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Example of Pidgin / Prokurator11, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Example of Pidgin / Prokurator11, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Hawaiian & Pidgin: The Native Languages and Dialects of Hawaii

Shaka Guide

Listen to audio sample:

During your stay in Kauai, have you had a chance to try and say a few Hawaiian words?  Don’t feel intimidated; Hawaiian is actually not that hard if you just know a few rules.  

First, everything is pronounced phonetically, and there are no silent vowels. Second, vowels a, e, i, o, u, are pronounced ah eh ee oh oo in Hawaiian. 

You already know a few words - like aloha and mahalo. Let me help you add a few more Hawaiian words to your list. 

Let's  start with ono. Ono means delicious and yummy in Hawaiian. Next time you try some delicious local food, you can say “oh! dis kine kau kau so ono!” The next word is “pau”.  Pau means all finished. While at a restaurant next time, if your waiter or waitress asks if you are done, you can answer “yes i’m all pau!” 

If you have children with you, the word for “children” is “keiki” in Hawaiian . If someone asks how old your children are, you can say “my keikis are 7 and 5”. 

 In Hawaii, you will see more Hawaiian in signs and street names, but what you’ll hear more, is a creole english dialect that we locals call Pidgin. 

It’s like a New Yorker says “I’m talking”, or how they say “y’all” in the south. You know you are talking to a real local, when the person greets you with pidgin, sounding something like this: “how zit brah.” 

In the 1900s when sugar plantations were all over Hawaii, immigrant workers from many countries were brought in to work on the fields. In order to communicate with each other, a simplified form of English called Pidgin was invented. 

Let me tell you some of the most common phrases we locals use. 

Grind: The word means to eat or food. “So what you like grind?” “Eh brah, I grind any kine.”

Choke: choke means a large amount of something. “ho, get choke fish today, brah!” “eh, come grind, I got choke food here!”

“Talk story” means to shoot the breeze with someone. “hey coz, you like talk story?”

Da kine. Da kine is the ultimate pidgin phrase, it literally means anything, and is understood based on how and when you use it. for example: 

“eh, you get da kine?....”

“ho, brah, dat’s da kine.“

 No can: No can means cannot or unable to. You can say “no can brah! I gotta help tutu da kine, move” 

Shoots den. So instead of saying i’ll see you later, or take care, you’d say “shoots den brah!” 

So during your stay in Hawaii, don’t be shy to try and use some Hawaiian and pidgin. Eh, we not pau yet! Shoots den brah goin’ catch you down the road!

Wanna try out your new knowledge?

Check out our Waimea and Na Pali Tour!

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