What makes it Hawaiian Shave Ice?

Because it's in Hawai’i, Duh. No we’re kidding, here’s the background…The method for making shave ice is spinning a block of ice and introducing an extremely sharp blade to literally shave the ice off in snow-like flakes, as opposed to snow cones which use semi-ball shape crushed ice pieces. 

“Many people have the tendency to get confused on whether if shave ice is spelled or pronounced shave or shaved.  

however, the true spelling and pronunciation for hawaiian shave ice is:

'shave' NOT 'shaved'

the 'D' is dropped due to the Hawaiian pidgin language that is utilized within the true hawaiian culture.” -tiki man shave ice

What is pidgin and where did it originate?

Hawaiian Pidgin originated on sugarcane plantations in 1835 as a form of communication used between Hawaiian speaking Native Hawaiian residents, English speaking residents, and foreign immigrants.   It supplanted, and was influenced by, the existing pidgin that Native Hawaiians already used on plantations and elsewhere in Hawaiʻi. Since such sugarcane plantations often hired workers from many different countries, a common language was needed in order for the plantation workers to communicate effectively with each other and their supervisors.  Hawaiian Pidgin has been influenced by many different languages, including Portuguese, Hawaiian, American English, and Cantonese. As people of other backgrounds were brought in to work on the plantations, Hawaiian Pidgin acquired even more words from languages such as Japanese, Ilocano, Okinawan and Korean. -wikipedia

Why is it called “Shave Ice”

It is believed that the method of shaving ice came from the time period after The Hawai’ian Kingdom, Hawai’i Ne’i, was Illegally overthrown by the United States military, and colonialism was in full swing. American business men came after the missionaries arrived, to take advantage of the fertile soil (‘aina) and regular rainfall, and they needed laborers. It was the Japanese that get credit for possibly shaving ice off a block, and adding cane sugar or fruit juice to it, during this time period.

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