HONOLULU, Hawaii (The Adobo Chronicles ) – Pidgin, spoken in Hawaii for decades, is now listed as one of the official languages in the islands.

The list was released by the U.S. Census Bureau in November after a five-year survey was conducted on bilingual speakers. The census surveyed more than 325,000 Hawaii residents from 2009 to 2013, asking whether they spoke any language other than English at home.

The results revealed a number of Pidgin and Hawaiian Pidgin speakers. Both were added to the census list that included over 100 languages, representative of the islands diversity.

Pidgin is a combination of expressions and phrases that are recognizable to those who speak it. To non-Pidgin speakers, it may sound like slang. For example, “dat” means that and “fadda” means father or dad.

Meanwhile, in the Philippines, swardspeak (also known as bekimon) has been added to the official languages that include Tagalog and English.

Swardspeak is a form of slang (and therefore highly dynamic, as opposed to colloquialisms) that is built upon preexisting languages. It deliberately transforms or creates words that resemble words from other languages, particularly English, Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, French, and German. It is colorful, witty, and humorous, with vocabularies derived from popular culture and regional variations. It is unintelligible to people not familiar with the Filipino gay culture or do not know the rules of usage. However the language has crossed over to the heterosexul community, especially in show business.

Free swardspeak lessons re being conducted regularly by BarangGay, a social group of Filipino American LGBTs based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

If you want some swardspeak lessons, contact a BaranGay member near you. Homosexuality not required.