how write/read graudate/post-graduate english if you actually wanna benefit from or contribute to your field/major.
I grew up speaking pidgin but my parents put an emphasis on being able to speak proper English when the time calls for it such as job interviews or academics. We essentially grew up with a switch. Fast forward to being an adult and my wife absolutely DOES NOT like it when when I speak pidgin to her and that's ok. I still speak it to my brothers every so often but I do feel like when I listen to certain people speak pidgin and they use it in a certain tone, it sounds super uneducated. Even borderline dumb.
Some people can’t understand code switching. They don’t have a bunch of different language flowing around the house. It should be a plus because people who understand more than one language have more ways to understand different cultures and communicate.
I have ears and a brain that are tuned for languages, dialects and accents. When we went to Scotland to visit relatives, I developed a Scottish brogue without even thinking about it. Neither of my sisters did. My husband was from the South. When we went to visit his relatives, I had a drawl within a week. So now I've lived on Kaua'i for 17 years, and all my neighbors are locals. Sometimes, when I'm talking to them, I slip into a little Pidgin. They don't look at me funny. They don't think I'm faking it. It's the way my brain works---what goes in my ears, comes out my mouth. Lucky I live Kaua'i where nobody's at all judgmental.
Years ago I was attending college in Alaska. I had a writing class assignment once where we had to explain how we had come to learn the English language. I wrote the entire paper in pidgin, 2-3 pages worth. A few days later the professor called me into her office to talk about my paper. She wanted to transfer me over to a remedial English class because of what I had written. The look on her face was priceless when I responded in perfect English. She couldnʻt believe what she was hearing. I had to remind her of what her assignment was about and what she wanted us to explain. She immediately apologized for lack of understanding. I seriously had a huge laugh about it.
Eh! I one haole. Transplanted here in the "70's. I surf so I'd hear pidgin while out in the water and when I was on the beach. Plus I worked in construction so there was more than enough pidgin there. But if the boss was on site and he was haole the pidgin was limited. It seemed like a regular thing to switch back and forth. Over the years I've noticed the changes, young kids speaking less pidgin. But I actually was shocked when I was at a gathering of more than 50-60 people and one guy from here (Oahu) was pointing at me and he stated "He speaks better pidgin than me!." I was able to catch myself but I was about to reply "I speak better English, too" It was only because someone else said something that I had the chance to think and I realized how offensive it would have been.
Yes, attitudes toward Pidgin, or Hawaiian Creole English (HCE), and its speakers have changed a lot in the last 100 years or so. I took the first HCE course by Dr. Charlene Sato at UH back in the 1980s and these language attitudes were part of my master's degree studies. Now Pidgin has been recognized as an official language in Hawai'i and is used and accepted in many situations today as you described. I'd just like you and others who refer to the language of non-Pidgin speakers as "proper" or "perfect" English to use instead the term "Standard English" (which has historically been the language of the dominant or higher-status social group in a society.) As you know, there are many dialects, accents, grammatical "errors" and differences in the way a language is used, and by contrasting Pidgin with "perfect," "correct," or "perfect" language perpetuates the negative attitudes toward the speaker. I am also an English (as a second language) teacher, so I know about what is expected in written form or in different social situations, and I know that there is "corrrect" (and regional) Pidgin vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, and appropriate usage. Your wife is a good example of the complexities of language learning and identity. Mahalo for sharing your thoughts and experiences.
I think you would appreciate Robert MacNeil's series 'The Story of English' from the 1980s, which traces the history and growth of the English language and the influences that made it the universal language it is today. The episode 'Black on White' includes 'code-shifting', where the speaker can shift from street talk to more formal English depending on the situation. Another episode talks about various pidgins, and follows a British veterinarian working on, I believe, one of the South Sea islands. He doesn't speak the local language, and his wife (a local resident) doesn't speak English, so they communicate in the local pidgin, and are/were raising their children to be fluent in both. Clearly, pidgin is still a viable, often necessary, means of communication, as well as being fun. It's not lazy or uneducated. And as you pointed out, when you're anywhere else in the world and come across someone else who can communicate in that special language, it's a link to home.
Can speak da kine and understand it, when spoken fluently. Cannot understand the Hawai'ian language itself apart from a words and expressions. But, I would strongly recommend that mainland haoles (such as I am) speak it SPARINGLY. REALLY sparingly! I love Hawai'i pidgin! ❤ it! I could listen to it allll day. I also love using exclamation points!
Greetings! I'm Sansei, born in Chicago and raised in SoCal but my dad was born and raised in Kaua'i while my mother was Nisei, born and raised in SoCal. I grew up hearing both mainland English and westside Kaua'i Pidgin and I loved it when the Kaua'i aunties and uncle would pass thru on their way to Chicago. The Kaua'i people were fun and were always laughing and talking story. Not so much the mainland relatives. This was back in the 50s and there was still strong anti-Japanese racism in California which I didn't realize at the time and accounts for their reticence. I just assumed they weren't talkative. Fast forward to the 70s-80s and I read a paper published at UH about the influence of the Portuguese language on Pidgin. I've been to Brazil several times and I found that common phrases in everyday Brazilian Portuguese match phrases in Pidgin and with identical intonation like, ""You like eat? = Voce quer comer?"; "No can!" = "Nao pode!""; and the list goes on. I've studied a few different languages but the only one I felt able to communicate in was informal Brazilian Portuguese because it sounded so much like Hawaiian Pidgin. Pronouns and tenses are dropped left and right and to me it made casual communication relaxed and I was able to laugh and joke with Brazilians who were non-judgemental and fun. I Japan I'm almost always completely baffled by what people are saying and I just end up saying "hai, hai, so desu ka."" without any clue what had been said. After a few days in Japan I always want to scream and get out and I just want to leave.. Sorry for the long long comment but. your post hit home in so many ways and it's good to see that Pidgin has not died out but is being recognized as a significant part of local culture! Mahalo amigo! "
@@HelloFromHawaii Check.out on TH-cam "bon odori em brasil 2023" to see lots of videos of Bon Odori festivals from all over Brazil (make sure you spell Brasil with an "s" and not a "z" or you'll get a lot of unrelated BS). There must be at least a million Japanese Brazilians in Brazil and I think the majority of them went there after the US banned immigration from Japan in 1924. They went all over Brazil and the Brazilian govt encourage immigration and the Japanese thrived. They remind me of local Japanese in Hawaii...people seem very happy and outgoing and relaxed. And Brazilians love to dance and they love percussion and the participants are all races.
Roosevelt high school was set for students who could pass the academic standards and spoke standard American English. My Mom went to Roosevelt in the late 40s as she went to the Camps during the War so she spoke Standard American English and her grades were good. The experience of the White Officers who censored the mail of the men of the 100th Battalion was that their men spoke pidgin but wrote in Standard American English. This came from Ambassador in Arms, Murphy. Good book. A very thorough account of the 100th and describes the situation in Hawaii Pre-War for the AJAs.
