With the second generation catching on to Pidgin English more easily than learning to acquire another language, it became the primary language in the schools, homes, and communities. With people with backgrounds in several different languages, Pidgin was the result of everyone coming together to communicate and do business on the plantations during the 19th and 20th centuries.įrom the time the language began to develop in the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century, those who were born locally began to use more of the Pidgin English. People began using Pidgin to find a common ground for communication. Hawaiian Pidgin is a mixture of Japanese, American English, Cantonese, Hawaiian, and Portuguese. It was highly influenced by the already existing pidgin that was spoken among the native Hawaiians. The language was born on sugarcane plantations when foreign immigrants, native Hawaiian speakers, and English speakers needed a means of common communication.

Hawaiian Pidgin, unlike its name, is actually not a pidgin in the way that it has become a nativized and demographically stable creole language in Hawaii.

It is used as a means to communicate, where its vocabulary and grammar are drawn from several languages. Hawaii has become known for its pidgin lingo and will even be spotted on local advertising.Ī Pidgin language is one that has developed between two or more groups that don’t have a language in common. When traveling to a new area, it is common that you will run into dialects and a way of communicating that is unique to the area. It is also known as Hawaiian Creole English, meaning it is an english based creole language. Overtime, the language has developed and taken on dialects from both the English and Hawaiian language. Hawaiian Pidgin is a language used amongst the locals of Hawaii.

How to speak pidgin language