The panel’s moderator, Noe Tanigawa, arts and culture reporter for Hawai‘i Public Radio, began the evening by asking the four panelists about the language’s history.Ĭalifornia-based sociolinguist and scholar of American pidgins Sarah Roberts explained that while the language really took off at the same time as the sugar plantations-around 1877-the first written evidence of the language that she has come across was a text from 1791. Inouye Institute “Talk Story” event titled “ Will Pidgin Survive the 21st Century?” which took place before an overflow crowd at Artistry Honolulu in Honolulu, Hawai‘i. The history, modern-day usage, and future of Hawaiian pidgin was the topic of discussion for a Zócalo/Daniel K. Recently, some vocabulary- hammajang, for example-has been entered into the Oxford English Dictionary.

First used in the mid-19th century by the sugarcane laborers who spoke Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese, and English and needed a way to communicate with one another, today, the language is common across the islands of Hawai‘i. The origins of the Hawaiian pidgin language reflect the history and diversity of the islands.

Hawaiian pidgin words and phrases