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Talk Story / Pidgin

 

Talk Story

If you’re a new arrival, you’ll find there’s plenty to learn about our unique Aloha State, starting with pidgin — the unofficial language of the Islands. If you’re a kama‘aina, check out some of the new books on the local dialect and you’ll likely learn something new.

You hear it on Dog the Bounty Hunter and the 6 o’clock news, you read it in a growing body of local literature, and nowadays you can even take classes in it. Pidgin is a unique stew of Hawaiian, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Filipino and American influences that came together on the old plantations and melded into a commonly understood patois.

Not all locals speak pidgin, especially in urban Honolulu. But old-time neighborhoods and country locales still ring with its lilting cadences, and thanks to local youth culture and new influences from the mainland, pidgin is still evolving. For a bare-bones primer on survival pidgin, read on. For more depth, get the classic Pidgin to Da Max or the newer Da Kine Dictionary, both available in bookstores, as is the more advanced Pidgin Grammar.

PIDGIN 101

• Broke da mout’: So delicious it breaks your mouth.
• Bumbye: by and by, later on; or else later on.
• Choke: lots, plenty.
• Da kine: um; whatchamacallit. Often used when trying to recall a word or name.
• Garans: guaranteed.
• Grine: grind, or to eat. Its plural form, grinds, means food.
• Hammajang: not in good working condition; junk.
• Haole: Caucasian. Can also mean “too mainland,” as in overly assertive or insensitive to local ways.
• Pau: finished.