"Follow for follow!" "Please look at my post!" When I come across these comments on my recent posts I don't get upset in the same way many Steemians do. What I feel many people do, and not just on Steemit, but in many parts of the world- is people miscategorize interactions with others based on their understandings of language, and culture. I'm here to shed light on the misinterpretations that can and do take place everyday.
I'm not going to lie, spam is everywhere (actual Spam "meat", everyone in Hawaii is obsessed with), and there may be a botting problem, but there are also many genuine users who are new to Steemit where normal social media trends are frowned upon, what's worse, is that
for many of them English, is not their native tongue.
To understand where I'm coming from, you'll need to know a little more about my background.
Everyone is a Foreigner in Hawaii
I'm a local from Honolulu, and when I say local, I mean that I was born and lived here my entire life. My ethnicity has remained a mystery until now, but I am 3rd generation Hawaiian, and 3rd generation Japanese. In Hawaii, when asked about your ethnicity, listing your generation is also common. What is generation and how is it significant to understanding other cultures?
From the 19th to early 20th century, immigration workers were brought to Hawaii to work in the Sugar Cane fields. These countries consisted of but is not limited to Japan, China, Philipines, and many others. They are the first generation of their family line to live here. With each generation, customs and native language molded together, however, more of their family was flown here from their respective countries. There are people that speak perfect English, two or more languages or no English at all, and we live and function together sharing the same space.
Hawaii has 2 Official Languages
The first one is Hawaiian, and the second one is called Pidgin. Everyone who is from here can speak some variation of Pidgin, and when we travel anywhere, we can easily identify if someone is from Hawaii, as it also serves as a universal nod to our unique culture. This special language is unlearnable unless you've lived in Hawaii for many years. So what is Pidgin and what is its purpose?
Pidgin the Impossible Language
You can't strip someone from their culture. If they don't know your language and you don't know theirs, how do you communicate? Pidgin is a simplified version of English with it's own grammatical structure. A single word can have numerous meanings based on tone and context (surroundings, moment, reference) that is automatically understood, which can negate the need for most words in vocabulary. Let's add the second layer. Half of this language consists of select words, terms, and slang borrowed from other languages. Pidgin is recognized as a language as of 2015, there are many dictionaries, and you can take classes for it in college. Let me provide some examples c: In speaking pidgin, you can choose a style of for yourself and which words you use to convey what you want to say (similar to Japanese 日本語). In a way it can be viewed as an ultimate self expression.
Ho na I geffum. (Don't worry, I can do this without assistance) Ho means what?! Na is no, I is I, geff is got, and um is it.
Literal Translation: What?! No, I got this.
Wat chu like make (mah-kay)? (Are you asking for a death wish?) Wat is what or so, chu is you, like is wanting or trying to to, and mah-kay is to die or get killed.
Literal translation: What? Do you want to die?
Words, concepts, and perception take place while comminicating, and although my examples may seem strange, many people here know excatly what I'm trying to say if I choose to speak it. Being in Hawaii forces a person to become more open. It might sound unimaginable, but racism, and stereotypes are always in jest here, because EVERYONE is the minority.
Two special things about interaction in Hawaii:
Everyone here is extra polite, because we don't know what is okay in your culture. It takes extra long to forge friendships, but it becomes closer to a loyalty or duty between friends.
We are extra cruel to our close friends because the internal love for our friends is a strong bond that greatly surpasses hate, due to how long bonds take to form.
Japan has the highest influence here
First immigration workers to Hawaii. People are part Japanese more than anything else.
People who like anime here have extra weird slang you will never hear!
Mahalo gozaimasu! (Thank you in Hawaiian, polite honorific in Japanese)
Akamai desu. (Smart in Hawaiian, "is" in Japanese)
Okay so we have many cultures and bizarre language deviations as a result.
How Language Effects Communication in Steemit
Everytime I see someone say to "not do" or "don't do" something in comments, I cry inside. I actually feel pain because there are many cases where this is NOT spam or new user learning curve at all, but a language barrier.
I give permission to have this post translated to ANY language and the translator can keep all rewards, please tag @shello, that's all I ask. This is an important issue that no one has addressed.
What Are We Saying?
When a person says don't & do in the same sentence, along with the word spam, there is no context or internal meaning that can be easily understood. I have two years Japanese study in college as well and I will confirm that in other languages there can be positive AND negative forms for the same word, as opposed to English where multiple words are used to create the same negation. We are basically giving foreign users an oxymoron along with a term that is difficult to relate to.
A Method I Use With Nice Results
Because I understand that users from the world over are going to have various understanding of English vocabulary, I needed to find a way to communicate that follow for follow or please check behavior was unacceptable on this platform. Choose the words wisely and communicate the idea in as few as possible.
