Yokohama Creole
 | This article is a construction site. This project is currently undergoing significant construction and/or revamp. By all means, take a look around, thank you. |
| Yokohama Creole | |
|---|---|
| Yokohama Pidgin | |
| Hama took / Hama toak / Hama tawk / Hamm' tawk / Hama talk | |
| Created by | Jukethatbox |
| Date | 2026 |
| Native speakers | 3.7 million (2026) |
English creole
| |
| Official status | |
Official language in | Yokohama International Territory (vernacular) |
Yokohama Creole or Yokohama Pidgin is an English-based creole language heavily mixed with Japanese, as well as some Korean and Okinawan, spoken by the Yokohama Creoles of the Yokohama International Territory. It is the most spoken language in Yokohama, and the first language of most Yokohamans. It is one of two major creole languages spoken in the Japanese archipelago, alongside Cheenah spoken on the island of Okinawa.
Despite its name, Yokohama Creole does not have its origins in Yokohama Pidgin English (YPE), a pidgin or pre-pidgin language of the 19th century, but instead developed independently in the 20th century during the American occupation of Japan. During this occupation, many American soldiers of different races were stationed in Yokohama and Okinawa, two important bases to the Americans, and many eventually settled there and started families with the local Japanese; by 1960, this influx of Americans into Yokohama had so drastically changed the demographics of the city that a new culture and ethnicity reflecting this ethnic mixture, the Yokohama Creoles, emerged, with their own English-based creole language along with it. Although this initial creole language was said to be similar to Bamboo English, a further influx of low-income Japanese workers especially in the suburban areas of the city eventually led the language to become much more distinct from English or Japanese. The 1970 Treaty of San Francisco, which formally delineated the borders of the Yokohama International Territory, also further cemented the Yokohama Creole identity by making it harder for mainland Japanese to replace this new group through migration.
Usage, sociolinguistic variation & official status
Yokohama Creole is natively spoken throughout the city of Yokohama. Generally, Yokohama Creole speakers can be split into two primary groups; more Japan-adjacent speakers, called pani or nipi, and more English-adjacent speakers, or rikani or eegoman. Rikani are generally considered the 'original' Yokohama Creoles, as they are usually the direct descendants of Japanese-American couples who first settled post-war Yokohama during American occupation. However, rikani can also simply refer to American expatriates living in Yokohama, and thus not necessarily ethnically Yokohama Creole. Nipi or pani arrived later, and form the much more geographically spread underclass of Yokohama society; nipi are generally classified as Japanese immigrants, or descendants thereof, who moved to Yokohama to find work. They primarily inhabit the northern and western suburban areas of the city, and generally have a lower socio-economic status than rikanis as most high-paying jobs in the centre require high mastery in English and not Creole.
The nipi-rikani divide is generally considered the primary socioeconomic and, to an extent, cultural divide of the International Territory, akin to the North–South divide in England. However, within rikani areas themselves, there also exists a further socioeconomic divide between rikani of more White American descent, called shirohada or hakhada, and those of African-American, Asian American or other black or brown or simply more Japanese descent called kurohada or kokuhada, where those of kurohada descent find themselves at more of a disadvantage socioeconomically than their typically lighter-skinned counterparts. This disparity has been primarily attributed to remnants of US military segregation, as well as a short period of intense redlining that occurred under the rule of Governor-General Hayden McPanties between the years of 1981-1984, which has also been named as a primary contributor to the nipi-rikani divide.
Orthography
Unlike Cheenah, Yokohama Creole does not have a history of consistent orthography and is practically written however the speaker would like. Typically, this means that speakers who know English, such as those living near the coast, tend to gravitate towards an etymological English spelling, whereas more inland speakers tend to have greater variability in spelling or may even use hiragana or katakana in some cases.
However, some people have put forward proposals for a standard Yokohama Creole orthography. One such solution, often called "Peanuts spelling", "Snoopy spelling", "Charlie Brown spelling" or the "Peanuts orthography" due to its use originating in an Internet user's translations of the American comic strip Peanuts, is a phonemic orthography based on or at least inspired by the Cassidy/JLU orthography used to write Jamaican Patois. This orthography is probably the most commonly found regular orthographic scheme used, though pure Peanuts spelling is rare and typically only occurs in the eponymous translated Peanuts comics (Pinats) or among speakers who are familiar with the Internet. However, other variations of the underlying Peanuts spelling system are common throughout.
One such system, often called the "Revised Peanuts" or "Revised Charlie Brown" orthography differs from pure Peanuts usually by the way in which long vowels are transcribed; these usually match up closer with English phonics, with /ii/ written as ⟨ee⟩, /aa/ as ⟨ah⟩, /uu/ as ⟨oo⟩, /oo/ as ⟨aw⟩ or ⟨oa⟩ and /ee/ as ⟨eh⟩. It is important to note that whereas the original Peanuts orthography is an actual codified orthography, "Revised Peanuts" is more a collection of variations that share certain common features that distinguish it from pure Peanuts. Thus, different speakers may simply prefer different ways of representing a certain phoneme or phoneme sequence, though because most Yokohamans are taught English, most variant spellings are still based on English phonics and are thus still understood by most speakers.
Yokohama Creole speakers may also tactically use Japanese to disguise taboo words on certain social media platforms that may censor or demonetize such content otherwise. These taboo words are typically hidden with Kanji, as in "殺" to replace "kill" (from Japanese 殺す korosu), but may also be harder to understand for those who have not studied Japanese. As such, it is mainly found in discussion of Japan itself, where sizeable knowledge of the neighbouring country is expected from the reader or listener.
