Hawaiian Pidgin: Communicating To Da Max!

Visitors to Hawaii are immediately aware of the incredible natural beauty of these islands and that awareness is enhanced the more they travel around this place.

But to me, one of the really interesting and more enjoyable things about Hawaii is the pidgin English that locals use when speaking informally among themselves. Some use it most of the time, others whenever the mood strikes, but it’s colorful and highly descriptive … and a great deal of fun. It borrows from Hawaiian and Japanese and Chinese and from the two main Filipino dialects, not to mention some delightful twists given to recognizable English words.

Here are just a few samples …

You meet another local on the street, you say, Howzit?

If a teenager wants to go out for a burger he’ll say You like grind?

If mama’s teriyaki chicken is really good, tell her it broke da mouth.

If something was a total failure, say it was a bus’ egg.

One of the more flexible of our pidgin words is puka (pronounced POO-kuh) which is the Hawaiian word for “hole” … as in the damn dog dug a puka right in the middle of our back yard.

But also: the County guys is patching a big puka in the road.

Or: I had to go to the dentist because I had a puka.

Or: I drove around the block three times before I found a puka.

Or even: My zip code is nine-six-seven-puka-eight.

Or better yet: Gawge Bush? Fo’ grade, da buggah get one beeg puka!

The best – and funniest – book about Hawaiian pidgin is called Pidgin To Da Max and is available in bookstores throughout Hawaii and from Amazon.com.

A final word of advice: Until you really know your way around and until you get both the context and the inflections exactly right, leave the pidgin to the “locals” … udduhwise by-m-by one local guy going bus’ you up.