Pidgin Lessons

[nachodaddy]

Re: Pidgin Lessons

Listen to O-Shen (AKA Jason Hershey). He raps in pidgin he picked up while his parents were missionaries in PNG.

[Jonah K]

Re: Pidgin Lessons

It has been my experience, in Hawaii, that telling it like it is, blunt & abrasive, with no chaser, is frowned upon heavily. Do you concur? Why do you think that is the way things are here? I got this impression mightily while running for council.

Bluntness and abrasive are heavily frowned upon by most in Hawai'i. Just ask Haunani-Kay Trask...

Now, getting back to the topic at hand, there are probably few qualified Tok Pisin teachers around outside of the PNG and Australia. Here are a couple of resources that might be helpful:
http://tok-pisin.com/
http://www.une.edu.au/langnet/tokpisin.htm

In the PNG, Tok Pisin is an "official" language and most people there would be at a disadvantage if they didn't speak it -- since it's spoken by about 3 million people there (out of a total population of about 4 million) and used in business and government. HCE or "Hawai'i Creole English", on the other hand, has no "official" status and is only spoken by about 500 thousand folks here. Other than being classifed as "pidgins," Tok Pisin and HCE aren't really that comparable.

[Miulang]

Re: Pidgin Lessons

Tok Pisin and HCE aren't really that comparable.

I guess that would kinda be like saying you speak Chinese. And then someone would say, yeah, but what dialect? At one point, I thought I wanted to be a linguist (work for the UN), and I started studying those artificial "universal" languages like Esperanto and Interlingua. You don't hear much about those anymore, but I think they are still used within some parts of the scientific community so that people speaking many different languages can understand each other. I guess you could call Esperanto the scientific version of pidgin.

Miulang

[Nik]

Re: Pidgin Lessons

True pidgin is spoken by those who have grown up with it or digested it into their blood over many, many (20+) years. It is part of a lifestyle that must be experienced and come naturally. Sure, books, CDs, and teachers will scratch the surface, but as pzarquon mentioned, such guides will only get you so far. If anything, lessons will ironically blur your understanding of what pidgin is all about.

I am 23 and I grew up on Maui but I very rarely speak pidgin because my lifestyle usually (depending on the moment) interferes with its flow. I have a local accent that is a part of my everyday speech but it's nowhere near actual pidgin.

[Jonah K]

Re: Pidgin Lessons

I guess that would kinda be like saying you speak Chinese. And then someone would say, yeah, but what dialect? At one point, I thought I wanted to be a linguist (work for the UN), and I started studying those artificial "universal" languages like Esperanto and Interlingua. You don't hear much about those anymore, but I think they are still used within some parts of the scientific community so that people speaking many different languages can understand each other. I guess you could call Esperanto the scientific version of pidgin.

Miulang

"Pidgins" and "dialects" are pretty different animals. A "pidgin" is a new language developed from two or more languages, while a dialect is simply a regional variation of a standard language. When a "pidgin" acquires a community of native speakers, it becomes a "Creole language." Thus, "Pidgin" in Hawai'i, "Tok Pisin" in the PNG and "Patwa" in Jamaica are technically "Creole languages", not "pidgins."

In the case of "Chinese", Mandarin, Cantonese, Hakka, etc., they are probably different enough from each other as to be considered separate languages, rather than dialects of a single language.

[SouthKona]

Re: Pidgin Lessons

Thanks Pz. Is it me, or do I catch a lot of crap here for tellin it like it is?

It has been my experience, in Hawaii, that telling it like it is, blunt & abrasive, with no chaser, is frowned upon heavily. Do you concur? Why do you think that is the way things are here? I got this impression mightily while running for council.

In many instances, how you present your thoughts is a distraction to what you are trying to say. You often come across as arrogant, and your message is lost in the mix. Just think of how many additional people you could help to "get a house", "coach", "get computers", etc. (as you've described) if you'd present your thoughts in a less abrasive manner, because it is probable that you've alienated people that you might have otherwise been able to work with.

[1stwahine]

Re: Pidgin Lessons

Ahhh.. excuse me. Wat dis thread bout? Pidgin

Can turn it on. Can turn it off.

It depends where one is at. In the real world...you can't get a job talking nor writing "Pidgin!" Yet, it's a part of me...I would never give up. It is who I am. A proud Local Wahine from the Islands I love and cherish ~ Hawaii nei!