When I grew up in Hawaii all my peers spoke pidgin English. My parents wanted to break me of that habit. At that time there was almost a reverse racism. I was accused of speaking "haolified" or snotty. Times have changed.
I am in my third year of teaching in Hawaii, and man it is hard to understand what all the kids are saying. It is a tough balance where I need to understand what they are saying but I also need to teach them academic math vocabulary and it is a hard time. I think it is because math is not very useful to my students. Half these guys have never left the island so they wonder why they need to learn academic language. I am also not completely stubborn at all, I am a first generation immigrant. English is not my first language, but I think it is absolutely important to not only learn academic English, but to try to learn a second or third language. Too often, I swear that my Taiwanese mom (who speaks broken english) would have an easier time understanding kauai locals than me. The most interesting thing about Hawaii and people’s perception of me, is that this is the only place on earth where people think I am local. In Taiwan, I am exotic and American. In America, I am Asian. I love when people think I am a local boy, until I start talking.
This is a good topic. On the one hand there needs to be a standard language for all members of society to communicate with each other to get things done, to reach understanding with each other, to make agreements etc yet which language should be the standard one ?
I feel the way some people feel about Hawaiian Pidgin is similar to how some people feel when they here Jamaicans speak patois. I personally love hearing both being as I grew up around people from Hawaiʻi and my grandparents who are Jamaican. Who cares if you you might sound a little “uneducated”, if you can speak it I say you should embrace it.
I live in the mainland and when I get mad at work I yell at my coworkers in pidgin. They look at me sideways!! Once I refer to them as “you fawka” they know they got issues ahead.. I work in the restaurant industry and it’s mostly Koreans and Mexicans.
![[LIVE] : ONE ลุมพินี 87 วันนี้!! คู่เอก "ก้องชัย vs โชคปรีชา"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YN6e7HVnekw/mqdefault.jpg)
Love Hawaii Pidgin. Always fun and brings locals together, especially when talking story on the mainland. 🤙
YESSSSSS! I found another Asian Gangster Alter Ego Video! My Favorite! you should incorporate that into EVERY video... guaranteed views!
I heard one story where this local girl from the Big Island got into school in upstate New York, maybe Cornell? The students there judged her for speaking pidgin and called her "anti-intellectual". She wasn't offended, and actually liked the nickname and embraced it, and even referred to herself that way. She thought they were calling her "Aunty Intellectual."
lol. Good one.
I know that student and that sounds like her
Too funny
A come on haole Thomas was that a story or a joke? I got a good story for you, true story. I was working on a construction job when at lunch time these haole traveling electricians from the mainland decided on lau-lau plate for lunch. One haole ask the other do you eat the whole thing and the other haole replied, yes it’s delicious. Ok, leaves and all?
Hahahahaha!
Pidgin's spontaneous formation as a creole, as a use language, is actually a testament to the effort and fortitude of our forebears to succeed in a challenging, disadvantaged environment. They had neither the time nor money to spend on concerted learning, and yet they succeeded in bridging huge economic and sociocultural barriers to almost instinctively create a means of communication and build community across a myriad of cultural and ethnic groups. Pidgin should not be denigrated, but celebrated proudly.
Well said.
And yeah
It's even more glorious, discoving that Britain was built by black Africans going as far back as stonehenge, which they of course built,
You're so right about Hawaii people meeting outside of Hawaii. I was stationed in Texas for about a year and I ran into another guy from Hawaii. We just started talking story and the people around us were asking us what language we were. speaking. Too funny.
😆
When I go to Texas, I always wonder what language those cowboy-hat-wearing dudes are speaking too. 😊
@@ggrace1133These days, I wonder what planet Texans are from.
Watching this video made me chuckle and smile 😄 because I could relate to and understand everything you talked about. Yes, I think the key is knowing when to turn it on and off. When traveling around the country, I can always tell who is from Hawaii just by hearing the tone, inflection and vocabulary in their speech. 😂Too funny!! Thanks for another great video topic!
Yeah, I think it's fun to just be able to tell someone is from Hawaii. When we were in Japan, I could just tell by the way some people walked and waited for the elevator.
In New Mexico we "code switch" from English to Spanish and mix the two languages along with regionalisms that are about as close to such a familiar language. It is fun for familiarity with cousins and family! Like you said, 10 seconds into the conversation you know where they are from.
Interesting that that happens in New Mexico. Thanks for sharing.
Bilingual people do this a lot , specially in the Mexican culture in America we do this a lot 😅
I love hearing pidgin used in conversation, and you are right about people trying to speak it and sounding forced and offensive lol. Makes Hawaii and it's people such a special place
My good friend Nikkei nisei obaachan told me this story when I was in Hawaii to learn ENGLISH at HPC. A Hawaii local lady passed interview working for United Airlines. But she needed to go to an English conversation school in Chicago for that work. I was shocked😂 Even though I can’t speak pidgin but understand as local boyfriend taught me some. I just fell in love in pidgin English. I bought 3 or 4 of “Pidgin to Da Max” books. After 30 years later I still love to read them❤
I went HPC, too. And Pidgin to the max is also one of my most favorite books until now. 😊
I have those books too. Makes me crack up every time.
Haha. I’ll drop a story here. I memorized two of those books just for fun. Later I was flying to Hawaii on Hawaiian airlines from East Asia and I spoke only in pidgin. I got so much attention and free goodies from the stewardesses who thought I was local. So those books do work quite well. I love pidgin! So much soul!
Thank you so much for validating the reason Hawaiian pidgin is a part of the culture of the islands. It was really difficult for me to adjust and adapt to life on the mainland after growing up on Oahu. I am hapa haole and have always felt like a stranger in a strange land on the mainland amongst haole kine. I reminisce quite a bit about the simpler life of growing up in a rural town and will always cherish my childhood in paradise.🌺
I am 70 today and have lived in Hawaii since 1956. My mom was very strict about using correct english with the correct grammar when we were kids in Hawaii. Years later in school and after getting a job this made a big difference for me and my ability to be a lot better off during retirement. Growing up with Pidgin in Hawaii I am just fine understanding and speaking with locals and they quickly realize I am a local Haole. If all you know is Pidgin in most cases you will not go as far as someone who speaks correct and proper english.
I think it's good know both and be able to turn it on and off. It will be tough if Pidgin is all you know.
Its better than hearing "aks" and "finna" for ask and gonna 🙄🙄 they know who they are...
Even when not speaking pidgin, if you listen closely, you can almost always detect something in the tone and inflection that says, "local." Our regional accent is not American/mainland standard. I was born and raised in Hilo, and like several commenters, my parents discouraged my speaking pidgin. I picked it up anyway, and even after living on the mainland for 40+ years, I can still turn it on and off at will. Every so often, I will run into someone that has that certain something in their speech. I will then slowly let my local accent come out, a word here, the lilt at the end of a sentence there, until the other person invariably asks, "Are you from Hawaii?" At which point the floodgates will open.
