Pidgin and Hawaii English: an overview

2003

Dutch (pp. 328-330) with an English translation (pp. 331-333). There are a few typographical errors: p. 32: diphthong is correct for diphtong; p. 77: beautiful should replace beatiful; p. 121: yowéle 'boy' is correct in the singular for the plural yowelé indicated; p. 256: 'arabiyya in ECA means 'car', not 'cart'. To sum up, this tome, which utilizes a thorough bibliography and fresh fieldwork on the language, is a solid contribution to Arabic pidgin and creole studies as well as to Arabic diachronic linguistics. We can only hope that general creolists closely examine this work, as it will, in all likelihood, shed light on non-Arabic-based pidgins and creoles. References

Language and Linguistics in Melanesia, 2013

Contemporary Tok Pisin and Hawaiʻi Creole English share many similar grammatical patterns, such as no ken for negative constructions and the-im transitive verb ending, as well as a number of lexemes of non-English origin, such as kanaka 'native', and kaukau 'sweet potato' in Tok Pisin and 'food' in Hawaiʻi Creole English. This discussion asks whether these similarities are signs of a shared ancestry-for example, the Proto Pacific Pidgin English posited by Keesing (1988)-or simply the result of both having originated in English and Oceanic environments. To answer this, grammatical forms in Tok Pisin are compared with those in Hawaiʻi Pidgin English, from which Hawaiʻi Creole English developed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, using data collected from family memories of a grandfather who learned Hawaiʻi Pidgin English as a teenager in the 1890s. Although there are similarities in some prominent words and morphemes such as the possessive brong / bilong and the adjective marker-fela, these can be explained as the result of borrowing individual items (and some grammatical 'baggage') from an earlier Chinese Pidgin English to which the first speakers of each language were exposed. The underlying grammatical structure of Tok Pisin is Oceanic, while that of Hawaiʻi Pidgin English is not, and there are significant differences in the ways that these shared words and morphemes are used. The evidence, therefore, points away from the two languages sharing a common ancestor.

Using an apparent time approach and acoustic phonetic analysis, this study provides the first description of sociolinguistic variation in the realizations of the short-front vowels in Hawaiʻi English. We demonstrate that the realizations of the short-front vowels in Hawaiʻi are conditioned by speaker sex and age, and whether an individual self-identifies as a speaker of Pidgin. We argue that the differences between the vowel realizations of Pidgin and non-Pidgin speakers are likely to be at least partially socially-motivated.

Creole Language Library, 2010

1995

Rdgins and creoles are widely varied with respect to their uses and functions, whether officially recognized or not. Throughout their history most of these languages have not had any official status in the countries where they are spoken, even though they are often widely used by the majority of the population. The low status of pidgins and creoles is more generally a consequence of their being regarded not as full-fledged languages, but as corrupt and bastardized versions of some other (usually European) language. Most of them are not written and therefore, not standardized, a situation that also fuels popular ideas that they are not "real" languages.

Katie#DRAGER#&#James#GRAMA# University#of#Hawai'i#at#Mānoa# [email protected];#[email protected]# # ! Abstract## This#study#provides#the#first#examination#of#perceptual#dialectology#within#Hawaiʻi.##While#previous# work#investigated#Hawaiʻi#Locals'#beliefs#about#language#use,#it#located#Hawaiʻi#within#the#context#of#the# United# States.# In# contrast,# respondents# in# this# study# focus# on# the# island# of# Oʻahu.# Using# a# blank# map,# respondents#mark#boundaries#where#they#believe#language#is#used#differently#on#the#island,#specifying#the# ways#in#which#they#feel#the#speech#differs.#The#results#demonstrate#that#respondents#associate#particular# regions#with#the#use#of#either#Pidgin#or#English,#and#that#the#areas#most#closely#associated#with#Pidgin#are# the#same#areas#as#those#where#people#are#said#to#speak#the#"heaviest"#Pidgin.#Some#subjects#also#include# other#languages#on#the#maps,#while#other#subjects#focus#on#differences#in#speakers'#ethnicities,#suggesting# that# beliefs# about# language# use# and# region# may# be# at# least# partially# due# to# each# of# their# respective# associations#with#ethnicity.# ! Keywords# perceptual#dialectology,#Hawaiʻi,#Pidgin/Hawaiʻi#Creole,#multilingualism,#diversity#