A foreigner among mainlanders
November 3, 2017
“Ho brah, we go grind,” Ezra Heleski said. “I stay hungreh. I like mop one burgah.”
His friends just stared at him. They were probably thinking, “What did he just say?”
Here’s the translation: “Hey, let’s go eat. I’m hungry. I’d like to get a burger.”
People constantly ask why Heleski, a Linfield sophomore hailing from Hawai’i, pronounces his words so differently. English is his primary language, so why does his English sound so foreign?
Although he already has a year of college under his belt, he still struggles with an ongoing cultural barrier. He speaks Pidgin English.
“When I first got to college, I said things like ‘shoots!’ and ‘howzit!’” Heleski said. “I caught myself after I noticed my friends from the mainland had no idea what I was saying.”
By “mainland,” of course, he means the continental U.S.
People who have visited Hawai’i, or talked to a resident of Hawai’i, may have realized they don’t understand half of the words the locals are using.
There are whole clusters of words that sound like English, but also some that don’t bear much if any resemblance.
Those not from Hawai’i may be confused by the interesting terminology and dialects found in the islands. It is known formally as Hawaiian Creole English, informally as Hawaiian Pidgin.
“Everyone is fascinated with Hawai’i, and for some reason, even more with the way people from Hawai’i talk,” Heleski said. “It’s funny to watch my mainland friends attempt to speak Pidgin and completely slaughter the language.” Pidgin got its start in the days of the sugarcane plantations in the early 1900s.
People from all over the world arrived in Hawai’i in search of work. American, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Filipino, Spanish and Portuguese make up the majority of racial groups that began working in the fields.
Pidgin, a broken-down version of English, emerged as a way for the plantation workers to communicate with each other.
The language has been passed down through generations ever since. Children growing up listening to their parents speak Pidgin actually have to learn how to speak proper English.
Pidgin has become so common that it has been recognized as an official language in Hawai’i.
“I never really spoke Pidgin as a kid, so I didn’t have a problem with trying to break the habit,” Mark Kuga, who also came to Linfield from the islands, said.
But he said, “I am still able to go into ‘Pidgin mode’ when I want to. It’s something I can turn on and off, depending on who I’m talking to.”
Being able to transition from one dialect to the other is a challenging skill to grasp for some Hawai’i residents, particularly those who are just visiting on the mainland. However, it is very much needed in professional settings, if confusion is to be avoided.
This type of transition is known by linguists as code-switching. Those who are bilingual often find words from their native language creeping into their everyday conversations. A difficulty code-switching might help explain why Kuga has trouble changing completely from Pidgin to English.
“If I’m with my Hawai’i friends, I’ll talk Pidgin, because it gets rid of that homesick feeling,” Kuga said. “I often miss hearing random people in the supermarket speaking Pidgin. But when I’m in class, or at work, I unconsciously switch to proper English.”
Pidgin still poses barriers for its adherents. Not everyone is able to make the transition back and forth so smoothly.
Heleski said he worries about getting a lower grade on oral exams or presentations because he doesn’t talk like the large majority of the class.
He said it’s easy to cut international students some slack, because English is their second language and they are still learning. But it’s not the same for people hailing from an American state.
“We are technically American, but at the same time, we’re not,” Heleski said. “We are so different from the average American. We talk and act differently. But people expect us to be like the mainlanders.”
Initially, the awkward tension led Heleski’s friends to assume he was swearing or badmouthing them. But his friends eventually caught on to some of the more common Pidgin words and phrases, and began asking him to teach them more.
Heleski appreciates his friends’ attempts to learn his language. It makes Linfield feel a little more like home, he said.
But he advises them to never speak Pidgin in Hawai’i, because it could come across as offensive.
“If you’re not a local, and try to talk like one, you’ll get a lot of dirty looks,” he warned.
“People think I’m joking when I say that, but there are locals who will feel mocked.”
The interview ended there and he continued on to assemble a burger at the dining hall. And best believe he “mopped” it.