East Honolulu, Hawaii
The East Honolulu Accent
East Honolulu sits inside the Hawaiian dialect area, which covers Honolulu and the Hawaiian Islands, United States. No other dialect area in the survey comes close to it.
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What people in East Honolulu sound like
- “Da kine” as an all-purpose filler.
- Flip-flops are slippers.
- TH-stopping is common in local speech.
- Cot and caught merge, as in California.
These are the markers of the Hawaiian accent as a whole. No survey claims every speaker in East Honolulu has all of them — the full Hawaiian profile sets out where the region varies.
How Hawaii answered the Harvard Dialect Survey
The Harvard Dialect Survey, collected by Bert Vaux and Scott Golder in 2002–2003, recorded how respondents in every US state answered the same questions. These are Hawaii’s answers, most common first.
| Question | Answers in Hawaii |
|---|---|
| Soda, Pop or Coke? The Map of How America Orders a Fizzy Drink | soda 95% · pop 0% · coke 0% |
| Traffic Circle, Roundabout or Rotary? | roundabout 42% · rotary 16% · traffic circle 11% |
| Water Fountain, Drinking Fountain or Bubbler? | water fountain 86% · drinking fountain 14% · bubbler 0% |
| Lightning Bug or Firefly? | firefly 67% · lightning bug 5% |
| Crawfish, Crawdad or Crayfish? | crayfish 63% · crawfish 25% · crawdad 4% |
| Roly Poly or Potato Bug? | potato bug 38% · roly poly 14% |
| You Guys, Y'all or You All? | you guys 49% · y'all 12% · you all 11% |
| Kitty-Corner or Catty-Corner? | kitty-corner 41% · catty-corner 5% |
| Garage Sale or Yard Sale? | garage sale 56% · yard sale 33% |
| Tennis Shoes or Sneakers? | sneakers 51% · tennis shoes 26% |
| Trash Can or Garbage Can? | trash can 43% · garbage can 21% |
| Frosting or Icing? | frosting 38% · icing 5% |
| Scratch Paper or Scrap Paper? | scratch paper 63% · scrap paper 5% |
| Frontage Road, Service Road or Access Road? | access road 33% · frontage road 15% · service road 15% |
| Does “Route” Rhyme With “Out” or “Hoot”? | rhymes with "out" 27% · rhymes with "hoot" 25% |
| Caramel: Two Syllables or Three? | with 3 syllables ("carra-mel") 75% · with 2 syllables ("car-ml") 9% |
| Mischievous or Mischievious? | mischievous (3 syllables) 52% · mischievious (4 syllables) 32% |
| Rubber Band, Hair Tie or Elastic? | rubber band 53% · hair tie 18% · (hair) elastic 11% |
Data from the Harvard Dialect Survey (Bert Vaux and Scott Golder, 2002–2003), used under the CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 licence. A self-selected sample from two decades ago: how people spoke then, not a census.
Is your accent from East Honolulu?
There is no way to answer that from a description. The test asks 29 questions about the words you use and how you say them, scores your answers against the Hawaiian English profile and every other profile in the survey, and shows you where people who answer the way you do actually live.