Da' Pidgin English Thread

[Kaonohi]

Re: Da' Pidgin English Thread

I got an MA and PhD in linguistics from Ohio State, then taught linguistics for 40 years, mostly at UH, specializing in English phonology and grammar. I advised two dissertations on Hawaiian English/Creole (Carol Odo and Dick Day) and was on the dissertation committees for several others. (Dick Day's dissertation, by the way, dealt with the omission of the copula in HE -- I don't recall that it is omitted only for statives, though statives may favor it's deletion.)

Outstanding! Glad to have you aboard.
It seems as if this is a science that is still evolving, and we are fortunate to have your perspective.

[Pohaku]

Re: Da' Pidgin English Thread

Garans ball barans. LOL! That's going a-ways back. Andy Bumatai used that phrase during his stand-up routine on his 1978 TV special, "Andy Bumatai's High School Daze." In fact, if you watch that show now, you'll hear quite bit of pidgin that has kind of gone by the wayside in recent years.

Heh, we still said "garans" in high school in the 90s, but maybe we just lagged behind you Oahu people or wait, maybe all the other kids meant it ironically and I just didn't get it! I could made a fortune with t-shirts...

When was the last time you ever heard a kid saying "Hana Okolele!" to another kid who did something bad?

Hah! You took me right back to Haiku school in the 80s.

[GregLee]

Re: Da' Pidgin English Thread

You seem very knowledgeable on English grammar and categorization (with some interesting biases). What is your level of education, and where did you study?

I got an MA and PhD in linguistics from Ohio State, then taught linguistics for 40 years, mostly at UH, specializing in English phonology and grammar. I advised two dissertations on Hawaiian English/Creole (Carol Odo and Dick Day) and was on the dissertation committees for several others. (Dick Day's dissertation, by the way, dealt with the omission of the copula in HE -- I don't recall that it is omitted only for statives, though statives may favor it's deletion.)

[Kaonohi]

Re: Da' Pidgin English Thread

Certainly helpful? Well, calling it a pidgin is helpful if it is a pidgin, but it's not helpful if it's not a pidgin -- then it is just misleading. I don't think it is a pidgin, as I said.
(...)
Generally, I love Wikipedia, but this article is substandard.

Thanks again for your opinion.

It's helpful to non-scholars. E.G., "What language is THAT?!" Do we say "English," or "Pidgin?"

I think you chose one example that was a poor one, others were more spot-on:

Generally, forms of English "to be" (i.e. the copula) are omitted when referring to inherent qualities of an object or person, forming in essence a stative verb form. Additionally, inverted sentence order may be used for emphasis. (Many East Asian languages use stative verbs instead of the copula-adjective construction of English and other Western languages.)
Da baby cute. (or) Cute, da baby.The baby is cute.Note that these constructions also mimic the grammar of the Hawaiian language. In Hawaiian, "nani ka pēpē" or "kiuke ka pēpē" is literally "cute, the baby" and is perfectly correct Hawaiian grammar meaning in English: "The baby is cute."

With the exception that "pēpē" is of post-contact construction from the English; kama or just keiki are both aboriginal Hawaiian.

Wikipedia is an imperfect medium, and I generally try to find better references, but this was convenient. Although I got my B.A. in English, that was in 1978, and I've forgotten more than I've remembered, so I'm not qualified to judge the accuracy of the article.

You seem very knowledgeable on English grammar and categorization (with some interesting biases). What is your level of education, and where did you study?

[Walkoff Balk]

Re: Da' Pidgin English Thread

Garans ball barans. LOL! That's going a-ways back. Andy Bumatai used that phrase during his stand-up routine on his 1978 TV special, "Andy Bumatai's High School Daze." In fact, if you watch that show now, you'll hear quite bit of pidgin that has kind of gone by the wayside in recent years.

What? What? What? Why?