Pidgin? Wat badda you? Don't let it!

Auntie Lynn

[SouthKona]

Re: Pidgin Lessons

Yes, being able to speak pidgin as well as "standard English" is indeed a valuable asset, but the assumption that an "only" pidgin speaker is doomed to failure is inaccurate. Just ask any of the pidgin-only-speakers in my neighborhood that enjoy life, family, employment or retirement, and owning their own homes.

[LikaNui]

Re: Pidgin Lessons

I'm the #2 person at our company, which has recently hired a new #1 person. He's from California and has only vacationed here a couple of times. Most of our staff (and many of our clients and vendors) speak heavy Pidgin, so this poor guy is gonna be some kind of lost! I expect there to be a few dozen times per day that he asks me "What did they say?"

[KaiShiro]

Re: you talk pidgin?

Sup, this my first post.

Anyways, I remember when I was a kid in 3rd grade my kumu in my Hawaiiana class said that Hawaiians used to speak with fluent perfect English before the immigrants came. I remember she said if you want to speak local to learn Hawaiian. She was strict on this. She was like, pidgin is NOT Hawaiian. I was looking to find a site on pidgin history and found this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaiian_Pidgin . I knew Portuguese had a influence but I didn't know it had much.

I took a surf trip to France and Portugal in 97 and I will never forget the similarities in Portuguese that sound like pidgin. I remember we were in the country side taking pictures of the mountain and beach and I thought I heard "WHAT YOU FAKA!" I turned around and it was a Portuguese guy angry that we were on his property. I forgot the translation but each time he said it sounded like "WHAT YOU FAKA!". lol

When I was eating at a restaurant I remember this guy on the side of me he was saying something that sounded like "da faka" it was weird because I thought he was talking about me (dat faka).

Depends on who I talk to. Like if i'm talking to a haole person (mainland kine) I speak standard English but when I just kicking back with with friends I dont worry about what I say. I do it for them because they are quick to judge sometimes. Laters

[1stwahine]

Re: Pidgin Lessons

I'm the #2 person at our company, which has recently hired a new #1 person. He's from California and has only vacationed here a couple of times. Most of our staff (and many of our clients and vendors) speak heavy Pidgin, so this poor guy is gonna be some kind of lost! I expect there to be a few dozen times per day that he asks me "What did they say?"

Just tell him...ALOHA!!!!

Auntie Lynn

[kimo55]

Re: Pidgin Lessons

jezz tell him alooooha ha ha ha ha

[pzarquon]

Re: Pidgin Lessons

At a previous job, we had several international students as interns, and a new batch would rotate through the office every semester. Bringing them up to speed on some of the more common pidgin phrases was always fun. More interesting were conversations with those that were into linguistics who could point out some of the similarities in syntax and the like with other languages. From, "Big, da house!" to the rise-then-drop tonal shift that indicated a question... it was amazing just how structured a seemingly basic language turned out to be.

So, yeah, if pidgin is indeed a language unto itself, it makes sense that it's hard for others to understand. Heck, on some of the short-lived set-in-Hawaii TV shows, pidgin was both watered down and still subtitled to be absolutely sure John Q. Mainland could follow along. Even "Dog the Bounty Hunter" subtitles a lot of the pidgin... even though what Duane utters barely qualifies!

[Pomai]

Re: Pidgin Lessons

One of the funniest local TV news broadcasts I ever seen was simply an interview with an elder Filipino man (tata). He obviously was fron the Philippines and had a strong Ilocano accent, but if you were raised in Hawaii, you could EASILY understand him. Still, the producer decided to throw subtitles with his commentary.

I just thought to myself, "How can someone NOT understand him? I sure do!". The compounded part of his strong accent with the subtitles left me laughing for the rest of the broadcast. Funny!

If a local news station ever subtitles someone interviewed speaking pidgin... man.. that would take the cake!

[tutusue]

Re: Pidgin Lessons

I saw a wonderful documentary, "Happy Birthday, Tutu Ruth" , that was produced during the mid-1990s. It chronicled Tutu's difficult life on the Big Island where, at the time, she was about to celebrate her 90th birthday and was still working in the taro fields. She spoke heavy pidgin; still, something most of us who've lived in Hawaii for a long time could understand. The documentary had sub-titles throughout! I got the biggest kick out of that but also understood that it would be screening at various film festivals on the mainland. With sub-titles it also had more of a foreign entry appeal!