HAWAII CREOLE ENGLISH

HAWAII CREOLE ENGLISH, also Hawaii English Creole. An English-based CREOLE that developed for communication among a mixed population on plantations in Hawaii, a continuum from a low-status BASILECT to a high-status ACROLECT that has de-creolized. It retains features from the PIDGIN stage, such as the use of bambai (by and by: compare TOK PISIN baimbai) to mark future and hypothetical events: Mai fada dem wen kam ova hia; bambai de wen muv tu Kawai My father and the others came over here; then they moved to Kauai. The use of wen to mark the simple past is a more recent form taken from went. There is another, older form bin from been (compare Tok Pisin bin), as in A bin go see mai fada I went to see my father. Currently, many speakers use the English past tense auxiliary had. The use of dem (them) to mark plurals, as in Stan-dem Stan and the others, is found in other English-based creoles: for example, JAMAICAN CREOLE Jan dem John and the others.