Lee Tonouchi is an example of a writer that uses Odo Orthography. It is mainly used by linguists, but some writers and advocates of Hawaiian Pidgin English also use this system to reinforce and spread the language. Hence, it was important that the writing system demonstrated and emphasized this difference, so in 1970 Carol Odo created a writing system that is similar to English which is called Odo Orthography. Although the Pidgin writing system is mainly based on English, there are many words of English origin that are pronounced differently. Had dis old green house… Įnglish is one of Pidgin’s main sources of linguistic features, especially with regard to vocabulary.Īnother example comes from the use of “have/had” with an existentia l meaning, like in the Portuguese use, instead of the English “there is/are”: One such evidence is the Hawaiian Pidgin English marker “stei”, which seems to have been inspired by the Portuguese verb “estar” (“to be”): For some sociolinguists, these informations along with some linguistics evidences make clear that Portuguese was a potential source of the morphological expansion found in Hawaii Creole.

Portuguese was one of the dominant immigrant languages in Hawaii when Hawaii Creole was first emerging (in the 1910s) the locally born population with Portuguese ancestry were 4,117 in 1890 and 10,604 in the 1900s. In addition, there is a regular course available that not only discuss the language features but also social and historical facts about Pidgin. The University of Hawai’i provides for both undergraduate and graduate students the possibility to develop research projects on Pidgin language and studies.

Hawaiian pidgin english dictionary