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wcerto
Ahonui
USA
5052 Posts |
 Posted - 03/30/2007 : 05:03:44 AM
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Responses to this post may get heated...please do not disrespect anyone.
I would like to hear opinions or facts on whether or not Pidgin is a language. I have read several articles. Some say it is a true creole language. Some say not.
Please share your thoughts with me.
Mahalo.
Wanda
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Me ke aloha
Malama pono,
Wanda |
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javeiro
Lokahi
USA
459 Posts |
Posted - 03/30/2007 : 05:34:17 AM
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| I have read, and I don't remember where, that Pidgin is considered a dialect. I may try to look it up again and post it back here. |
Aloha,
John A. |
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Retro
Ahonui
USA
2368 Posts |
Posted - 03/30/2007 : 08:00:12 AM
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Wanda, before any flames start flying here (which they may not - TaroPatch is one of the more respectful forums I regularly visit), may I just say --- I really like the questions you ask, and the threads that you start. Your curiosity stimulates some marvelous discussions, and I'm also grateful to those who participate with a wide range of perspectives - educational to anecdotal.
As for the topic, having not grown up with it, I can't speak pidgin to save my soul (which is a lost cause anyway) - but I would be inclined to call it a dialect rather than a language, because the majority of it appears to borrow and adapt from other languages into a regionally-unique "creole" blend.
Obviously, just my interpretation. YMMV.
=Gregg= |
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islandboo
Lokahi
USA
237 Posts |
Posted - 03/30/2007 : 08:14:34 AM
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Keeping in mind that I am neither a linguist or local.... As I understand it, "pidgin" is a true creole, and linguistically the preferred term is Hawai'i Creole English. However, in the general population it is often viewed as a corrupted form of English and therefore inferior/undesirable.
FWIW, here are some interesting statements I have encountered from various sources on the net:
A pidgin is a new language which develops in situations where speakers of different languages need to communicate but don't share a common language. The vocabulary of a pidgin comes mainly from one particular language (called the "lexifier"). The early "pre-pidgin" is quite restricted in use and variable in structure. But the later "stable pidgin" develops its own grammatical rules which are quite different from those of the lexifier.
Once a stable pidgin has emerged, it is generally learned as a second language and used for communication among people who speak different languages. Examples are Nigerian Pidgin and Bislama (spoken in Vanuatu).
When children start learning a pidgin as their first language and it becomes the mother tongue of a community, it is called a creole. Like a pidgin, a creole is a distinct language which has taken most of its vocabulary from another language, the lexifier, but has its own unique grammatical rules. Unlike a pidgin, however, a creole is not restricted in use, and is like any other language in its full range of functions. Examples are Gullah, Jamaican Creole and Hawai`i Creole English.
Note that the words "pidgin" and "creole" are technical terms used by linguists, and not necessarily by speakers of the language. For example, speakers of Jamaican Creole call their language "patwa" (from patois) and speakers of Hawai'i Creole English call theirs "Pidgin."
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Although "Pidgin" is the usual English name for the language, in Hawaiian it is also known as 'olelo pa'i 'ai, which literally translates as "hard taro-root language". This term was originally used in the 19th century to refer to Pidgin Hawaiian (a Polynesian-based pidgin spoken especially on the plantations), Hawai'i Pidgin English (the direct ancestor of HCE), and a mixture of the two languages. Namu pa'i 'ai is a variant of this name and was first attested in a newspaper article in 1887. Namu is Hawaiian for "gibberish", from which the Pidgin Hawaiian word naminami "to talk, converse" was derived. The "hard-taro" metaphor latent in the name is especially obscure and is open to various unsatisfactory interpretations, which nicely evokes the state of affairs in pidgin and creole studies regarding the obscure origins of contact languages and the often unsatisfactory attempts to understand them.
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wcerto
Ahonui
USA
5052 Posts |
Posted - 03/30/2007 : 08:58:29 AM
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Debbie - thanks for sharing that. I just finished reading an article somewhere that likens Pidgin to "ebonics". Not a very respectful article to anyone. I have just finished reading a book called "Da Book" by Lee Tonouchi, the "Pidgin Guerilla". It is written entirely in Pidgin and is a great read...funny, sad, touching. It consists of 13 short stories that are kind of interwoven. I've got to find more of his stuff. He writes for the Bamboo Ridge Press, I think. I also have his Pidgin dictionary. Highly recommended.
Greg - thanks for the kind words. I am certainly curious. If I didn't want to learn anything new, I could just stay home in Cleveland and moan about the gray, dreary days. I like to get different perspectives on an issue, in an attempt to learn and just because I am niele about how other folks think on the same topic. |
Me ke aloha
Malama pono,
Wanda |
Edited by - wcerto on 03/30/2007 09:01:07 AM |
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keoladonaghy
Lokahi
257 Posts |
Posted - 03/30/2007 : 11:34:08 AM
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The comments I read above are accurate: Hawaiian "pidgin" English is a creole, not a pidgin. Pidgin languages don't have native speakers. That is the point when it becomes a creole. Perhaps the continued use of "pidgin" in Hawai'i had to do with the strong identity to the creole of the gulf coast states.
