Thursday, April 2, 2009

Pidgin: The Voice of Hawai'i

I thought the film was great!  It was one thing reading various texts regarding pidgin in Hawai'i, but seeing it brought to life on film made everything clearer.  It was a great compilation of everything I had learned so far regarding the language: from its origins in the plantation fields, to its becoming a creole by the generations after the first language pidgin speakers, and its "effects" in Hawai'i today.
I think the film did a great job demonstrating the need for pidgin to remain active throughout Hawai'i.  Speaking pidgin may not guarantee you a job in the "real world", as would speaking Standard English, but it has grown to become the identity for the people of Hawai'i.  Many of those in the film would talk about how they would switch to Standard English in the workplace or at school, then back to pidgin when at home or with friends.  I think it was more natural for them to speak pidgin when surrounded by people who spoke it, simply because that was who they were.  It was the language they naturally spoke, not something forced or insisted upon by someone else.  I thought it was awesome that the film had its narration in pidgin, along with subtitles.  It added personality to it.
Although I realize why pidgin has become such as issue in Hawai'i, for reasons such as low standardized test scores, I don't think Hawai'i has to do away with pidgin necessarily.  It is something very unique to the islands.  Hawai'i has already lost so much, especially something so precious as its native language, so for now, pidgin is the only thing that is truly theirs. Why would you want to ban something that has been successful in Hawai'i?  Many items produced in pidgin, such as the pidgin dictionary or pidgin Bible, has sold numerous copies.  Its ability to sell indicates that there is a mass of people who understand primarily pidgin.  Also many shops around the islands are pidgin-named, what's going to happen to that?  I think if pidgin is removed from Hawai'i, nothing but an ocean would separate us from America, we will be just another (standard) English-speaking state.

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