Since Hawaii is a U.S. state, English is naturally the dominant language, spoken natively by most of the population. Approximately 2,000 people in the state are also native speakers of Hawaiian, the indigenous language of the Polynesian island, with many more speaking it as a second language. But there’s another native language in Hawaii that tends to be overlooked and is often thought of as “lower status” than English and Hawaiian, and that’s Hawaiian Pidgin.
As the native language of roughly 600,000 people, with an additional 400,000 or so speaking it as a second language, Hawaiian Pidgin is an important language across the Hawaiian archipelago. Although the language is largely mutually intelligible with English, it’s not completely mutually intelligible, meaning an English speaker can’t fully understand Hawaiian Pidgin without training. The language is used widely among Hawaiian residents in everyday conversation and is often incorporated into advertising, but its poor prestige means translation services are nearly nonexistent. At TranslationServices.com, we’re proud to fill this gap with our very own Hawaiian Pidgin translation services.
Contact us today for a free quote for our Hawaiian Pidgin translation services!
Hawaiian Pidgin: Hawaii’s little-known native language
Hawaiian Pidgin is the native language of nearly half of Hawaiian residents, but the language is poorly recognized even within Hawaii, let alone outside of the state. Despite its name, Hawaiian Pidgin is not a pidgin but a creole, which is a pidgin language that has accrued native speakers. The language developed when plantation workers from various backgrounds needed a common language, ultimately resulting in a creole with heavy influences from not only English and Hawaiian but also Portuguese and Cantonese. Hawaiian Pidgin has also incorporated a number of loanwords from Japanese, Korean, Ilocano, Okinawan, and Spanish.
Various grammatical features distinguish Hawaiian Pidgin from Standard American English, including its tendency to omit the copula (i.e., “to be”), as is standard in Hawaiian. When describing a temporary state or characteristic, however, Hawaiian Pidgin does use a verb—stay. This can result in sentences like Da watah stay cold (“The water is cold”), which may seem jarring to English speakers. Additionally, given the general lack of inflection in Hawaiian, verbs in Hawaiian Pidgin don’t inflect for tense—rather, auxiliary verbs express when an action takes place. Wen marks the past tense, goin the future tense, and neva the negative past tense. When ordering Hawaiian Pidgin translation services, it’s important to work with a translator who intimately understands all the nuances of the language—and that’s why we only hire native speakers for our team.
Helping you access Hawaiian Pidgin translation services that fit your needs
Quality is important to us when it comes to Hawaiian Pidgin translation services. We’ve sourced native-speaking Hawaiian Pidgin translators from all over Hawaii, be they from O’ahu, Hawai’i, Maui, Kaua’i, Moloka’i, or Lāna’i, which allows us to incorporate different varieties of Hawaiian Pidgin into our translation offering. Our translators offer translation both into and from Hawaiian Pidgin, with a consistent passion and dedication to quality across all translation specialties.
We’re committed to providing top-tier translation services for Hawaiian Pidgin across as many domains and specializations as possible. That means academic translation services, business translation services, literary translation services, and more. Perhaps you’d like to translate educational content into Hawaiian Pidgin to help legitimize the language and teach Hawaiian kids in their first language, or maybe you run a company in Hawaii and want to cater to your customers in their local vernacular. Our translators can help. We can also translate media and literary content such as books, poems, apps, games, and more into Hawaiian Pidgin to help foster this culturally important language. In short, we’re here for all your Hawaiian Pidgin translation needs.
Why not place a Hawaiian Pidgin translation order today? Reach out now!
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