That's true. There's a certain way locals talk. And yeah, the floodgates open when they say, "Yeah, you from Hawaii too?" 😁
@@HelloFromHawaii Foh shuah, bruddah!
And then “What high school you went to?”
Aloha 🌺🥰 I lived in Australia for a year. Whenever family called & said "Howzit! It took right back! Aloha!🥰
😁 I used to feel the same when family called when I was on the mainland.
Interesting piece! Thank you for sharing! Having been born in the southeastern US and raised in a very rural part of the south, I had a very thick drawl growing up and it was almost it's own language based on English, Gaelic and Creole which had cooked for a few hundred years in the southern heat. When I go back there I can still turn it on but for the most part I have grown out of using it. What is interesting is when I went to Hawaii for the first time I met friends of friends who were locals who grew up on Oahu , Maui and the Big Island and they spoke nothing but pidgin and I had absolutely no trouble understanding what they were saying although it was completely different in every way form the southern drawl that I grew up with. I could understand parts of English words and how they had morphed into different words but were just close enough for me to get the gist of what they were saying and understand the entire conversation. The people I were with though were not from the south had a much more difficult time following the conversations although they could still sort of follow along. I guess that being from somewhere that had almost it's own form of language loosely based on English with other languages thrown in it was to my advantage in understanding another language loosely based on English with other languages thrown in. I also had no problem reading and understanding the copy of "Da Jesus Book" that was gifted to me because I had taken such a liking to the dialect. Now mind you, I can not speak Pidgin nor do I try out of respect because I am not from Hawaii but for the most part I can understand and enjoy it.
That's interesting that you were able to pick it up based on some of the sounds. And I have a tough time understanding Southern accents. Don't get too much of that over here.
This video hits the spot. Born and raised on Oahu and left for college, people looked at me like I was stupid and talked down to me cause I partially spoke pidgin. And I say partially cause my pidgin isn’t heavy and I don’t force it (as you mentioned in the video it does sound off when forced). And it sucks cause my school had no other people from Hawaii so I slowly “corrected” my speech but when I’m back home it just slips back. I remember my first time back at home, I was in the Aiea Times Supermarket and got goosebumps when I heard pidgin, it was a moment of “I’m home”. One thing that I couldn’t change was the way I said no. The tone we carry when we say no is so different and some people still ask, or even laugh, at how I say no. But it’s okay, it is a part of me and reminds me when I’m from.
P.S. Please ignore my username, I made this account when I was like 7 😂
Mahalo for sharing. Glad you felt like you were home when you heard Pidgin when back home. 🤙
My fave version of no is naaahht! But, yeah, the long drawn out nooo is good, too. :)
As a born and raised Georgia boy, I grew up with that southern twang and using country phrases but tend to switch to a less identifiable accent and verbage. Oft times, I was called upon to translate when my east Tennessee colleagues were speaking and I also quickly roll back into the twang and verbage when I speak to relatives so I can easily relate to your experiences. Having lived a few years on Oahu, sadly I am no longer there, I loved hearing pidgin and the vocal lilt of the locals. There are several socials that I follow just to hear that lilt and pidgin. Many mahalos for the content.
Mahalo for sharing. That must have been fun translating the Southern twang. 😆
This vid hit the spot; I've been fortunate to grow up around the world going to American system schools overseas so speaking "proper" English wasn't an issue, but it was an interesting reverse cultural shock for the four years of high school in HI (Big Island for one and O'ahu for three). Since the O'ahu school was boarding, it was like living an immersion course in pidgin, which in retrospect was not a bad thing because it's absolutely true that if you know and understand pidgin you can tell someone is from the HI simply from the inflection in their speech, it's very distinct and some people will never lose it. But it always leads to a great conversation afterwards. One thing I noticed was it seemed like in your older videos you would say/pronounce Honolulu and Hawai'i like a mainlander would, but in this video I did detect the proper pronunciation for the city and state, and I think it's important for outsiders to learn how to properly say these place names. I look forward to future videos from Hawai'i.
Nah, Chris, it IS ice shave! 😁
Omg, I was cracking up! In Hilo, we say "da da kine." Just like your used to to...lol. When you mentioned try, I was on the floor laughing. When I lived in Cali, I inadvertently told my co-worker "try come." She gave me this strange look and said "I don't have to try. It' s not that hard! 😆 Craziness!
Its important to know how Pidgin was made. The plantation owners (white English speakers) and the workers were from many different places with different languages. They adapted and made their own language that takes words from all of their native languages including English. That's what makes it so special. It was a group of diverse people coming together to find a way to communicate. Its one of the reasons I find language so inserting.
People have been speaking pidgin before the plantation. Nigerian Pidgin is just so different from this one.
@@Godswill247alwayseven so, that's basically how pidgin languages are formed, it's created by groups of people who don't share a common language
@@OatmealGrillBlazer slavery no bring pidgin come Naija.
@@OatmealGrillBlazer I think I was wrong. Thank you
Interesting video, thanks for making it! I watched it wondering though if you would mention about the Hawaiian accent, that’s different than pidgin. Maybe another video? There’s a certain way, an accent that people in Hawaii speak with that’s different than pidgin, yeah? … :) the “yeah” is only one marker, like how Canadians say “eh” but also in the tone and rhythm, like how you’re speaking when you’re not trying to speak pidgin. It’s really cool and endearing, you can always tell if someone is from Hawaii even if they’re not speaking pidgin, what do you think?
I would concur with that observation. It definitely exists.
Shootz! Hawaiian Pidgin has been described as proof of evolution - a highly engineered system formed by spontaneous organic growth. Given the wide diversity of completely different language systems in close proximity in the early Hawaiian plantations, Pidgin was how the workers communicated with one another, slowly converting their own languages into a hybridized English and then combining them. People hearing it for the first time often describe it as sounding like someone with a travel-language guide and that's really not far off. Unlike many other creoles around the world, Hawaiian Pidgin is unique in that the pronunciation and rhythm are essential components of communication.
* It drops/simplifies all sounds that certain languages have difficulty pronouncing and uses only letters/sounds common to all in the community
* It drops most prefixes and suffixes, as well as tense/case variations of words, relying on context and the communicators' mutual knowledge of the subject being discussed
* The English word "a" always becomes "one" (which makes it match nearly every other language in the world, so only confuses Americans/British)
* It drops nearly all words except the essential noun/verb/adverb/adjectives, simplifying sentence structure and eliminating confusion from differing grammatic systems
* By eliminating the extra words in a "full sentence", Pidgin relies on the rhythm/inflection of the speakers to convey any understanding normally expressed by grammar. This is the biggest reason why Pidgin can't be faked or forced...the rhythms don't just sound nice, they are an essential part of the language...if you don't feel it flow, it doesn't come out right.
