What visitors should know
Pidgin is a creole language, not broken English or a novelty accent. Visitors should focus on comprehension rather than imitation; Hawaiian words should keep their meanings and orthography clear, kamaʻāina should never be treated as a synonym for Native Hawaiian identity, and Honolulu is one important city within a statewide language landscape rather than the owner of island-wide forms.
Reviewed words and expressions
brah
In Hawaiʻi Pidgin and local English, brah is a casual, familiar address term related to braddah or bruddah (‘brother’), often used much like bro or buddy. It is strongly established in Hawaiʻi local speech but has also spread into wider informal English, so it is not exclusive to Hawaiʻi today.
Hawaiʻicheehoo
Cheehoo is a loud Samoan-rooted celebratory or expressive cry. Pacific scholarship documents it in Samoa as deriving from an exclamation of traditional significance and used today for exuberance, victory, or challenge; University of Hawaiʻi sources also document cheehoo in current Hawaiʻi celebrations and community events.
Hawaiʻichoke
In Hawaiʻi Pidgin and local English, choke can mean a lot, many, much, or a large amount or number. The exact mainstream-English translation depends on what the word modifies.
Hawaiʻida kine
In Hawaiʻi Creole, da kine is a highly flexible context-dependent placeholder that can stand for a thing, person, place, action, quality, or idea when the intended referent is understood from the conversation.
Hawaiʻigrindz / grinds
In Hawaiʻi Creole and local slang, grindz or grinds means food or things to eat; the related verb grind means to eat.
Hawaiʻikamaʻāina
Kamaʻāina is a Hawaiian word whose dictionary senses include a native-born person, one born in a place, a host, and someone familiar or acquainted; in modern local Hawaiʻi English it commonly refers to a local or long-time resident.
Hawaiʻimakai
Makai, from Hawaiian ma kai, means at, by, or toward the sea and is widely used in Hawaiʻi directions as the opposite of mauka, inland or mountainward.
Hawaiʻimauka / makai
In Hawaiʻi, mauka means inland or toward the mountains and makai means seaward or toward the ocean; the pair is widely used in local directions and place orientation instead of relying only on compass points.
Hawaiʻimauka
Mauka, from Hawaiian ma uka, means inland, upland, or toward the mountains and is widely used in Hawaiʻi directions as the opposite of makai, toward the sea.
Hawaiʻiʻono
ʻOno is a Hawaiian word meaning delicious, tasty, or savory and can also express relishing or craving something; it is widely recognizable in Hawaiʻi food conversation and local public language.
Hawaiʻipau hana
In Hawaiʻi local usage, pau hana means after work or finished with work, and it commonly names the time, gathering, or social period that begins when the workday is done.
Hawaiʻipau
Pau is a Hawaiian word meaning finished, ended, completed, gone, or all done, and it is also widely used in local Hawaiʻi English and Hawaiʻi Creole for being finished with an activity or for something being over.
Hawaiʻipūpū
Pūpū is a Hawaiian word with several meanings; in the food sense widely used in Hawaiʻi, it means a relish, appetizer, canapé, hors d’oeuvre, or small dish served for eating and sharing.
Hawaiʻishaka
The shaka is the Hawaiʻi-associated hand gesture made by extending the thumb and little finger while curling the three middle fingers; depending on context it can communicate greeting, thanks, approval, friendliness, solidarity, connection, or aloha-like positive sentiment.
Hawaiʻitalk story
In Hawaiʻi local speech, talk story means to chat, converse, catch up, or spend time sharing stories and conversation; it does not require telling one formal narrative.
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