1. Sociolinguistic Timeline of Hawaiian Pidgin

According to Sakoda (2013), Hawaiian Creole English (abbreviated as HCE) has a very rich linguistic history that aligns with the social, economic and political history of Hawaii. It could be dated back to 1800s when commercial trade between Hawaii and the outsiders started.

Starting from early 1780s, there were contacts between China, North American and Hawaiian due to trading in Hawaii ports, the scale of trading was gradually expanded by sandlewood trade and the whaling industry. For this reason, sailors bought an unstable pidgidized variety of English for communication (Siegel 2000).

Later in 1835, the very first sugarcane plantation was established, and the expanding industry brought a large number of workers from across the world, mainly from China, Portugal Japan, and later the Philippines. Some features of the stable pidgins were then brought about by the laborers, and Hawaiian Pidgin was the more widespread pidgin that had developed and mainly in use (Siegel 2000). However, it should be noted that the language was not spoken among the locals that its currency was limited to plantation people. The formation and modification of the language, such as including loan words from different languages, was basically the result of the influx of immigrants from more other countries, such as Korea, Spain and the Philippines. In other words, the language reflected the changing population and social structure in Hawaii with regards to the development of plantation sites.

At the turn of the 20th century, English schools, at which white children and some plantation children studied, were established by some missionaries and merchants that worked in Hawaii. The students with different backgrounds interacted with each other that brought the Hawaiian Pidgin into the Hawaiian Pidgin English (HPE), the precursor of HCE. Later, the newer generation learnt the language as their first language. By the traditional definition, the status as a generation’s first language 

turns HPE into HCE which is still called Pidgin among the people.

References

Sakoda, K. (June 21, 2013). Hawaii Creole English. Special Lecture conducted from Hawaii University at Manoa.

Siegel, J. (2000). Substrate influence in Hawai’i Creole English. Language in society, 29(2), 197-236.