I'm not sure if this post will be valid but it's regarding an issue that some people may be wondering about. If you're local and are a product of the Hawaiian Islands, then chances are you speak "pidgin." But where does "pidgin" come from exactly? Well, this language is actually built from the Hawaiian language. The words, while English, are strung together using Hawaiian structure.
Example:
In Hawaiian you would say-
He nui ka i'a.
Translation: The fish is big.
Taking into consideration that
Nui= big
Ka=the
I'a=fish
It's clear to see that the rough translation of this sentence is-
Big the fish.
Which in "pidgin" you would say-
Big da waves, little da fish, etc.
2 comments:
I've heard that Pidgin grammar is based on Hawaiian grammar, but I haven't studied the Hawaiian language, so I think it's really cool that you gave us a little example sentence there. :)
I am not a native speaker of Pidgin, but my boyfriend is, so I am slowly picking up a lot of it. :D I can't quite decide if it's a good thing for me or not, considering that I'm trying to improve my English grammar in this class. I know if you can code switch and keep things separate, then it's no problem, but I'm not really good at that... things tend to bleed through. haha.
But thanks, ah? So good you know how for explain the Pidgin grammar li'dat. Right on. :D
Nice analysis, Chantel :) We'll be talking about the Hawaiian language later on in the class.
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