Isle pidgin’s chance to shine great, but it comes too late

A ripple of excitement moved through the islands when it was announced that, for the first time, the U.S. Census Bureau had collected data on how many people in Hawaii listed the language spoken in their home as “pidgin.”

News outlets reported it as THE FIRST TIME PIDGIN WAS COUNTED AS AN OFFICIAL LANGUAGE!

Try go look da numbaz, but. Onee litto bit people get.

Did you not understand that previous sentence? It’s no wonder. Pidgin is hardly in its heyday, and many in the youngest generation need a translation for basic pidgin phrases.

Earlier this month the Hawaii State Data Center released data on language spoken at home (other than English) from the Census Bureau 2009-2013 American Community Survey.

According to the survey, there were 326,893 people in Hawaii who spoke a language other than English at home. That’s about one-fourth of the population. The largest home language spoken was Tagalog, with 58,345 speakers. Second was Ilocano, with 54,005 speakers. Then came Japanese, with more than 45,000 speakers, Spanish, with over 25,000 speakers, and Hawaiian, with over 18,000 speakers.

More than 100 languages were listed for the state of Hawaii.

Three hundred thirty-five people said they spoke Hawaiian pidgin at home, while 1,275 people listed their home language as pidgin (basically the same thing — it was an open-ended question, and people just wrote in the blank space provided.)

Das’ small-kine small, eh, how you figga?

Maybe people didn’t know they could make that distinction on the Census Bureau form, or maybe many who speak pidgin don’t realize they speak pidgin (We all know that person, right? They think they talking good English, but they sound like Larry Price.) Maybe those who speak pidgin ALL the time thought a question about a different home language didn’t apply to them.

But what if the number of people in Hawaii who still speak pidgin really is fewer than 2,000? Colleen Hanabusa will need to travel with an interpreter. Robert Kekaula will have to have subtitles. (Nah, just joking. Robert is bilingual.) Augie T. will have to go back to selling home security systems. (Too soon?)

It is exciting to have pidgin recognized on a national level, but this sadly comes too late. Pidgin is not what it used to be. Pidgin is still around, of course — still beloved and beautifully expressive, but being squeezed out by so many other competing influences. It came to being in a time when communicating with other immigrants was vital in plantation communities. Now there’s an app that will translate.

As a writer who has published works in pidgin, I can tell you the most common feedback I get is, “You should have included a glossary.” I’ve found myself translating pidgin literary classics like Darrell Lum’s “Beer Can Hat” or Ed Sakamoto’s “Stew Rice” for teens who said things like, “This sounds like the way my Grandpa talks with his friends.”

As’ why haad, no?

Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.