* Hawaiian Pidgin is a very communal language, and (as explained in your explanation of "da kine") relies very heavily on everyone involved having a pretty good idea what each other are talking about
* As languages go, Hawaiian Pidgin is incredibly powerful - it can convey an amazing amount of information extremely efficiently. Try explaining something to visitors who speak different languages and we all find ourselves defaulting to at least some aspects of Pidgin.
Mahalo for the comment. It's definitely a complex language. Like I mentioned, "da kine" is an interesting word that I'm sure could be studied more.
😂 I was born raised on O`ahu, lived in Hilo in my 40s and the argument with my cousins from B.I. about Shave Ice vs ice shave is real!! 🤣
Thanks for the vlog, really enjoyed it. Always feels like home hearing pidgin. When I was going the UH, one professor told the class most of you guys are bilingual (pidgin and english). He got a good laugh from the class. :)
And it's true. It's a different language.
The origins are neat. Put fresh of da boat Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, Portuguese in the middle of a sugar cane field and mix in native Hawaiians and the end result is Hawaii pidgin. It binds us even today. I remember doing a business call and then finding out the person on the other side was from my generation and my hood. The pidgin just naturally comes out even though we speak standard English for work.
I do however think there is some laziness to pidgin. It’s origins is that it is a simplification of words or the selection of words that 5 other nationalities will learn so they can understand each other. I think children gotta be able to up their vocabulary when needed. This is not just Hawaii pidgin, but children that pick up other US state and regional slang should be able to revert to speaking straight textbook English one or two months before an SAT exam. This actually increases students SAT scores. Now debating if SAT is useful or racist is a whole nuther topic…just saying kids should also learn to up their vocab A-game and not rely on ‘very’ and ‘dakine’ to explain their thoughts.
Actually, this doesn't seem to be documented well all in one place, but pidgin was massively contributed to by ... the Chinese. There were booklets Chinese immigrant workers took with them on their journey to the US West Coast to work, and I was shocked to see comics from around the year 1900 with one of the characters being a duck (Peking duck, get it?) speaking pidgin! Saying bumbye and all that. Comic was set in the US West.
Mahalo for the comment. Great point about building vocabulary for kids across the country. Starts with reading more books.
Great video. As a mainlander, I’m always waiting for the unexpected short little pidgin “hot takes” (?) that you sprinkle throughout your videos. They really crack me up. Please keep doing that, they’re so spontaneous and hilarious. 🤣
Hawaiian Pidgin is a beautiful “slang” and I don’t like to think it makes people sound ignorant. It should be embraced as part of the culture. In my mind it’s no different than east coast/west coast or dirty south slang. It’s region specific and that is what makes it unique and beautiful.
Happy to find your video. I learned how to walk, talk and swim in Honolulu. From an infant until we moved to Colorado Springs when I was 6y. My parents immersed me in all things local including attending Menehune School. Once we were in Colorado my new elementary teachers sent me to speech therapy. To this day hearing pidgin is so comforting 🤙 ❤
As a local white guy originally from Kealakekua, speaking pidgin is definitely a way to fit in. Letting them know that I am not Malahini. 🤙🏼
But we no talk laik dat 'roun mainlandahs at werk cause dey gon freek, ya?
😁☕**☕😁
@@SunnyIlha what’s interesting about how you said it? Google put a translation thing on your comment lol-
And as long as you not Da Kine’ 😂
@@keikialanifrazee8892
Wow I didn' kno 😁
Cool laik dat den!
😂
@@SunnyIlha
I do good fun they amazed by it 😂
@@kendawg8085
Hah! Sumtymes slip out. 😁
LOL! So I've new Hawaiian friends in my life and while I'm considered a "Howlie" as I look super white, I am actually almost 30% Hawaiian and first generation mainland, I just never got to know that side of my family and most of them are passed on now. That said, my friends have an accent that sometimes I can't understand. I never ever think of them as alliterate or dumb, at all, yet I do find myself saying "what?!". Sometimes I have NO clue what they just said. But that's true of anywhere, really, same with my friends from New York, Boston, France, or other countries. I think everyone has their own "accents" or "slang" and I personally find it endearing. This was a fun video, thank you!
People from Hawaii have a certain accent and way of speaking is goes beyond just the words. Certain inflections.
Cool like dat, Island Sis! Pualani Vahine, Yu !!
😁
I love Hawaii pidgin. It makes me smile! Language is fluid.
It's so chop suey ya?!
😂
If can, *can* !
If no can, *TRY* !
(& No mattah if Yu no can,
IF Yu try, dat change everyting & Yu already doeeng 'um!)
🤣
I love it! Thanks for your feelings on this. My husband's family is from OK, but he grew up in Alaska. He always says "used-ta could-a." Sound close to your "used to." How funny. He means the past tense, used to and could have. Hmmm....
Ah howzit Chris🤙🏼 got a story for you. We moved to mainland while I was in 8th grade. Dad enrolled me into school (Southern California area) during the summer and upon entering classes there… well I was in for a big surprise. After a few weeks of school I was called to the principals’ office where I was surprised to see my parents there as well. According to input from my teachers, they thought it was necessary to be sent back a grade or two because I didn’t speak proper English. Yeah wuz Pidgin too da max! Fellow students kept asking where I’m from as it sounds like English but??? I’m from Lana’i but that just seem to bewilder them more, so I would just answer “Hawaii”. Dad asked how my grades were? Principal told us that I was passing all my classes with high scores/grades. Dad finally got them to agree to let me stay in current grade and that if my grades took a considerable drop, we’d revisit the grade hold back. Needless to say I spent a great deal of time trying to learn proper English… mostly by hanging out friends at local teen hang outs…trying to pick up on conversations as well as understand the slang they were using. Passed all my classes and with a little help from friends my “Pidgin English” had slowly diminished enough that I was able to graduate my with my class. 😅😀🤙🏼🤙🏼🤙🏼
It’s very endearing💕and if you understand it even better. If you’re listening you can almost 😊understand it.
🤙
Great vid Chris! Adaptive communication...on point. I can turn it on and off depending on my situation and who I am communicating with, had to. But you're right, its fun and almost soulfully reassuring to have almost that secret connection with someone else (especially here on the mainland) who is familiar with Pidgin and you start slinging the slang. Besides the jackets and jeans in warmer temps, you can easily identify most people from Hawaii by their speech here. 😎🤙
lol. Jackets and jeans in 60 degree weather 😅
I like it. I passed a guy hiking the other day, gave a head nod and thought it was cool when his response was "howzit?", or overhearing someone say to whoever he was talking to on the phone "if can, can". That local touch is nice. I love slang in general, and use a lot of it that I've picked up from different people and places. But, yeah... you've got to be able to turn that stuff off when talking to people who won't pick up what you're layin' down.
Impressive when you turned it on and off in the beginning! 👏🏼👏🏼🤙🏼 Also, always love seeing where you go walking. 😂
Seriously, pidgin cannot be turned off in thick native Hawaiian areas such as Nalo, and the westside. The kupuna used pidgin exclusively so every generation learns it communicate with them. Also it’s not just the words but the way, tone, and inflection. This is how you can tell someone trying, whether born and raised or visitor, is not really a pidgin speaker. It is getting watered down and used less and less as we intermarry and the puna pass on. Really only hearing it fully used in rural areas on all islands. Not just in greetings and small chats, but in long deep serious conversations.
