I was particularly struck by Buggah ‘person’ and Howzit ‘hello,’ both of which have straightforward etymologies ( bugger, how’s it) but which I am somehow surprised to find a basic part of Hawaiian pidgin. pau, “Finished, ended, through, terminated, completed, over, all done final, finishing entirely, completely, very much after all, to have all to be completely possessed, consumed, destroyed.” (It says “PNP pau,” where PNP is apparently Proto-Nuclear-Polynesian.) Some of the entries are well-known outside of Hawaii (Da kine ‘whatchamacallit,’ Lanai ‘patio,’ Wahine ‘woman’), others not so much (Ono ‘delicious,’ Pilikia ‘trouble’). Pau means ‘done’ - or, to give the more thorough list of equivalents in the online Hawaiian Dictionary s.v. If you have time to only learn one expression, learn “pau.” In this list, expressions in bold type are those for which we NEVA WEN use the corresponding English equivalent, so you will want to learn these first. We used all of these expressions while growing up, but some we used more than others.
I lived in Kailua until I left for Biola in 1971.
If you ever move to the Islands, you will need a guide to Hawaiian Pidgin expressions.
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