Hawaiian Pidgin
Some speakers of Hawaiian Pidgin tend to code switch between or mix the language with standard English.
[12] As people of other backgrounds were brought in to work on the plantations, Hawaiian Pidgin acquired even more words from languages such as Japanese, Ilocano, Okinawan and Korean.
Hawaiian Pidgin has also been influenced to a lesser degree by Spanish spoken by Puerto Rican settlers in Hawaiʻi.
Hawaiian Pidgin was created mainly to provide communication and facilitate cooperation between the foreign laborers and the English-speaking Americans in order to do business on the plantations.
In the 1980s, two educational programs were established which were taught in Hawaiian Pidgin to help students learn Standard English.
Living in a community mixed with various cultures led to the daily usage of Hawaiian Pidgin, which caused the language to expand.
It was easier for school children of different ethnic backgrounds to speak Hawaiian Pidgin than to learn another language.
[17] Hawaiian Pidgin is said to have since been decreolized (Romaine, 1994), especially in Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi which holds the largest population of the islands.
[18] Furthermore, tourism and technology have made the English language more utilized in Hawaiʻi, which has led to the endangerment of Hawaiian Pidgin.
[18] A five-year survey that the U.S. Census Bureau conducted in Hawaiʻi revealed that many people spoke Hawaiian Pidgin as an additional language.
As a result of this, the U.S. Census Bureau in 2015 added Hawaiian Pidgin to the list of official languages in the state of Hawaiʻi.
In contrast, other researchers have found that many believe that, since Hawaiian Pidgin does not have a standardized writing form, it cannot be classified as a language.
[38] In recent years, writers from Hawaiʻi such as Lois-Ann Yamanaka, Joe Balaz, and Lee Tonouchi have written poems, short stories, and other works in Hawaiian Pidgin.
A Hawaiian Pidgin translation of The Bible (called Da Good an Spesho Book) has also been created, in 2020, by Wycliffe Bible Translators, Inc. Also an adaptation of William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, or What You Will, titled in Hawaiian Pidgin "twelf nite o' WATEVA!
The 1987 film North Shore contains several characters, particularly the surfing gang Da Hui, that speak Hawaiian Pidgin.
A recurring character, Kamekona Tupuola (portrayed by Taylor Wiley), speaks Hawaiian Pidgin.
R. Zamora Linmark employs it extensively in his semi-autobiographical novel Rolling the R's; two of the major characters speak predominately in Pidgin and some chapters are narrated in it.