I took a summer math class (because I knew I was behind) at Kaiser High School, had to pay for 'um on my own too, and the teacher was a "Kalihi boy" as he kept reminding us, and was not only given to voicing his opinion on how things ought to be done - like we should have to run a few miles on the track before class - but spoke a very heavy, non-turn-off-able Pidgin. I had to translate for a girl in the class who was so white she was almost transparent.
Ya, got 'Deep Pidgin'
......."out in da sticks"
Ya? ☺️
Mahalo for the comment. Definitely used more in rural areas. I hear it all the time where I grew up.
Dr. April Komenaka of UHH did extensive research on this topic decades ago. Per her results, she was able to have our unique Island language identified as A CREOLE type.
Mahalo for sharing. Glad to know there is research into this.
Speaking pidgin and getting your point across is better than using big words that others can't understand.
I found this video fascinating. I am from Boston and Boston has a pretty strong local dialect. After college and joining the workforce I was really encouraged to drop the accent because people said it made me sound stupid. I feel comfortable, dropping my R’s and referencing certain words when I’m with my friends from home in Boston. I probably would never do that, though in a professional set. Everything you said in this video was so relatable. I personally love so much when I hear pigeon. I love it because it feels authentic to me. I never want Local dialect to go away, anywhere. I actually noticed it sort of eroding in Boston and I never want the “personality” of Boston or anywhere to go away. I think what you mentioned about switching back-and-forth is probably what the answer is. This must be something that is universal and sort of tribal. I’ll never be a “local” living here, but boy do I love it when people speak pidgin and Hawaiian when I do hear it.
You had me at the plate lunch order! I miss Hawaii but I feel like im right back there when i watch your videos. 🤙
Nice piece. Born and raised in Cali, I had a GF of from Kaneohe who moved up the Bay. So I had a lot of exposure to pidgin with her. I had no idea what she was saying early on and then I started to understand her. She would turn it on or off depending on the conversation. She also spoke proper English very well. She would also end her sentences with a question mark even though she was making a statement. "It's really hot today, yea?". Sometimes I see locals in the hospitality industry in HI, speak pidgin to tourist. And I can see the tourist have that confused look on their face. That the only time I think it's inappropriate for locals to use pidgin with tourist. Lots of good content in your video. Thanks.
Mahalo for the comment. I also use "yeah?" to end some sentences. Funny how we do that sometimes.
@@HelloFromHawaii That one's really jumped out at me since I moved here. Seems like everyone who's lived here for a long time does that. I assume it's because of the English presence in the plantation era, as they use "yeah?" the same way... but that's just my guess.
Ah the Kalanimoku building. I grew up there, spent some great times with my dad who was the Deputy Chief at DOCARE.
Mahalo for the fantastic video and for taking a stroll during it in a place that brought back some great memories.
Awesome. The building is a little banged up.
@@HelloFromHawaii It's always been a little banged up, you should've seen the DOCARE offices back then. The tiny newstand that used to be on the first floor had the best bentos in a pinch when I as a brat poking around the offices waiting for my dad to be done.
Nah, My Hawaiian friends don't sound dumb etc, They turn it on and off. I appreciate that they use pidgin when they use it around me. I feel acceptance Some words just make sense. DaKine...🌴🌴Aloha
🤙 Mahalo for sharing
When I was a kid, around 1979 I had a "book" (more of a comic really) called Peppo's Pidgin To Da Max...I loved it. It would probably been seen as offensive today...
I was a a haole kid from Alaska and loved trying to speak pidgin with my dad's local friends. I've looked high and low for another copy of that book but have never seen one.
They still have Pidgin to the Max. Try check Amazon. 😅 "Try"
Loved this video! Fun fact, I did write an actual university linguistics paper on "da kine" back in the day. I touched on the need for contextual awareness. Japanese language is also very context-sensitive! My mom, 20 years away from Hawaii, still says "Chee!" and "You pau?" but I am more of a "Shoots!" kinda gal. Still say "howzit" and "ho, brah!" and "k den!" to local kine frenz. Oh, and "futless" -- it is kinda old, I think.
Awesome. That must have been a fun paper to write.
Love this video. I’ve been on the mainland almost 2 years. I notice I hardly speak pidgin but when da Braddahs come around, it comes out automatically. Wherever I go here I usually don’t speak pidgin. K den, lol 😂 🤙🏼
Haaaa!! 😁
As a Big Island raised person, I have mixed feelings about pidgin English. Yeah you are right about Big island peeps being real heavy ...lol. I spoke pidgin as a kid in school. My mother wasn't from Hawaii, so I could speak proper English. I you spoke with clean proper English you were bullied in school. That mentality of maintaining the group dynamic in a small community and not standing out is very prevalent in island and especially Asian communities. I also got crap from people that got threatened by anyone that seemed smarter than them. When I left Hawaii, I dropped the pidgin as fast as possible. I still have the accent to a small degree though.
I do think pidgin does sound very .....basic. Man....reading pidgin in texting.....yeah...nope. In Hawaii, I agree its a bonding thing. Part of the culture. But if you live anywhere else in the world its prob best to speak clear proper English to communicate with the people around you. Right on bruddah.
Mahalo for sharing 🤙
Whoa, did you realize what a nice long walk you took? 😄 Anyway, one word that I always hear locals say, even when trying to speak properly is "tay-sez" (tastes). As in: "That apple tay-sez good!" I also recall once when on a trip to California, I met an old friend in a mall food court and of course, we went down memory lane speaking full-on pidgin! An elderly white couple sitting nearby asked, very politely, "Excuse me, but what language are you speaking?" LOL! My friend replied, "Hawaiian English!"
I never heard "tay-sez" before. And yeah, I took a nice long walk. 😆
@@HelloFromHawaii Really? I hear it all the time because as a retired English teacher, it hurts my ears! LOL!
You hear all the Hawaii Foodie youtubers say "taste-ez" while critiquing the food they're reviewing. I thought I was the only one that noticed.
Your intro was so funny, and yes, I understood that. But in 1995, not so much. I was living on Kauai at the time. There was a Yamaha Piano store in Honolulu, and the manager, Russell, had just shipped over a container of pianos to a shopping center in Kapa'a for a weekend sales event. The container arrived, Russell and I were assiting three big Samoan guys unpack the load. Russell (Japanese American) was having a conversation with them. I did not know what language they were speaking, so after the crew left, I asked Russell what language they were speaking. He laughed. "English," he replied. Moral of this story: Learn Pidgin and get accustomed to roosters crowing at 4AM when moving to Kauai from the mainland.
lol. Funny story. 🤙
Love your channel. Hawaii dialects are truly unique and are ever-evolving like in all the Japanese prefectures your wife can relate to. Kanto vs Kansai dialects are always misunderstood by both so not surprising that pidgin is one of those unique dialects vs. proper english. Pidgin to da max, brah!
