1. Summary of “An Introduction to the Creole language of Hawaii” Pidgin is a form of language that develops when there are speakers of different languages that need to communicate amongst each other. (Sakoda and Siegel 1) In Hawaii, we simply call this term Pidgin English or Hawaii Pidgin English. Pidgin first began as early as the 1800’s when foreign traders and whalers came to Hawaii. During this trade process, job opportunities opened up for Native Hawaiians and therefore, communication was needed between Hawaiians and foreigners. (4) As Hawaii became more of an agricultural state with sugarcane being its primary crop, more and more different foreigners arrived. The very first sugarcane plantation was in 1835 with the Chinese being the first to be imported to work as plantation workers in the fields. (4) In the later years, the Chinese would be followed by the Portuguese, Japanese, and Filipinos. Due to these different foreigners all speaking different languages, Pidgin started to develop using some words and structures from each of these different foreign languages. For example, the Hawaiian word such as hana (work) turned in to hana hana and the Chinese Pidgin English term for chow chow (food) turned in to the Hawaiian form kaukau. (5) However, as more Americans arrived in Hawaii and the decline of the Native Hawaiian people, the Pidgin became more English based. Also as more people began to use Pidgin in their daily life it started become a primary language among children. Parents of the first generation plantation workers began to teach their children HPE (Hawaii Pidgin English) rather then their original native tongue.
When the plantation workers started to teach their children in HPE, this turned Pidgin in to a Creole, giving HPE grammatical structure, lexicons, and phonographs. (Sakoda and Siegel 10) Sakoda and Siegel point out that the sentence structure reflected that of the Hawaiian structure. In Hawaiian to say the house is big: Nui ka hale. Nui meaning big and ka hale meaning the house. Similarly in HPE one would say Big the house. (11) Words such as yauh (have) in Chinese and para (for) in Filipino were translated in to the pidgin got and for and used in the same context. (12) The pronunciation of the “th” sound in words like, the and think were turned in to the “d” sound. This changed the words to da and tink instead. (Sakoda and Siegel 21) Today, these structures are still used in modern HPE and more than 600,000 people in Hawaii alone speak HPE. (Sakoda and Siegel 1)
2. Comments
From reading the article, I found the terms of Pidgin and Creole to be very useful. I have never used the term Creole before and did not realize that there is a difference between the two. I’m not quite sure if the distinction as we talked about in class really does matter. Whether or not we call it Pidgin or Hawaii Creole English, I think most people have a common sense of what it means.
I also find it interesting that HPE was first Hawaiian based and then moved toward a more English base. It does bring up the issue of whether or not HPE will soon sound more like Standard English then HPE spoken in the plantation era. And, if this is the case then would it be such a big deal if HPE were used in the school system? There is a lot of controversy surrounding the use of Pidgin in school and even in daily life. However, in the early plantation days Pidgin was treated as the primary language and no thought twice as whether or not it would affect their work ethic. I found an older article in the Honolulu Star Bulletin, “Speak Pidgin, Think Pidgin, Write Pidgin?” that I think does a good job of covering this topic. It also brings up the issue of culture. Pidgin has become part of the Hawaii’s local culture, used to connect different ethnicity's to each other. If we were to stop using Pidgin, I think it would be taking away something unique to Hawaii. We are such a diverse place and I think one of the reasons that we get along more so than other places is the fact that HPE helped to bridge the language gap between us.
3. Works Cited
"Department Exhibits for 2007." 2007. University at Manoa. Voyager. University of Hawaii at Manoa Library, Honolulu. 17 Feb. 2009
Kua, Crystal. "Speak Pidgin, Think Pidgin, Write Pidgin?" Honolulu Star-Bulletin [Honolulu] 2 Nov. 1999.
Sakoda, Kent, and Jeff Siegel. The Origins and Use of Pidgin. Honolulu: Bess P, 2003.
5 comments:
Today's lecture and your blog gave me a lot of insight on Pidgin and Creole. As of today, I thought Pidgin was used among uneducated people; however, Pidgin is a form of communication produced by people who speak different languages used to accomplish tasks. Also, it was the first time I heard the term Creole.
I agree Hawai'i Creole English makes Hawai'i unique, but it also has disadvantages. Many students of Hawai'i score low on SAT tests and grammar skills are less than average. In my opinion, there is a solution. As we witnessed towards the end of the class today, there are educated people that speak Hawai'i Creole English. However, we need to set boundaries and break habits of when to use and not use Hawai'i Creole English. By doing this, the stigma attached to Pidgin and Hawai'i Creole English will eventaully disappear.
I think pidgin makes Hawai'i really unique, it's something that I associate with Hawai'i. Although it is shown that SAT scores have been dropping supposedly because of the constant use of pidgin, I think it really doesn't matter because the SATs are based on "proper" English. I guess to me, pidgin has evolved to become a language here and the Hawaiians had already experienced a decline of their native language, so if pidgin were to go too, what would the islands have left?
I agree with what the author wrote. There was a pidgin, and because of the substantial amount of influence to pidgin, creole was created. Because pidgin was used to help communicate to other people, this tool became a language. Through time language changed. It is interesting to learn about the transition from pidgin to creole because it explains how the culture was formed and which countries had some influence on the culture. Language in this sense could to be used to help prove history. Pidgin is an important tool not only in Hawaii, but all over the pacific because of the diversity and complexity of the languages spoken.
I found the reading (and summary) about “The origins and use of Pidgin” to be very interesting. I am currently taking two Linguistic classes this semester and I find it very interesting how I am learning about pidgin and creole at the same time in both classes. What I [thought I] knew before taking my classes and reading this was that pidgin was unique to Hawaii, and spoken nowhere else. But now I know that there are different forms of pidgins, depending on the surrounding area, and that pidgin is NOT a native language, unlike creole, and only used [before in the older days] when out in the fields, and once the plantation got home to there families, they’d speak in their own native language. I can’t even imagine how difficult it must’ve been to come up with there own “shared” ways of communicating, but I guess it’s similar to how words would be made up in middle school and how it was used by everyone and learned to become an accepted and understood new term.
I agree a lot with Brittany. From being around a lot of people speaking pidgin, I could understand it, but it seemed like it was a "ghetto" way of speaking. Especially since you see mostly only "locals" speaking it. And it was also the first time I've ever heard the word creole used in relation to anything other than Louisiana. I guess I still have A LOT more to learn about these pacific island languages.
Post a Comment