[Frankie's Market]

Re: Da' Pidgin English Thread

Totally agree with you on this, LN. The difference varies not only from neighborhood to neighborhood, but from decade to decade. The pidgin my Dad spoke (when he was alive) is very different from the pidgin my nephews speak today. "Garans ball-barans" is a familiar phrase, always brings a smile to my face because it's from my time, "nostalgic to the max" as they say, but it's not the pidgin of today; it's from the 60s and 70s, if memory serves me right.

Garans ball barans. LOL! That's going a-ways back. Andy Bumatai used that phrase during his stand-up routine on his 1978 TV special, "Andy Bumatai's High School Daze." In fact, if you watch that show now, you'll hear quite bit of pidgin that has kind of gone by the wayside in recent years.

If it wasn't for the late Glen Grant, I think "chicken skin" would have been another one of those pidgin expressions that have fallen into dis-use.

When was the last time you ever heard a kid saying "Hana Okolele!" to another kid who did something bad?

Growing up, I often visited the Big Isle to see my grandparents. Back then, whenever someone there told me, "I see you in town next week," he/she wasn't talking about Hilo. "Town" meant Honolulu. Nowadays, I don't hear that as much.

And it's not just the vocabulary that's different. That would be too easy. It's also different in the way the old-timers spoke--the rhythm, the inflections, the little nuances.

Absolutely right.

One thing that I hear old-timers do, time and time again: If you tell them a mildly funny joke that's not hilarious enough to elicit laughter, you'll hear them say "sssssss" instead of giggling.

[GregLee]

Re: Da' Pidgin English Thread

If it is a matter of 'naming things' as a way to distinguish one from another, then calling 'Hawaiian English' pidgin is certainly helpful.

Certainly helpful? Well, calling it a pidgin is helpful if it is a pidgin, but it's not helpful if it's not a pidgin -- then it is just misleading. I don't think it is a pidgin, as I said.

An interesting article on Hawaiian pidgin in Wikipedia identifies it an ISO 639-3 identified creole. The article cites even grammatical differences.

Thanks for the reference -- I hadn't seen this. But I don't think the reasoning is terribly impressive. Consider, for example, this (taken from the Wikipedia article), which purports to show that there are grammatical differences between Hawaiian English and Standard English:

For tense-marking of verb, auxiliary verbs are employed:
...
* To express future tense, Pidgin uses goin (going) in front of the verb, a declaratory word or verbum dicendi, common in many forms of slang American English.

God goin do plenny good kine stuff fo him. (DJB, Mark 11:9)
God is going to do a lot of good things for him.

So, to demonstrate this supposed grammatical difference, the Wikipedia author points out that HE uses auxiliary verbs (rather than inflections) to express tense. Hey, here's some hot news: Standard English expresses the future tense with "will", which is an auxiliary verb, and can optionally use an auxiliary "did" to express the past tense (and that is obligatory in yes-no questions). Then, in the following example with "goin(g)", the HE and SE grammatical constructions are clearly exactly parallel, and neither involves an auxiliary verb. ("Going" is not an auxiliary because it cannot be inverted with the subject to form a yes-no question, which is a defining property of English auxiliaries.)

Generally, I love Wikipedia, but this article is substandard.

[Kaonohi]

Re: Da' Pidgin English Thread

Every American English dialect is of this general nature, with vocabulary derived originally from various other languages (French, Latin, Greek, American Indian, etc., etc.). The fact that Hawaiian English words came originally from several different languages doesn't make it different from other English dialects, except of course in the detail of what particular words were borrowed from what particular other languages.

OK. That makes sense to a degree. Louisiana, S. California, N.W. New England all pepper their English with extensive loan words, but in most areas our use of, say, Greek or Latin (as well as other languages), is minimal and ubiquitous, consisting of words that have been made a part of English, such as 'Pi' for example. This harkens back to our discussion of Standard English vs. standardized English.
I guess it goes back to definitions of what makes 'pidgin' or 'creole.' I think you said once though that you're not interested in definitions; forgive me if I'm in error about that (I'm too busy to try and find it).

