A Paradise Lost - KOPS - Universität Konstanz

could talk, not write, to each other in different tongues.” 483 The pidgin the author refers to
in this passage is the plantation language of the 1930s and 40s that he captures extremely
well in his story, not today’s flexible and full-blown creole. However, the passage reveals
a generalized limitation the writer felt in the applicability of his medium. Another
problematic aspect of the reception of mixed-language writing can be inferred from his
reflections on style: “Both brothers think in English and pidgin, and their Japanese is
limited and awkward. I’ve been criticized for stylistic awkwardness in translating what
was colloquial Japanese into English. Much of it was intentional.” 484 If readers or critics
are not familiar with the languages employed or represented in a text, how can they
appreciate the author’s choices, and by extension, how can they fully grasp the text?
Murayama was well aware of this conflict, stating that the Pidgin necessary for getting
“as close as possible to the experience” is “a highly inflectional spoken language which
becomes unintelligible if transcribed too faithfully to the printed page. I wanted my
pidgin to be intelligible also to users of standard English only.” 485 Even if Murayama
reserved Pidgin as spoken for direct speech passages, the narrative voice of his novel, the
nisei plantation boy Kiyo, tells the story in a Pidgin tone: short words and syllable counts
enable the reader to hear the staccato melody of the language – if only s/he cares to listen.
Hawaii’s most original poet Jozuf Hadley, a.k.a. bradajo, demands similar
attention from his audience. Without exceptions, his poems and aphorisms are printed in
idiosyncratic handwriting, using individual phoneticized orthography, and employing
“rural Kauai pidgin,” as he identifies it. Imagine the following example thrown on a
theater wall by an overhead projector in an inky fountain pen quality, the audience of an
event called “4 da Luv of Pidgin” muttering or reciting as they read along: “bachugada
leee..vom da..aloha not..jos..poodom da..steeka ontop da ka” (approx. ‘But you gotta live
it, the aloha, not just put it as a sticker on top of the car’). 486 Today, bradajo’s ‘talk story’
ramblings (such as “Frickin’ Chicken”) as well as the short pieces which he likes to
compare to Japanese haiku have gained a certain appeal with Locals and visitors alike as
483 Milton Murayama, “Problems of Writing in Dialect and Mixed Languages,” in: Bamboo Ridge No. 5
(1980): 8-10, here 9.
484 Murayama 1980, 10.
485 Ibid. For a general treatment of the strategies and pitfalls of creole writing, with examples taken from
Caribbean literatures, see Lise Winer, “Comprehension and Resonance: English Readers and English
Creole Texts,” In Rickford/Romaine 1999: 391-406.
486 Personal attendance at Kumu Kahua Theatre, Honolulu, 02/04/2002.
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