As people of other language backgrounds were brought in to work on the plantations, such as Japanese,Filipinos, and Koreans, Hawaiian Pidgin acquired words from these languages. Hawaiian Pidgin has been influenced by many different languages, includingPortuguese, Hawaiian, American English, and Cantonese.

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. It supplanted, and was influenced by, the existing pidgin that Native Hawaiians already used on plantations and elsewhere in Hawaii (see this article). Hawaiian Pidgin originated on sugarcane plantations as a form of communication used between English speaking residents and non-English speaking Native Hawaiians and foreign immigrants. It did, however, evolve from various real pidgins spoken between ethnic groups in Hawaii. In the Hawaiian language, Hawaiian Creole English is called «ʻōlelo paʻi ʻai», which literally means «pounding-taro language».ĭespite its name, Hawaiian Pidgin is not a pidgin, but rather a full-fledged, nativized, and demographically stablenatural language. Although English and Hawaiian are the co-official languages of the state of Hawaii, Hawaiian Pidgin is used by many Hawaii residents in everyday casual conversation and is often used in advertising targeted toward locals in Hawaii. Hawaiian Pidgin English, Hawaiian Creole English, HCE, or locally known as simply Pidgin, is a creole languagebased in part on English – spoken by many residents of Hawaii.

Pidgin dictionary