- published: 03 Oct 2015
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Hawaii Pidgin English, Hawaii Creole English, HCE, or simply Pidgin, is a creole language based in part on English used by many residents of Hawaii. Although English and Hawaiian are the co-official languages of the state of Hawaii, Pidgin is used by many Hawaiian residents in everyday conversation and is often used in advertising toward Hawaiians. The ISO 639-3 language code for Hawaii Pidgin (Hawaii Creole English) is hwc
. In the Hawaiian language, "Hawaiian Creole English" is called "ʻōlelo paʻi ʻai," which literally means "pounding-taro language."
Pidgin (or Hawaii Creole) originated as a form of communication used between English speaking residents and non-English speaking immigrants in Hawaii.[dead link] It supplanted the pidgin Hawaiian used on the plantations and elsewhere in Hawaii. It has been influenced by many languages, including Portuguese, Hawaiian, and Cantonese. As people of other language backgrounds were brought in to work on the plantations, such as Japanese, Filipinos, and Koreans, Pidgin acquired words from these languages. Japanese loanwords in Hawaii lists some of those words originally from Japanese. It has also been influenced to a lesser degree by Spanish spoken by Mexican and Puerto Rican settlers in Hawaii. Even today, Pidgin retains some influences from these languages. For example, the word "stay" in Pidgin has a form and use similar to the Portuguese or Spanish verb "estar", which means "to be" but is used when referring to a temporary state or location.