Two Very Magical Words
I will tell the commenter; follow for follow is "bad manners." What this lets the user know is that their behavior will be frowned upon by the community, and is not part of the culture in Steemit. But how can two words be so strong? I can thank internet culture for this. Have you ever heard the term "GG"? I have played many online games with people from anywhere with a net connection. At the end of every game you see gg, which means good game. This term is universally understood as "It was a good game, and I had fun playing." Any country, gg. A variation of this is BG (bad game) when a player feels cheated, salty, or wasn't their best. Another very popular term is called BM, and that stands for bad manners.
You can see this term used by millions of people everywhere in games like (but not limited to) Starcraft, League of Legends, Smite, Hearthstone, and many others. BMing means to do anything in the game which is frowned upon, and straight up rude to other players. Universal.
The two instances when I repeated what they asked and said it was bad manners, gave good results. In one, the user replied only one word; "sorry". In the other case, the user sent me a link to their article, but after telling them it was bad manners, they edited their post to say "-deleted-". We need to remember that this is an international platform.
What needs to be understood is that people can end up doing the same thing, for completely different reasons. What do you say?
Thanks, the very concept of language is a strange one to me. Sometimes I think the word language should be replaced with the word communication and the word dialects should be used for specific types of communication like Pidgin.
It really should, or just to have a different perspective and awareness that no one is the same. Thank you for stopping by c:
I agree. Maybe there are 7 billion languages.
Thanks for doing your part in making Steemit a better community.
Thank you! I will keep trying :3
Flawless interpretation of miscommunication, @shello.
You have an interesting background which lends unique perspective to the language barrier we all tend to encounter online. Thank you for breaking it down in a simple format.
People can gain a lot of understanding with a little compassion.
Thank you @tunnelrat, it can be hard to identify the issue when everyone understands differently.
And yes! Compassion goes a long way c:
Great post, and highly undervoted. You shared a lot about Hawaii and its culture that I was not aware of at all.
Superb work. I'll remember this when I eventually travel to Hawaii. Keep it up!
Hey there @trending! Thank you for taking the time out to read through my post! In a lot of ways, I feel like the culmination of people here is similar to online presence. It would be easy to offend others if you are not careful, and it is unique that everyone treats others like people regardless of race.
Yeah, there's even a Spam festival here! I think the meat gained popularity here because it is a combination of things, just like everyone having mixed nationality. Pidgin is pretty cool, and in embracing, there have been theatrical performaces done in this language!
I'm happy that you'll take some consideration knowing that many people aren't trying to be annoying on purpose. Hope you'll be able to travel here soon c:
@shello
Ok- I'm really a fan now 😊 I have a good friend, from Hawaii - from the 90's rock band, The Brave. Even though he is from Hawaii, his family is Filipino. So you have Tagalog, Pidgin, and English. It's so cool- but I do not understand a word that's not English. The bad manners phrase is something I will be adopting - it's simple and a relatable way to demonstrate etiquette here - resteeming!
That's really cool, I was a 90's baby but if he's still playing music I might drop by a show they're playing. There are many events that happen here c:
Haha, yeah that's exactly how it is based on where and when they are from. Everyone knows a little bit of every language lol
Tell me if anything interesting happens from using the phrase, I will use it for research! As always, thank you so much for stopping by c:
The bad manners thing works. Someone told me that when I started, and it made an impression on me. They did not do it in a condascending way. They just said, if you want to do well here on Steemit, I suggest you don't do this. Cool, I see you are into entrepreneurship, checking out your blog.
Yes, I've been an entrepreneur since '93. I have a music school in California. Love it.
Cool what else have you tried?
Fabulous post. Super helpful and also really informative. Compassion, understanding, and communication. So important.
We have Kriol here in Belize. It's a similar deal but is a blend of various African languages and English. The sentence structure is really hard to deconstruct, and there's also some super colorful phrases. This stuff fascinates me.
Thank you! I feel that so many disagreements come from misunderstanding, so why not resolve issues at the source!
Ah! Kriol sounds like the same neighborhood, but just add a few more languages. The newer languages have many acceptable structures, so a deconstruction can become tedious. You do learn a lot when you break a language down! Let me find a couple videos where they speak pidgin. I'll link them here in a sec!
These may entertain you c:
OH my gosh yes. There's actually a song here called gimme dolla. Very similar, which is crazy since the origin languages are so different. Also, that was so funny. I love silly people.
I wouldn't doubt that there's a song with that name xD
Well explained. Now, I understand!
No problem!
Thank you c: