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(from the Alohafunwear April 2011 Newsletter)

Pidgin English is what we essentially classify as broken English or a mixture of English and Hawaiian words, but also have an infusion of Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Filipino and Korean influences and to a lesser degree, Spanish, Mexican and Puerto Rican. It is used mostly by local residents of Hawaii and will vary between the different cultures.  During the plantation days in Hawaii, the plantation workers may have been instructed “You go hoe-hana today”.  “Hana” basically means to work, so this would have meant that the workers were to prepare fields for planting using hoes.   

 Pidgin English is a dialect of American English unique to Hawaii, just as creole is unique to Louisiana, and Boston and Jersey accents are unique to their areas. As for the role that pidgin plays in Hawaii’s culture, I think that it’s one of the defining features of “local” culture. 

Many times you’ll hear “t” or “d” substituted for “th.” And at times words will not be enunciated very well. An example of this would be, “The wada stay over dere…” to be translated to “The water is over there.”And sometimes letters may be dropped as with the word “for.” “Fo” will be used and the “r” will not be heard. “What you use dis fo?” translates to “What do you use this for?”.

Here’s a story contributed by a friend who studied ethnic studies here in Hawaii:  “Funny story is that when my parents were living in Japan, we were looking for this farm that allowed you to pick oranges off the tree.  We didn’t realize that the orange season was over until we met this old Japanese lady and she said something in Japanese, and then we heard her say “all pau”.  When we heard her say that we knew she must have some tie to Hawaii.  It turns out she had lived in Hawaii with her husband (she may have been a picture bride) but had moved back to Japan.  My mom even went to meet her daughter when we moved to Hawaii.  So anyway, pidgin is definitely a way to identify people with Hawaii ties.”

It’s a unique language and sometimes takes a lot of getting used to. If it is used heavily even some of us locals have a difficult time understanding what is being said…. “But das ok – we all get aloha fo each ud-da…” (translated:  That’s ok, we all have aloha for each other).

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