Howzit! Welcome! Welina mai!

The Charlene Sato Center for Pidgin, Creole and Dialect Studies was established in January 2002. The Center’s aim is to support research, outreach, and public engagement with Pidgin, the creole language of Hawaiʻi, with the view that such activities will benefit Pidgin speakers. The Center is a resource for researchers of Pidgin in Hawaiʻi as well as other pidgin and creole languages and stigmatized dialects.  The Sato Center welcomes students, faculty, community members, and visiting researchers to use the resources that we have available at the Center, and to consult with us about conducting research or outreach with Pidgin speakers. Previously at TP 101 (behind the Center for Korean Studies) we are now located at Moore 496.

The Sato Center was established in memory of Charlene Junko Sato, a Hawai’i-born scholar whose research on Pidgin provided much of the knowledge base about this language.


FO REEL! Da Pidgin Film Festival

Featured Films from:

FO REEL! Da Pidgin Film Festival 2023


Contribute to a Pidgin and multilingual citizen science project

Hi-signs.net is a multilingual repository for photos of signs featuring different languages across the Hawaiian Islands. Upload anykine photos that you see in public that get Pidgin, Hawaiian, Chinese, Japanese, Samoan, Vietnamese, Chuukese, Tagalog, etc. from your mobile device or laptop:


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