🤙
I miss everything in hawaii, quality of life in hawaii is just different from the mainland for me. I will go home in a heartbeat ❤
As someone who's born and raised on the island of Oahu, I can understand pidgin, but can never speak it. Which is funny because my parents speak Filipino, thru out my entire childhood, and I STILL have no idea what they're saying till this day, other than the swear words.
My freshman high school English teacher (from Eugene, Oregon) once told me if I write the opposite (not certain that was the exact word he used) of how I speak I would benefit. It really resonated with me. I did really well in his class. It made me do better in school and in writing my papers. Yes, I can switch to proper English when necessary. I think it’s important that one is able to turn off the pidgin in conversation with people depending on what and where that individual is.
As someone from mainland to island life - It's hard to NOT to speak pidgin when you engage in dialogue with locos! I've picked it up unintentionally to the point my wife will hear me speak with a co worker whos local and call me out on it, and I don't even notice I'm doing it. I definitely think it's something that is second nature when engaging with a diverse group of individuals
This is sort of what I always wonder about. If you’re a native English speaker who moves to some place with a creole, pidgin, or even just a dialect with an extensive dialect vocabulary, will people be okay with you trying to learn to talk like a local, or will they view it as you sort of making fun of how they talk?
Oh fo days! Had me rolling with the ‘Use to to’…. Same like ‘Just put em on da dakine!’ LOL. My pidgeon wasn’t too bad. My hardest habits were ‘lah dat’…’ova dea’…’you like some’. Being aroung the military families meant adjusting my vocabulary. But most of them already been to Hawaii and enjoyed our “accent”. 😁. Yah…I know right!! What accent??? 😆😂
Nice video. Mahalo 🤙🏼
Ova dea. That's a good one.
I grew up in Palolo, up at the end of the valley. Mom did not allow pidgeon in the house, we had to speak "good english." But, in 9th grade I entered Kamehameha and speaking English well helped me in the interview for the school. Later, I lived on Kauai for 3 1/2 years and picked up their pidgen and would sometimes stand outside of myself and wonder who was talking!
The real question is, did you wash the rice?
That's good that proper English helped you get into Kamehameha. Yeah, and the Pidgin on Kauai is thick 😆
I was born in '86. In Germany. My family Moved to Hawaii when I first started Kindergarten/1st grade. I didn't really speak any English and all I knew was German(and I'm Mexican/American). Naturally I picked up Pidgin as my dialect and assumed that's how everyone spoke. Years later we moved to the Mainland and it was difficult. Especially in school, it was very hard to "assimilate" with my peers. Educators assumed I was "slow and ignorant" because I spoke Pidgin. I was Forced into ESL(English second language) and eventually the school system "programmed" me to speak and enunciate fully and correctly. I was blessed to Move back to Hawaii in my high school years, got to meet old friends and it felt like home for me. I never really picked Pidgin back up, aside from some simple phrases-Howzit, shoots, coz, brahdah, sistah. I still use these phrases to this day, even though I live in Denver.
When I go back to Hawaii for vacation I throw some of the Pidgin around the locals(definitely when I'm getting pakalolo) and they swear I'm Kama'aina. It makes me feel good, to feel like I belong to the culture and island even if I don't live there.
I traveled all over the world as a kid, I never truly had a "home" or a real identity. You don't really find too many Mexican/Americans that speak German and Hawaiian Pidgin but not Spanish. Especially in my travels. I always felt like an outsider everywhere I lived other than Hawaii.
Aside from my rambling.....Pidgin is a beautiful dialect. It's an Amazing slang that makes it so unique. It is sad to know that in the 90s, that on the mainland, in my experience that it was frowned upon and made me feel uneducated. When in fact it's the complete opposite of that negativity.
Pidgin is something, especially when on the mainland that brings locals together. We have this sense and feeling of belonging when we are away from home. And I feel that's what makes Pidgin so amazing. Its a form of Identity in a world that can sometimes feel Alien and foreign.
I’m from Hawaii born and raised there but now live on the mainland. Got married to a woman from Texas. Once in a while I speak pidgin to her. She gets pissed off at me and says I sound crazy. When we get into an argument I speak pidgin to upset her more.
I lived in Singapore for 6 years and it has its own pidgin called singlish. It was a lot of fun to pick it up and helped me fit in as a foreigner. Hearing pidgin here in Hawaii is cool, but I don't really use it myself. I guess I haven't lived in Hawaii long enough.
Ya, law 😃 🇸🇬
Mahalo for sharing about Singapore. Didn't know they had their own pidgin.
@@HelloFromHawaii yea, I love it. It's like a more fun and efficient way of using English.
Aloha…Live on the big island and love talking story with locals….I do construction work and when I first moved here,on job sites the only thing I understood were the cuss words,yeah.
As a grade schooler in the midwest on the mainland we had what we called pig Latin. it was at Catholic schools where we were exposed to Latin and combined it with local slang. The teachers hated it which made it all the more appealing as a way to belong and speak surreptitiously to your friends. We seemed to outgrow it in high school , although certain common phrases and words would occasionly come out.
I heard about pig Latin. Do the kids still use that in school?
@@HelloFromHawaii I'm not sure, the Catholic church stopped teaching Latin in 1967 but Latin is still used in services. Kids are pretty resourceful so I imagine it exists in some form along with the local slang.
Pig Latin for you may have been different than what it was for us in my community. For us pig Latin was just taking the first letter off every word and putting it at the end of the word and then adding "AY". So " You are tall" became "Uyay areyay alltay."
@@thor9838 It was more of a code for us, we applied it to Latin but it can be applied to almost any language. By applying it to a dead obscure language like Latin it became harder to decipher.
Very good video talking about Hawaiian Pidgin. While I'll admit that I kinda used is less as I grew older (though I'm trying to get back into it), this video made me feel glad to be from Hawaii.
Yeah, Pidgin is special. One of the many signs of growing up in Hawaii.
I was lucky because my 6th grade teacher had a sort of game to make us kids speaking proper english. He called it Correction, where we'd have tickets that we would collect when catching a classmate saying things incorrectly. When I went to school on the mainland, it made the transition much easier. But same as you, if I came across a fellow Hawaii person, pidgin came out naturally.
I don't know about you, but I have a very difficult time writing in pidgin. Proper english, no problem.
Mahalo for this video. BTW, before you said "...used to to" I never heard it before. Must be either your familiy or something that came about after I moved to the mainland.
That sounds like a fun game. I can't write in Pidgin either. It's not as natural when you write it down and then there are spelling issues on how to write down certain words. And maybe "used to to" was just us, but I've heard others say it too.
