Namu Pa'i 'Ai: A New Blog on Pidgins and Creoles

This post represents my first foray into the growing world of internet blogging. As a matter of introduction, my name is Sarah Roberts and I am a "Third Wave" sociolinguist -- that is to say, my approach towards language variation seeks to understand how variation is used as a resource for constructing social identity and how ideologies shape linguistic practice.

My primary interest is contact-induced language change, especially as found in pidgin and creole languages. These languages are particularly interesting because of the relative rapidity with which they develop and, at least in the case of early-stage pidgins, their drastic restructuring in comparison to their source languages. The post-creole continuum is also a rich area for exploring the role of identity in stylistic variation.

My own work has mostly involved the vernacular non-standard English of Hawai'i, Hawai'i Creole English (HCE), which drew on several simplified pidgins during its genesis in the 19th and early 20th centuries. HCE is known to most people simply as "Pidgin," and it occupies a contested place in contemporary Hawai'i society. It is frequently characterized as "bad English" and blamed for the scholastic shortcomings of students. It is also cherished as a vibrant cultural resource and vehicle for expressing identity. In my work I explore both how this language came into existence (in terms of grammatical and lexical changes) as well as how attitudes about it arise and change over time. Since HCE co-existed with other languages in its historical setting, my work is perhaps more accurately described as reconstructing the history of language contact in Hawai'i from the time of Captain James Cook to the present.

This blog will chiefly concern itself with the linguistic situation in Hawai'i (as it is my area of expertise), but it will also cover news and research concerning other pidgin/creole varieties around the world. In no sense will I attempt to give a "balanced" coverage of research in pidgin and creole studies; the purpose of this blog is rather to create a place on the web where I may comment on topics that interest me. Rather, I hope other creolists and pidginists will join the growing linguablog community and better represent the field as a whole.

I will be writing mostly for a linguist and language specialist audience but I hope this blog will interest non-specialists as well -- especially Pidgin speakers and those who take an active interest in the language. For everyone, welcome!

Finally, a word on the name of the blog itself. Although "Pidgin" is the usual English name for the language, in Hawaiian it is also known as 'ōlelo pa'i 'ai, which literally translates as "hard taro-root language". This term was originally used in the 19th century to refer to Pidgin Hawaiian (a Polynesian-based pidgin spoken especially on the plantations), Hawai'i Pidgin English (the direct ancestor of HCE), and a mixture of the two languages. Namu pa'i 'ai is a variant of this name and was first attested in a newspaper article in 1887. Namu is Hawaiian for "gibberish", from which the Pidgin Hawaiian word naminami "to talk, converse" was derived. The "hard-taro" metaphor latent in the name is especially obscure and is open to various unsatisfactory interpretations, which nicely evokes the state of affairs in pidgin and creole studies regarding the obscure origins of contact languages and the often unsatisfactory attempts to understand them.