The differences between a dialect and a language are debated, the most common "ruler" is mutual intelligibility. While English speakers from abroad and the US mainland might have difficulty with someone speaking HCE (Hawaiian Creole English), they are still mutually intelligible.
Dr. Suzanne Romaine from Oxford, who occasionally teaches a class in pidgin and creole languages here at UH-Hilo, is one of the authorities on the subject. Unfortunately I haven't taken the class from her (yet) so I can't comment further.
http://www.amazon.com/Pidgin-Languages-Longman-Linguistics-Library/dp/0582014743 |
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wcerto
Ahonui
USA
5052 Posts |
Posted - 03/30/2007 : 11:48:55 AM
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So when Paul's ma says that the folks over in Oriolo, Calabria, Italy, where her parents come from could not understand people from across the mountains from them, it is a dialect thing? I would imagine it all would be called Italian. What the Calabrese spoke was different from where his father's family came from in Sicily, but still Italian.
Now I am getting more confused. I like the language of the heart...no translation needed. |
Me ke aloha
Malama pono,
Wanda |
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Retro
Ahonui
USA
2368 Posts |
Posted - 03/30/2007 : 12:01:35 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by wcerto
I like the language of the heart...no translation needed.
Tell that to my ex-wives' attorneys. |
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islandboo
Lokahi
USA
237 Posts |
Posted - 03/30/2007 : 12:36:55 PM
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| An amusing anecdote concerning "mutual intelligibility" - my stepfather was a Puerto Rican-Italian from Brooklyn. He once travelled (by car) to Texas for a work-related matter, and stopped for the night in the mountains of Tennessee. The hotel clerk had a thick southern accent, and he and my stepfather found themselves utterly unable to understand what the other was saying. They were reduced to using a pen and pad of paper to communicate information about rates and wake-up calls and such. Same exact language in the written form, but they were worlds apart in pronunciation... |
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hapakid
Luna Ho`omalu
USA
1533 Posts |
Posted - 03/30/2007 : 1:14:27 PM
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All I know is that when I talk to my Uncle Dickie, who lives in Kahalu'u area, I need a translator.
Jesse Tinsley |
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keoladonaghy
Lokahi
257 Posts |
Posted - 03/30/2007 : 3:32:35 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by islandboo
An amusing anecdote concerning "mutual intelligibility" - my stepfather was a Puerto Rican-Italian from Brooklyn. He once travelled (by car) to Texas for a work-related matter, and stopped for the night in the mountains of Tennessee. The hotel clerk had a thick southern accent, and he and my stepfather found themselves utterly unable to understand what the other was saying. They were reduced to using a pen and pad of paper to communicate information about rates and wake-up calls and such. Same exact language in the written form, but they were worlds apart in pronunciation...
I heard these kinds of anecdotes a lot. When my wife and I visited Ireland a few years back we had no problem understanding their Hiberno-English, and there was quite a difference in the north, south and western varieties. Met a Scotsman who live in Northern Ireland, I and couldn't pick out more than one word in four or five. We just smiled and nodded a lot as he talked.
As I said, mutually intelligibility is the most common ruler, but not necessarily perfect. Poynesian languages are a good example. I can understand a bit of Tahitian and Marquesan, less of Maori speech, but very, very little of Samoan or Tongan - just a word or two here and there. Some folks we've met from other areas of Polynesia refer to the "Polynesian language" and the Hawaiian, Tahitian and Maori dialects. We tend to refer to them as separate languages. Linguists tend to refer to them as separate language, though there is some mutual intelligibility. |
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thumbstruck
Ahonui
USA
2154 Posts |
Posted - 03/31/2007 : 05:34:11 AM
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| HCE is technically a language, just as Lollans, or Scots, is a language. English speakers think that Lollans is a dialect because of some mutual intelligibility, but the differences are enough for the categorization. Wanda, the Italian "dialect" thing is very real (in all of Europe, Germany, France, etc). Mario Pei's book "Latin and the Romance Languages" deals with that. My Dad's father came from Norway, my Mom was from Sweden. She had no difficulty in speaking. (THere is more difference between northern and southern Italy than between all the Scandinavian countries). A Norksi once said that he spoke 23 languages, 22 of them Norwegian! Check out "Pidgin Grammar, an Introduction to the Creole Language of Hawai;i" by Kent Sakoda and Jeff Siegel. Communication takes effort, even when 2 people speak the same language. That's why I always sing instrumentals. |
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alika207
Ha`aha`a
USA
1260 Posts |
Posted - 05/20/2007 : 01:44:06 AM
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| I agree with what Retro wrote. |
He kehau ho'oma'ema'e ke aloha.
'Alika / Polinahe |
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