Hawai'i Creole English

Hawaiian Pidgin (known formally in linguistics as Hawaiʻi Creole English or HCE and known locally as Pidgin) is an English-based creole language spoken in Hawaii. An estimated 600,000 residents of Hawaii speak Hawaiian Pidgin natively and 400,000 speak it as a second language. Although English and Hawaiian are the two official languages of the state of Hawaii, Hawaiian Pidgin is spoken by many residents of Hawaii in everyday conversation and is often used in advertising targeted toward locals in Hawaii. In the Hawaiian language, it is called ʻōlelo paʻi ʻai lit. 'hard-taro language'.

Hawaiian Pidgin was first recognized as a language by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2015. However, Hawaiian Pidgin is still thought of as lower status than the Hawaiian and English languages.

Despite its name, Hawaiian Pidgin is not a pidgin, but rather a full-fledged, nativized and demographically stable creole language. It did, however, evolve from various real pidgins spoken as common languages between ethnic groups in Hawaii.

From Wikipedia · Hawaiian Pidgin · CC BY-SA 4.0