User:Samfroh/Hawaiian Creole English

Introduction
Hawaiian Pidgin (alternately, Hawai'i Creole English or HCE, known locally as Pidgin) is an English-based creole language spoken in Hawaiʻi and other states in the United States. There are around 600,000 people who speak Hawaiian Pidgin today and 400,000 who speak it as a second language. Although English and Hawaiian are the two official languages of Hawaiʻi, Hawaiian Pidgin is spoken by many Hawaiʻi residents in everyday conversation and is often used in advertising targeted towards locals in Hawaiʻi. In the Hawaiian language, it is called ʻōlelo paʻi ʻai – "pounding-taro language" (citation needed). Hawaiian Pidgin was first recognized as a language by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2015. However, Hawaiian Pidgin is still thought of as less than than Hawaiian and English language.

Despite its name, Hawaiian Pidgin is not a pidgin, but rather a full-fledged, nativized and demographically stable creole language. It did, however, evolve from various real pidgins spoken as common languages between ethnic groups in Hawaiʻi.

Although not completely mutually intelligible with Standard American English, Hawaiian Pidgin retains a higher degree of mutual intelligibility with it than other English-based creoles, such as Jamaican Patois, in part due to its relatively recent emergence and the tendency for many of its speakers to mix Pidgin with Standard English (citation needed).

History
Hawaiian Pidgin originated on sugarcane plantations in 1835 as a form of communication used between Hawaiian speaking Native Hawaiian residents, English speaking residents, and foreign immigrants. It supplanted, and was influenced by, the existing pidgin that Native Hawaiians already used on plantations and elsewhere in Hawaiʻi. Because such sugarcane plantations often hired workers from many different countries, a common language was needed in order for the plantation workers to communicate effectively with each other and their supervisors. Hawaiian Pidgin has been influenced by many different languages, including Portuguese, Hawaiian, American English, and Cantonese (citation needed). 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 (citation needed). The article Japanese loanwords in Hawaii lists some of those words originally from Japanese (citation needed). Hawaiian Pidgin has also been influenced to a lesser degree by Spanish spoken by Puerto Rican settlers in Hawaiʻi (citation needed). As there were eventually more immigrant families who brought their children to the plantations, these children learned the language from their parents as well as English at school. Overtime, a new pidgin language developed from all of the different language backgrounds which became many of the children's first language. This was the origin of Hawaiian Pidgin, which was used and is still used by many Hawaiian and non-Hawaiian people who live there.

Hawaiian Pidgin was created mainly to provide communication and facilitate cooperation between the foreign labourers and the English-speaking Americans in order to do business on the plantation. Even today, Hawaiian Pidgin retains some influences from these languages. For example, the word "stay" in Hawaiian Pidgin has a form and use similar to the Hawaiian verb "noho", Portuguese verb "ficar" or Spanish "estar", which mean "to be" but are used only when referring to a temporary state or location (citation needed).

In the 19th and 20th centuries, Hawaiian Pidgin started to be used outside the plantation between certain groups. In the 1980s, two educational programs were established which were taught in Hawaiian Pidgin to help students learn standard English. Children in public school learned Hawaiian Pidgin from their classmates and parents. 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. Children who grew up learning and speaking this language expanded Hawaiian Pidgin as it was their first language or mother tongue. For this reason, linguists generally consider Hawai'i Creole (previously Hawaiian Pidgin) to be a creole language.

Hawaiian Pidgin is said to have since been decreolized (Romaine, 1994), especially in O'ahu, Hawai'i which holds the largest population of the islands. This is due to capitalism and economic changes on the islands that were implemented by the United States. Furthermore, tourism and technology have made the English language more utilized in Hawai'i, which has led to the endangerment of Hawaiian Pidgin. Hawaiian Pidgin was also not taught in public education nor does it have it's own writing system. Consequently, Hawaiian Pidgin was thought of as a "low social status" and is only a memory of the plantations that many want to forget. This brought upon racial discrimination to those who spoke the language, which excluded children from school who spoke Hawaiian Pidgin. Even though people were against Hawaiian Pidgin, the language has since been strengthened and supported by young people who honour Hawaiian Pidgin and its origins.

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 the last few decades, many Hawai'i residents have moved to the United States mainland due to economic issues in Hawai'i. Therefore, thousands of Hawaiian Pidgin speakers can be found in the other 49 states.

Historically, teachers and policymakers have debated whether growing up speaking Hawaiian Pidgin hinders the learning of Standard English