Some aspects of Hawaiian pidgin

We tend to think of pidgin as a kind of bastardized English, spoken by people for whom English is not a first language. But that's not necessarily so. Often pidgin itself can be a person's first -- and only -- language. There are plenty of people in Hawaii who speak no other language but Hawaiian pidgin on a daily basis. Many of them are quite capale of switching to standard English if the need arises, but they're more comfortable with the familiar locutions. I thought it might be of interest to some A2kers who care about language to get a sampling of Hawaiian pidgin.

It's mostly English, with a number of words that come from either Hawaiian or, more rarely, Japanese. First, the most commonplace Hawaiian words that everyone learns quickly, even first-time visitors to Hawaii:

Aloha -- You all know this. It's used for both 'hello' and 'goodby' but it actually means 'love.' And you hear it used in its real meaning quite frequently in expressions such as "He has a lot of aloha" or, conversely, "That guy has no aloha."

Mahalo -- Another word you hear all the time. It means "Thank you." Interestingly, there is no way to say "You're welcome." The proper response is just a smile and a nod. But some non-Hawaiians (we call them haoles)have started answering'Mahalo' with

Aole Pilikia which means, "No problem."

Ohana -- family. But if you ever saw the movie Lalo and Stitch, you already knew that.

Keiki -- child or chidren (There's no distinction between singular and plural in this word.)

Two words that everyone knows and that you see even in otherwise all-English newspaper stories are mauka and makai. The first means 'inland, away from the shore.' The second means 'toward the sea.' People don't refer to north or south, east or west much. Things are described as being mauka of this or makai of that.

But these commonly-used words are generally used in a sentence composed mainlyof English words, with some interesting changes in locution. Some of the more common locutons include:

No can instead of "can not."
never often means simply not yet. "He never came" doesn't mean that he's never coming, just that he hasn't arrived yet.

In Hawaiian pidgin the only acceptable indefinite article is "one" rather than "a" or "an." People will ask you, "You got one extra cigarette?" or say "I have one doctor's appointment later today."

Some anomalies:
The common slang expression for "How are you" is "How'zit?" (Supposedly short for "How'zit going?") You don't hear the common mainland expression of "Whassup" very often. On the mainland, it's common to hear "bro" meaning 'brother." It's the same here, except that pronunciation is "brah" and it's usually spelled that way in transcriptions of conversations.

An untranslatable word is "kine' (pronounced not phonetically but just like we might pronounce the plural for 'cows' in older English). It's similar to American "whatchamacallit" or "whozis" but it often acts simply as an interjection meaning the speaker is hunting for the right word in his mind. "Da kine dat word mean anyway?"

It's common to end a sentence with "Yah?" much in the same way that Canadians say "eh?"

Interested in your thoughts and will gladly answer any questions.