Although early research on Creoles revealed crucial insights for the study of linguistic variation, contemporary sociolinguistic approaches have been largely neglected in creolistics (Rickford 2019). Because little attention has been given to understanding how variation within Creoles is intricately related to different social identities, there is an implication that Creoles are somehow devoid of social variation and non-referential meanings. The co-existence of linguistic variants has traditionally been conceptualised as a creole continuum, where variation roughly reflects a chronological trajectory of the language’s development from basilectal to acrolectal forms. Hawai’i Creole (HC), which relatively recently has undergone a shift in prestige as a valuable marker of local identity (Higgins 2015), offers a great, yet under-explored potential for studying socially and geographically constrained variation in a Creole community.

The paper presents a first step towards investigating patterns in the use of HC on a larger scale. The study follows a perceptual dialectology approach to identify salient features, and to document the local meanings, identities and (imagined) speaker characteristics they index. Data was collected on three Hawaiian Islands, with 20 participants from each island. Findings not only indicate considerable perceived linguistic variation associated with social and ethnic groups as well as geographical space, but also demonstrate how participants’ evaluations of linguistic features are affected by their own social and regional backgrounds. Discussing the interplay between language ideologies, local identities and linguistic variants, the paper offers new insights into the linguistic practices of HC-speakers, and helps advance our current sociolinguistic understanding of Creole-speaking communities.