@11:32. I was wondering before that why it looks like you're pushing a stroller then i caught the shadow 😆🤣
When I was teaching one of my cosmetology students said she didnt like going to mainland she felt they even family felt she was dumb. There are many areas in the country that have their own dialects Louisiana creole,South Carolina Low country very similar
Mahalo for sharing 🤙
In Texas it’s Spanglish.
Just seeing your response ❤️🌸🤙
LOL brings back some memories of living in Hawaii for 4 years (military family). I never picked up too much Pidgin because my dad didn't think much of it, especially since English was already my second language and I was still learning it. (But then, he discouraged me from talking like neighbors in Mare Island, CA, who would frequently use "aint.")
Many years later, after living in CA, I met someone born and raised on the Big Island and we became friends and later, roommates. He had a thing called "RPG Maker" where you could make your own video Role Playing Game. Just for fun, he made one called "Pidgin Quest," where a non-Pidgin-speaking protagonist would travel around, battling things like mongoose, and attaining "PIDGIN POWAH." Dialog options included the more standard English as well as the "correct" option, of Pidgin.
I thought I was good with turning my pidgin off but then I didn’t realize “used to to” was still pidgin 😂😂😂
I was DEAD 💀 when you brought up Pidgin English in an e mail. My texts are wayyy different to my mainland friends as compared to my local friends LOL!
😆
We’re fr California, but have hella fam and friends born raised hella generations on the big island and also on Oahu- we LOVE hearing ppl talk pigeon 😊❤ it’s the coolest thing to hear, our kids are fascinated when they hear it, it’s like the coolest secret language 🌺 low key jealous we can’t speak it lol 😂
Made me so happy to hear you speak pidgin. I have to switch it on/off definitely makes me miss home. ☺️
Gotta turn it on and off 😆 All in good fun.
Texas transplant here, been on Oahu 20 years now. I think pidgin is brilliant. A simple yet expressive language that people back then from all around the world could understand together. For example, the past tense in any language can be a nightmare to learn. In pidgin, simply put the word WEN in front of any present tense verb, thereby making it past tense. I wen eat = I ate. I wen sleep = I slept. I wen drive = I drove. Brilliant! Plus it sounds so damn cool (majahs) 😎
When I was a kid in the 70s: Uneducated slang. A book about Hawaii even described it as being used by "people too lazy to say the right thing".
Now: Super cool language for those mainland haoles who want to move to "the islands" and become instant locals. Why, Oh why someone from the mainland with a college degree would want to sound like a retired sugar worker from Wahiawa is beyond me.
A lot of us old-timers can "code switch" on a dime. Frankly growing up being able to speak li'dat and proper English is almost like knowing two languages, and is good for learning how to do impressions. Like, one kid would get an Andy Bumatai record and learn all the stuff, tell it to the other kids, pass it on, etc. I learned all the Andy Bumatai routines 2rd or 3rd hand but the re-tellings were dead accurate.
lol. Sound like a retired sugar worker from Wahiawa. 😆 Good one.
Where was this shot? Clearly O`ahu because of the buses. But even though I've lived here long time I can't recognize the campus.
Great vid, I guess bottom line is a "time and place" if you have a decent command of both worlds ... another fun thing is that there are definite words or phrases used exclusively by different communities within the same island ... in college, even us guys from the same island didn't understand some words used by another local, from a place only 50 miles away on the Big Island LOL so funny learning new words ... eg: guys from the south end said "greeze" instead of the common "grinds" and they would go down to "sea-beach" instead of the place name of that beach ...😛🤣
in many languages the double word or double negative just makes that word stronger and does not cancel out the word like it does in standard English.
one way my teaching college writing class (a class meant to teach people how to write the college essay) went about what language we use when we write in college is something like this: yeah, "standard" english is racist/classist, no english is "better" or "more correct" or even "correct" compared to another english (e.g. american english, australian english, indian english.. lots of countries have people who speak an English as a native language). but like, the english we use when writing essays in college/univeristy isnt even standard english. it's basically what is probably most accurately called "Academic English," the lingua franca of the academy/academic world. it's the english you need to learn to write in if you want to contribute to academia.
that class was cool and we even saw examples of basically avant garde style academic writing but i think it's still worth learning how write/read graudate/post-graduate english if you actually wanna benefit from or contribute to your field/major.
I grew up speaking pidgin but my parents put an emphasis on being able to speak proper English when the time calls for it such as job interviews or academics. We essentially grew up with a switch. Fast forward to being an adult and my wife absolutely DOES NOT like it when when I speak pidgin to her and that's ok. I still speak it to my brothers every so often but I do feel like when I listen to certain people speak pidgin and they use it in a certain tone, it sounds super uneducated. Even borderline dumb.
I got it in Cafe 100 and when I took the bus on the Big Island. It was funny and different
Some people can’t understand code switching. They don’t have a bunch of different language flowing around the house. It should be a plus because people who understand more than one language have more ways to understand different cultures and communicate.
I have ears and a brain that are tuned for languages, dialects and accents. When we went to Scotland to visit relatives, I developed a Scottish brogue without even thinking about it. Neither of my sisters did. My husband was from the South. When we went to visit his relatives, I had a drawl within a week. So now I've lived on Kaua'i for 17 years, and all my neighbors are locals. Sometimes, when I'm talking to them, I slip into a little Pidgin. They don't look at me funny. They don't think I'm faking it. It's the way my brain works---what goes in my ears, comes out my mouth. Lucky I live Kaua'i where nobody's at all judgmental.
Years ago I was attending college in Alaska. I had a writing class assignment once where we had to explain how we had come to learn the English language. I wrote the entire paper in pidgin, 2-3 pages worth. A few days later the professor called me into her office to talk about my paper. She wanted to transfer me over to a remedial English class because of what I had written. The look on her face was priceless when I responded in perfect English. She couldnʻt believe what she was hearing. I had to remind her of what her assignment was about and what she wanted us to explain. She immediately apologized for lack of understanding. I seriously had a huge laugh about it.
Eh! I one haole. Transplanted here in the "70's. I surf so I'd hear pidgin while out in the water and when I was on the beach. Plus I worked in construction so there was more than enough pidgin there. But if the boss was on site and he was haole the pidgin was limited. It seemed like a regular thing to switch back and forth. Over the years I've noticed the changes, young kids speaking less pidgin. But I actually was shocked when I was at a gathering of more than 50-60 people and one guy from here (Oahu) was pointing at me and he stated "He speaks better pidgin than me!." I was able to catch myself but I was about to reply "I speak better English, too" It was only because someone else said something that I had the chance to think and I realized how offensive it would have been.
I always thought it was just a cool “secret” code the Hawaiian people had. From what you said I guess that’s exactly what it is!
Yeah, it's a culturally thing that we all share.
Which is very cool!
