Slide 10: Hawaiian Pidgin-Creole

Let’s look very briefly at some real creole languages in the United States. To make all of this a little clearer.

Hawiian Pidgin-Creole

Hawaiʻi Pidgin English, Hawaiʻi Creole English, HCE, or simply Pidgin, is a creole language based in part on English used by some residents of Hawaiʻi ("Hawaiian Pidgin English" is considered an inaccurate label). Although English and Hawaiian are the co-official languages of the State of Hawaiʻi, Hawiian Pidgin-Creole is used by many locals in everyday conversation and is often used in advertising toward Hawaiʻi residents.

Slide 11: hawaiian pidgin-creole history History

Hawiian Pidgin-Creole (or Hawaiʻi Creole) originated as a form of communication used between native and non-native English speakers in Hawaiʻi. It supplanted the pidgin Hawaiian used on the plantations and elsewhere in Hawaiʻi. It has been influenced by many languages, including Portuguese, Hawaiian, and Cantonese, one of the Chinese languages. As people of other language backgrounds were brought in to work on the plantations, such as Japanese, Filipinos, and Koreans, Hawiian Pidgin-Creole acquired words from these languages. It has also been influenced to a lesser degree by Spanish spoken by Mexican and Puerto Rican settlers in Hawaiʻi.

SLIDE 12: HPC SOCIOLINGUISTICS

Even today, Hawiian Pidgin-Creole retains some influences from all these languages. For example, sometimes the structure of the language is like that of Portuguese grammar. For instance, "You like one knife?" means "Would you like a knife?". The reason the word "one" is used instead of "a" is because the word "um" in Portuguese has two meanings: "um" translates to "one" and "a" in English.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, Hawiian Pidgin-Creole started to be used outside the plantation between ethnic groups. Public school children learned Hawiian Pidgin-Creole from their classmates, and eventually it became the primary language of most people in Hawaiʻi, replacing the original languages. For this reason, linguists generally consider Hawaiian Hawiian Pidgin-Creole to be a creole language.

Today, most people raised in Hawaiʻi can speak and understand Hawiian Pidgin-Creole to some extent. At the same time, many people who know Hawiian Pidgin-Creole can code-switch between standard American English and Hawiian Pidgin-Creole depending on the situation.

Knowledge of Hawiian Pidgin-Creole is considered by many to be an important part of being considered "local", regardless of racial and socio-economic background.

While most linguists agree that Hawaiʻi Hawiian Pidgin-Creole is a full-fledged language with its own grammar, pronunciation, intonation, and use, it is viewed by some to be "substandard", or as a "corrupted" form of English, or even as broken English. As a result, it is widely believed that use of "standard" English is a key to career and educational success, and that use of Hawiian Pidgin-Creole is a sign of lower socio-economic status.

Its role in the schools of Hawaiʻi has been a subject of controversy due in part to the popular perceptions of the language described above and as a result of critics blaming the language's widespread use for poor results in reading and writing at schools. In 1987, the state Board of Education implemented a policy allowing only standard English (most particularly General American English) in schools; this sparked an intense debate.