Another orthography, proposed by Yokohama Creole linguist Genzaburo Jones in 1993 and often called the "Shinsengumi orthography" as a reference to Jones' first name being similar to that of famous Shinsengumi captain Inoue Genzaburō, is based on the Japanese Hepburn romanisation and uses macrons to denote long vowels (āēīōū). A movement to designate it as the official orthography was particularly popular in the late 90s and early 2000s, but petered out by 2010 with the death of Jones and is now generally considered obsolete outside of the realm of graffiti artists, who use the macrons as stylistic add-ons to their tags throughout Yokohama.
Phonology
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Mid | e | o | |
| Open | a | ||
All vowels in Yokohama Creole are distinguished by length.
/u/ is variable between central and back realisations depending on speaker, though it tends to be back in the vowel sequence /uu/ as in /buut/ "boot".
/i/ also appears in the sequence /ii/ and /ai/, though /ei/ merges with /ee/, so "bait" is /beet/ instead of /beit/.
/e/ and /o/ are typically mid or close-mid, though noticeably become more open before nasals, so /dem/ "they/them" becomes [dɛm] and /omrais/ "omurice" becoming [ɔmɹais].
Consonants
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | (ŋ) | |
| Stop | p b | t d | c ɟ | k g | |
| Affricate | ts (dz) | tʃ dʒ | |||
| Fricative | f v | s z | ʃ (ʒ) | h | |
| Approximant | w | l~r | j |
/r/ is usually alveolar approximant /ɹ/, though, similarly to Puerto Rican Spanish, coda /r/ becomes lateral /l/ before a consonant, so "port" becomes /polt/, from which /polti/, an endonym, derives.
/v/ is also very variable, often merging with /b/ in many speakers (especially older speakers with Japanese as their first language) but also being pronounced as a steady bilabilal fricative /β/. True labiodental /v/ is only common among the most monolingual Creole communities.
Yokohama Creole incorporates th-stopping, where dental fricatives /θ ð/ become stops /t d/, so words like "day" and "they" both become /dei/ > /dee/. This is unlike most other Japanese variations of English, which usually incorporate th-alveolarisation where /θ ð/ instead become alveolar /s z/. The reason for this disparity is debated, though some have noted that th-stopping is common among other English-based creole languages such as Nigerian Pidgin or Jamaican Patois.
Grammar
Yokohama Creole does not have any articles, nor generally any indication for grammatical number, as in Japanese. Instead, much of Yokohama Creole is analytical, with particles derived from Japanese indicating relationships between things in a sentence.
Personal pronouns
| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | /mi/ | /wi/, /mi dem/ |
| 2 | /ju/ | /ju dem/ |
| 3 | /im/, /iman/, /ʃi/, /ʃiman/, /tin/ | /im dem/, /ʃi dem/, /man dem/ |
/dem/ (from English them) is only used as a pluralizer in regards to personal pronouns; this is probably calqued from the use of the suffix -ら ra or -たち tachi in Japanese, which are typically only used for personal pronouns.
Coincidentally, /man dem/ also occurs in Multicultural London English (MLE), though in Yokohama Creole this is exclusively used in the plural third-person, as in /man dem no go skuul e/ "They do not go to school" instead of its broader meaning in MLE where it can also refer to the first person plural.
Third-person pronouns in Yokohama Creole tend to have a specific use depending on social familiarity with the person mentioned. For example, inanimate objects are referred to with /tin/ from English *thing*, but may also be combined with another personal pronoun to make it derogatory, as in the second-person /ju tin/. /man/ and its feminine counterpart /ʃiman/ are used as a polite form of /im/ and /ʃi/ respectively, but also act as pro-forms like in Japanese: /domdom man tink dat man blok im kjan/ lit. "Stupid he thinks that he can beat him", means "The stupid man thinks that he can beat [the other man]". In contrast, /im/ or /ʃi/ tend to connotate a familiarity with the person in question; i.e., a family member or a good friend may be referred to as /im/ or /ʃi/, though family members are usually referred to by role, e.g. /onkel/ "uncle" or /mama/ "mother."
Particles
Much of Yokohama Creole grammar is built around the use of particles; these are generally thought to be derived from Japanese verb conjugations. For example, to show potentiality, whereas English would use the auxiliary verb "can" as in "I can do this", Yokohama Creole speakers would place the "can" after the main verb, yielding /mi du dis can/ lit. "I do this can".
- /can/ spelt kyan, cyan, can or kan, placed after main verb to indicate potentiality, as in /mi du dis can/ "I can do this."
- /jo/ spelt yo, yoa, ’o or ’oa, is placed at the end of a sentence to indicate the sentence is jussive; the pronoun is usually omitted alongside. Derived from Japanese よ. For example, /op ni brin dis jo!/ "Bring this up!" as opposed to */ju op ni brin dis jo!/
- /ni/ spelt nee, ni, ’nee or knee, placed after a noun to indicate something is towards or into something, used like に in Japanese. For example, /im muʃ dis kafiteri ni/ "He ate this in the cafeteria."
- /e/ spelt eh, e, é, ’e, he, similar to /ni/ but usually to indicate something is towards a place; derived from Japanese へ, as in /im fam go menlan e fo wee slip de/ "His family went to Japan for the holidays"
- /fo/, usually spelt fo but may be contracted to just f. Usually used in place of Japanese の, apart from after personal pronouns. However, in conjunction with /wee/ (from English way), /fo wee/ takes the role of English for or Japanese のように "in the same way as".
Possession
In colloquial speech possession is generally done in simple possessor-possessum constructions, as in /dʒon oos/ "John's house". However, if need be, the article /fo/ may be used in more formal settings to simulate the function of の in Japanese, though even then it is not used when the possessor is a personal pronoun, so */mi fo pok/ "My pig" would never occur.