Yes, attitudes toward Pidgin, or Hawaiian Creole English (HCE), and its speakers have changed a lot in the last 100 years or so. I took the first HCE course by Dr. Charlene Sato at UH back in the 1980s and these language attitudes were part of my master's degree studies. Now Pidgin has been recognized as an official language in Hawai'i and is used and accepted in many situations today as you described. I'd just like you and others who refer to the language of non-Pidgin speakers as "proper" or "perfect" English to use instead the term "Standard English" (which has historically been the language of the dominant or higher-status social group in a society.) As you know, there are many dialects, accents, grammatical "errors" and differences in the way a language is used, and by contrasting Pidgin with "perfect," "correct," or "perfect" language perpetuates the negative attitudes toward the speaker. I am also an English (as a second language) teacher, so I know about what is expected in written form or in different social situations, and I know that there is "corrrect" (and regional) Pidgin vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, and appropriate usage. Your wife is a good example of the complexities of language learning and identity. Mahalo for sharing your thoughts and experiences.
Mahalo for sharing. And "Standard English" sounds better.
Had some good laughs bah! Tanks from Frisco, TX!
Oh using my wife’s acct for premium.
I think you would appreciate Robert MacNeil's series 'The Story of English' from the 1980s, which traces the history and growth of the English language and the influences that made it the universal language it is today. The episode 'Black on White' includes 'code-shifting', where the speaker can shift from street talk to more formal English depending on the situation. Another episode talks about various pidgins, and follows a British veterinarian working on, I believe, one of the South Sea islands. He doesn't speak the local language, and his wife (a local resident) doesn't speak English, so they communicate in the local pidgin, and are/were raising their children to be fluent in both. Clearly, pidgin is still a viable, often necessary, means of communication, as well as being fun. It's not lazy or uneducated. And as you pointed out, when you're anywhere else in the world and come across someone else who can communicate in that special language, it's a link to home.
For new folks to Hawaii. In time, Pidgin words will flow into your word usage.
Chris, do the different islands in Hawaii have different variations in Pidgin, like the islands in the Caribbean do?
I think so. The neighbor islands have a slightly different accent and use different words for certain things.
Could you share which paper from the University of Hawaii you're talking about?
It sounds like a good one.
Can speak da kine and understand it, when spoken fluently.
Cannot understand the Hawai'ian language itself apart from a words and expressions.
But, I would strongly recommend that mainland haoles (such as I am) speak it SPARINGLY.
REALLY sparingly!
I love Hawai'i pidgin! ❤ it! I could listen to it allll day. I also love using exclamation points!
Greetings! I'm Sansei, born in Chicago and raised in SoCal but my dad was born and raised in Kaua'i while my mother was Nisei, born and raised in SoCal.
I grew up hearing both mainland English and westside Kaua'i Pidgin and I loved it when the Kaua'i aunties and uncle would pass thru on their way to Chicago. The Kaua'i people were fun and were always laughing and talking story. Not so much the mainland relatives. This was back in the 50s and there was still strong anti-Japanese racism in California which I didn't realize at the time and accounts for their reticence. I just assumed they weren't talkative.
Fast forward to the 70s-80s and I read a paper published at UH about the influence of the Portuguese language on Pidgin. I've been to Brazil several times and I found that common phrases in everyday Brazilian Portuguese match phrases in Pidgin and with identical intonation like, ""You like eat? = Voce quer comer?"; "No can!" = "Nao pode!""; and the list goes on. I've studied a few different languages but the only one I felt able to communicate in was informal Brazilian Portuguese because it sounded so much like Hawaiian Pidgin. Pronouns and tenses are dropped left and right and to me it made casual communication relaxed and I was able to laugh and joke with Brazilians who were non-judgemental and fun. I Japan I'm almost always completely baffled by what people are saying and I just end up saying "hai, hai, so desu ka."" without any clue what had been said. After a few days in Japan I always want to scream and get out and I just want to leave..
Sorry for the long long comment but. your post hit home in so many ways and it's good to see that Pidgin has not died out but is being recognized as a significant part of local culture!
Mahalo amigo!
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Mahalo for sharing. I never would have made that connection to the phrases in Brazil. So interesting. 🤙
@@HelloFromHawaii Check.out on TH-cam "bon odori em brasil 2023" to see lots of videos of Bon Odori festivals from all over Brazil (make sure you spell Brasil with an "s" and not a "z" or you'll get a lot of unrelated BS). There must be at least a million Japanese Brazilians in Brazil and I think the majority of them went there after the US banned immigration from Japan in 1924. They went all over Brazil and the Brazilian govt encourage immigration and the Japanese thrived.
They remind me of local Japanese in Hawaii...people seem very happy and outgoing and relaxed. And Brazilians love to dance and they love percussion and the participants are all races.
To a mainlander, this very educational. Thank you!
Eo you’re welcome.
Glad it helped 🤙
Roosevelt high school was set for students who could pass the academic standards and spoke standard American English. My Mom went to Roosevelt in the late 40s as she went to the Camps during the War so she spoke Standard American English and her grades were good. The experience of the White Officers who censored the mail of the men of the 100th Battalion was that their men spoke pidgin but wrote in Standard American English. This came from Ambassador in Arms, Murphy. Good book. A very thorough account of the 100th and describes the situation in Hawaii Pre-War for the AJAs.
When I grew up in Hawaii all my peers spoke pidgin English. My parents wanted to break me of that habit. At that time there was almost a reverse racism. I was accused of speaking "haolified" or snotty. Times have changed.
Interesting how times have changed. I'm sure the appreciation for Pidgin will continue to grow.
I forget if you have merch cause I like that shirt...
I am in my third year of teaching in Hawaii, and man it is hard to understand what all the kids are saying. It is a tough balance where I need to understand what they are saying but I also need to teach them academic math vocabulary and it is a hard time. I think it is because math is not very useful to my students. Half these guys have never left the island so they wonder why they need to learn academic language.
I am also not completely stubborn at all, I am a first generation immigrant. English is not my first language, but I think it is absolutely important to not only learn academic English, but to try to learn a second or third language. Too often, I swear that my Taiwanese mom (who speaks broken english) would have an easier time understanding kauai locals than me.
The most interesting thing about Hawaii and people’s perception of me, is that this is the only place on earth where people think I am local. In Taiwan, I am exotic and American. In America, I am Asian. I love when people think I am a local boy, until I start talking.
This is a good topic. On the one hand there needs to be a standard language for all members of society to communicate with each other to get things done, to reach understanding with each other, to make agreements etc yet which language should be the standard one ?
I feel the way some people feel about Hawaiian Pidgin is similar to how some people feel when they here Jamaicans speak patois. I personally love hearing both being as I grew up around people from Hawaiʻi and my grandparents who are Jamaican. Who cares if you you might sound a little “uneducated”, if you can speak it I say you should embrace it.
In Hilo / Hamakua, it's always been Shave Ice. Ice Shave was a Honolulu version.
Big debate on shave ice/ice shave. lol
I live in the mainland and when I get mad at work I yell at my coworkers in pidgin. They look at me sideways!! Once I refer to them as “you fawka” they know they got issues ahead.. I work in the restaurant industry and it’s mostly Koreans and Mexicans.
lol