Monday, March 3, 2008

#11 Pidgin

If you've ever been to Hawaii and noticed how the locals speak to each other you probably reacted in two different ways. 1) Man, I can't understand a lick of what these people are saying. They are so uneducated to have to speak like that; or 2) That's the coolest language I've ever heard I want to speak just like that too. Pidgin or Hawaiian Creole is the dialect of the local people. In order to understand a melting pot of foreigners and immigrants with different respective languages a common language needed to be formed, and guess what it worked and it stuck.

Within Pidgin there are words that don't exist in the English language. For instance, "howzit," "brah,""da kine," "choke," "la dis," and "la dat," "stay," "beef," "auryte," "make," "and den," and the different usage of the word "never."
Here's a sentence in pidgin we might use:

"I neva know was yo' chick, she waz making da kine wit me and den."

Accents and strengths of the words may vary based on where you are from. It seems the farther off-island, to the neighbor islands you go the stronger the accents, meaning the pidgin is thicker.
Please, all the haoles out there, do not attempt this in unless you've completely practiced your accents and prepare for stink eyes and silent treatment for awhile.
Like try learn: Pidgin to da Max, by Douglas Simmons, Pat Sasaki, Ken Sakata

1 comment:

Mom D said...

Pidgin's a very effective way to communicate in a hurry, too. I'm a third generation speaker ... my Japan born grandfather worked on the plantations on the north side of Oahu and used many words from the other languages used around him to communicate. My mom grew up thinking a certain word was Japanese but as an adult found out it was actually Hawaiian. I just love it! Oh, my favorites are puka and pau.