PBS Documentary: "Pidgin" (Keaau: fit in, transplants, loan)

[Saskia Calico]

I am watching a PBS documentary, "Pidgin: The Language of Hawaii."
So I decided to come here to ask people who live in Hawaii and/or know Hawaii --

Is "Pidgin" really the "language of Hawaii"? The reason I ask is that the program and its title really surprised me. Growing up (on the mainland, in the years before and just after Hawaii became a state), I learned that "pidgin" was a rude word. A put-down word, a word used in a derogatory way about people who spoke "pidgin English."

I never heard the word used in relation to Hawaii; instead, it related to the Asian continent and to people who lived there, whose first language wasn't English and who were trying to speak English in order to communicate with Europeans coming to their countries. I never heard it used about Hawaii and Hawaiians. Not in real life, not in schoolbooks, and not on TV programs set in Hawaii (OK, I know, not the most scholarly sources! )

So is "Pidgin" now an "OK" word? Is it really "the language of Hawaii"? Is it a new word for the Hawaiian language? Or all those years when speakers of "standard English" were traveling to/living in Asia and the Pacific, were they really using an inoffensive word when they said someone spoke "pidgin"? Or was it only their saying "pidgin English" that was incorrect?

[Grassyknoll]

Some of our local radio and tv advertisisements on the Big Island are done in pidgin. Seems prevalent and accepted.

This is pretty funny and makes way more sense to me after living here for three years than it would have when I first moved here:
https://youtu.be/1StxXlMvA58

[hotzcatz]

Pidgin is the difference between being a local and being not-from-around-here. Officially - such as in the schools, pidgin is not encouraged. Among the population, it's used every day. As far as any stigmata, it depends on the circumstances.

I wonder if they showed the documentary here in Hawaii? And who did it? Depends on who does it, there'd be a whole different view on it.

FWIW, there's even accents and regional differences in pidgin, too.

[Dreaming of Hawaii]

Nothing wrong with speaking pidgin. People here in rural Ka`u speak their "language" and don't label it anything. It's just how they talk. It's kind of a Hawaiian form of patois.

And, yes, all sorts of words are sprinkled throughout. People use "da kine" all the time, for example. Live here long enough and you may begin to understand what people are saying, but don't come here from the mainland and try to learn to speak pidgin, please.

[Grassyknoll]

Originally Posted by Dreaming of Hawaii

Nothing wrong with speaking pidgin. People here in rural Ka`u speak their "language" and don't label it anything. It's just how they talk. It's kind of a Hawaiian form of patois.

And, yes, all sorts of words are sprinkled throughout. People use "da kine" all the time, for example. Live here long enough and you may begin to understand what people are saying, but don't come here from the mainland and try to learn to speak pidgin, please.

And don't expect to fit in if you can't throw out the occasional "howzit".

[rya96797]

generally the more rural you go, the heavier the accent. even people that think they're speaking "proper" English most of the time (like myself) do carry a recognizable pidgin accent that people out of state readily identify as being different.


In Tokyo, I was talking to my friends on the subway, and a lady (also originally from Oahu) asked us if we were from Hawaii. lol she could tell just by the way we spoke.

[leilaniguy]

I had jury duty a few years back, another juror spoke heavy pidgin. I thought she was local haole. turns out she was a German national, married to local boy. She works as a teacher at Keaau high school.

[Palanakonu]

Originally Posted by Grassyknoll

And don't expect to fit in if you can't throw out the occasional "howzit".

Ha!
I said once before that I liked my little spot on the BI because it's more "howzit" than "aloha".
In my years of being here, the word aloha is only used in the tourist areas or when people are trying to sell you something... or by tourists themselves. More commonly around here "howzit" it thrown around, or "heeeeeeeyyyyy"... or the ever present upward head nod.

Back on topic...
I can only speak for the area I am in on the southern part of the BI, but the word 'pidgin' is not considered a bad word, nor is 'hapa', nor is 'haole' to that extent (by and large). And plenty of people here speak pidgin in one form or another, especially the more rural you go. After a while, you get to understand it quite well, and me coming from Appalachia I think that helps. You'll even work some of it into your regular speech after a while. But the malahini who try to force it.... it's cringe worthy listening to that.
I'm happy with my 'island hillbilly' speak as someone once called it, makes me unique.

[KauaiHiker]

To give some background and answer the op's questions: the word pidgin is generic and applies to any mixture of languages used by people who don't share the same language. So yes it applied to commercial and colonial situations all over the world, including Asia and the Pacific. Hawaii developed its pidgin after sugar plantations imported workers from Portuguese islands, the Philippines, Japan, and China in the late 19th and early 20th century. They used the dominant English language but mixed in words and some grammar from their native languages and the local Hawaiian language. It also has some of the intonations and inflexions of these other languages. Except for the loan-words, pidgin is entirely different from native Hawaiian, which is a Polynesian language brought by the peoples who settled Hawaii before western discovery.

If you look at the Wikipedia page for pidgin, you'll see that it is considered a complete and distinct language, separate from English or any of the languages that it borrowed from.

Pidgin is widely spoken among all Hawaiian-born people, and hardly at all by the vast majority of mainland transplants (some do pick it up after several years). It tends to dominate in the lower socio-economic classes, but given the fairly well ethnically mixed schools and neighborhoods in Hawaii, all kids speak it to varying degrees. So even though I assume regular English is used for instruction in schools, I have the impression the kids speak some level of pidgin to each other outside of class. Nearly all pidgin speakers can switch to regular English whenever they speak to a transplant or mainlanders--though some don't bother, and I imagine a few can't (it would be interesting to know what percentage).

I wasn't around back then, but I can imagine that pidgin was looked down a upon by the ruling class (which was more white than the rest of the population) that aspired to integration with North America at statehood time. They didn't want to be seen as backwards or as racially diverse as the state really was, at least outwardly to the rest of the mainland. But it was never actively suppressed, and so it continued to be used and passed on. In Hawaii today, pidgin is not looked down upon, so it is not offensive to talk about it or mention that someone speaks it. It is the relaxed and informal language used between locals, and it becomes a sign pride of local culture and of local belonging that (more or less) gently excludes the transplants.

PS: I am a transplant, I like listening to pidgin, I understand much of it unless spoken very fast, but I can't speak it and don't try. What I've written above reflects my outside view of pidgin, maybe a "native speaker" will have corrections.

[rya96797]

Originally Posted by Palanakonu

You'll even work some of it into your regular speech after a while. But the malahini who try to force it.... it's cringe worthy listening to that.

Agreed 1000x. It's understandable wanting to fit in somewhere after living there for a few years. But trying to force it is unnatural sounding. Better off speaking with your native accent, which can open up a conversation further as to where you're from, etc etc. Versus avoiding the topic made awkward since the person is obviously trying to blend in as a local but obviously hasn't lived ere long enough to pick up local dialect.

Originally Posted by Palanakonu

I said once before that I liked my little spot on the BI because it's more "howzit" than "aloha".In my years of being here, the word aloha is only used in the tourist areas or when people are trying to sell you something... or by tourists themselves.

probably true wherever you go in hawaii. for the most part, the only ones pulling the alohas are people working the tourist industry and maybe the old hawaiian aunties.