If it is a matter of 'naming things' as a way to distinguish one from another, then calling 'Hawaiian English' pidgin is certainly helpful. It certainly is a subset (or dialect) of English, not a completely different language.

An interesting article on Hawaiian pidgin in Wikipedia identifies it an ISO 639-3 identified creole. The article cites even grammatical differences. If there's to be a discussion of pidgin (whether or not we agree or disagree) it's good to be up on what the scholars (or some scholars) think.

[Honoruru]

Re: Da' Pidgin English Thread

Get real, folks. There is no standard pidgin. It varies from neighborhood to neighborhood, sometimes drastic variations.

Totally agree with you on this, LN. The difference varies not only from neighborhood to neighborhood, but from decade to decade. The pidgin my Dad spoke (when he was alive) is very different from the pidgin my nephews speak today. "Garans ball-barans" is a familiar phrase, always brings a smile to my face because it's from my time, "nostalgic to the max" as they say, but it's not the pidgin of today; it's from the 60s and 70s, if memory serves me right.

And it's not just the vocabulary that's different. That would be too easy. It's also different in the way the old-timers spoke--the rhythm, the inflections, the little nuances. Pidgin, after all, is a spoken reality, not a written one. You don't think about it, or worry about rules (there are none), or wonder about spelling, you just say what comes to mind. It is what it is. No worries, brah.

[GregLee]

Re: Da' Pidgin English Thread

Not sure how you come to that conclusion, Greg, as Hawaiian pidgen uses words from Hawaiian, Japanese, Portuguese, Filipino (and maybe some others) over a basic English base.

Every American English dialect is of this general nature, with vocabulary derived originally from various other languages (French, Latin, Greek, American Indian, etc., etc.). The fact that Hawaiian English words came originally from several different languages doesn't make it different from other English dialects, except of course in the detail of what particular words were borrowed from what particular other languages.

[LikaNui]

Re: Da' Pidgin English Thread

Get real, folks. There is no standard pidgin. It varies from neighborhood to neighborhood, sometimes drastic variations.

[Kaonohi]

Re: Da' Pidgin English Thread

I'd love to see a comparative dictionary of Hawaiian Pidgen to English, but I'm too lazy to start one. Probably would be best as one of our interest group things, so we could keep it current.

[dakamaainahaole]

Re: Da' Pidgin English Thread

Hey cuz,

Barry passed away, and not able to respond.

I am sure, even as haole he/we/me may be, the respect for natural/native tongue is present.

mahaloz for da news, hopefully his people ok. meant no disrespect, jus joke fo wala'au, ya

[Kaonohi]

Re: Da' Pidgin English Thread

It was doubtless influenced in the past by Hawaiian plantation pidgin, and probably by what is sometimes called Hawaiian Creole English, but that's not what it is now. It's not a pidgin, and it's not a creole, it's just English.

Not sure how you come to that conclusion, Greg, as Hawaiian pidgen uses words from Hawaiian, Japanese, Portuguese, Filipino (and maybe some others) over a basic English base. The grammatical structure seems to be mostly English with some occasional deviation.
All due respect to Ms. Odo (may Kanaloa carry her to the rainbow), I have not read her dissertation but I'm sure she had her reasons.

[TATTRAT]

Re: Da' Pidgin English Thread

think li dis... when a mommy (and her twin) and a daddy language come togedda they make "manage-a-twa" aka a PIDGIN language... is a language derived from people of various backgrounds and languages (like 3 or more) and coming together into one common language fo make mo betta fo understand each otha... a creolean language is the baby of the language. ass why hawaii creole is just referred to as "pidgin"... calling it pidgin IS SPEAKING PIDGIN technically.

BTW, i AM trying fo make revive the 'chred, dis, li dat... who's on baord!!!???

Hey cuz,

Barry passed away, and not able to respond.

I am sure, even as haole he/we/me may be, the respect for natural/native tongue is present.