Fijian language
Encyclopedia
Fijian is an Austronesian
language of the Malayo-Polynesian family
spoken in Fiji
. It has 450,000 first-language speakers, which is less than half the population of Fiji, but another 200,000 speak it as a second language. The 1997 Constitution
established Fijian as an official language of Fiji, along with English
and Hindustani
, and there is discussion about establishing it as the "national language", though English and Hindustani would remain official. Fijian is a VOS language. It has prepositions.
Standard Fijian is based on the language of Bau
, which is an East Fijian language.
phoneme
s of Fijian are as shown in the following table:
The consonant written ⟨nr⟩ has been described as a prenasalized trill [nr] or trilled fricative [ndr]. However, it is only rarely pronounced with a trilled release; the primary feature distinguishing it from ⟨nd⟩ is that it is postalveolar, [ɳɖ], rather than dental/alveolar.
The sounds [p] and [f] occur only in loanword
s from other languages. The sounds [x] and [h] only occur for speakers from certain regions of the country.
Note the asymmetry between the fricative pairs: bilabial
[β] vs. labiodental
[f], and dental [ð] vs. alveolar
[s].
The vowel
phonemes are:
In addition, there is the rising diphthong i̯u.
Syllable
s can consist of a consonant followed by a vowel (CV) or a single vowel (V).
Word stress
is based on mora
s; a short vowel counts as one mora, diphthongs and long vowels count as two moras. Primary word stress then goes to the penultimate mora of the phonological word. That is, if the last syllable of a word is short, then the penultimate syllable will be stressed. If the last syllable consists of either a long vowel or a diphthong, the last syllable receives primary stress. That is, stress is on the penultimate mora
. Stress is not lexical and can shift when suffixes are attached to the root
.
Examples:
and consists of the following letters.
A B C D E F G I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y
a b c d e f g i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w y
Among the consonants, there is almost a one-to-one correspondence between letters and phonemes:
In addition, the digraph
dr stands for postalveolar [n̠d̠], or a prenasalized trill [n̠ᵈ̠r̠] in careful pronunciation, or more commonly for some people and in some dialects.
The vowel letters a e i o u have roughly their IPA values, [a ɛ~e i ɔ~o u]. The vowel length
contrast is not usually indicated in writing, except in dictionaries and textbooks for learners of the language, where it is indicated by a macron
over the vowel in question; Dixon, in the work cited below, doubles all long vowels in his spelling system. Diphthongs are ai au ei eu oi ou and iu, pronounced [ɛi̯ ɔu̯ ei̯ eu̯ oi̯ ou̯ i̯u].
, which made it co-official with English
and Hindustani
. It is still not a compulsory subject in schools, however; the present Education Minister, Ro Teimumu Kepa
, has endorsed calls for it to be made so, as has Great Council of Chiefs
Chairman Ratu Ovini Bokini
. Similar calls came from Misiwini Qereqeretabua, the Director of the Institute of Fijian Language and Culture, and from Apolonia Tamata, a linguistics
lecturer
at Suva
’s University of the South Pacific
, who both said that recognition of the Fijian language is essential to the nation’s basic identity, as a unifying factor in Fiji’s multicultural society.
Fiji Labour Party
leader Mahendra Chaudhry
also endorsed the call for Fijian to be made a national language and a compulsory school subject, provided that the same status be given to Hindi
—a position echoed by Krishna Vilas of the National Reconciliation Committee.
Austronesian languages
The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia that are spoken by about 386 million people. It is on par with Indo-European, Niger-Congo, Afroasiatic and Uralic as one of the...
language of the Malayo-Polynesian family
Malayo-Polynesian languages
The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages, with approximately 385.5 million speakers. These are widely dispersed throughout the island nations of Southeast Asia and the Pacific Ocean, with a smaller number in continental Asia...
spoken in Fiji
Fiji
Fiji , officially the Republic of Fiji , is an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about northeast of New Zealand's North Island...
. It has 450,000 first-language speakers, which is less than half the population of Fiji, but another 200,000 speak it as a second language. The 1997 Constitution
Constitution of Fiji
The 1997 Constitution of Fiji was the supreme law of Fiji from its adoption in 1997 until 2009 when President Josefa Iloilo purported to abrogate it. It was also suspended for a period following the 2000 coup d'état led by Commodore Frank Bainimarama....
established Fijian as an official language of Fiji, along with English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
and Hindustani
Hindustani language
Hindi-Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language and the lingua franca of North India and Pakistan. It is also known as Hindustani , and historically, as Hindavi or Rekhta...
, and there is discussion about establishing it as the "national language", though English and Hindustani would remain official. Fijian is a VOS language. It has prepositions.
Standard Fijian is based on the language of Bau
Bau Island
Bau is a small island in Fiji, off the east coast of the main island of Viti Levu.-History:With the aid of Charlie Savage, who brought firearms to Bau Island, the Bauan people quickly established themselves as an undefeatable military force...
, which is an East Fijian language.
Phonology
The consonantConsonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
phoneme
Phoneme
In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
s of Fijian are as shown in the following table:
| Labial Labial consonant Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. This precludes linguolabials, in which the tip of the tongue reaches for the posterior side of the upper lip and which are considered coronals... |
Coronal Coronal consonant Coronal consonants are consonants articulated with the flexible front part of the tongue. Only the coronal consonants can be divided into apical , laminal , domed , or subapical , as well as a few rarer orientations, because only the front of the tongue has such... |
Palatal Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate... |
Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum).... |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :... |
m | n | ŋ | ||
| Plosive | voiceless | (p) | t | k | |
| prenasalized | mb | nd | ŋɡ | ||
| Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or... |
voiceless | (f) | s | (x) | |
| voiced Voice (phonetics) Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer to two separate concepts. Voicing can refer to the articulatory process in which the vocal cords vibrate... |
β | ð | |||
| Trill Trill consonant In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the place of articulation. Standard Spanish <rr> as in perro is an alveolar trill, while in Parisian French it is almost always uvular.... |
plain | r | |||
| prenasalized | ɳɖʳ | ||||
| Approximant Approximant consonant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no... |
l | j | w | ||
The consonant written ⟨nr⟩ has been described as a prenasalized trill [nr] or trilled fricative [ndr]. However, it is only rarely pronounced with a trilled release; the primary feature distinguishing it from ⟨nd⟩ is that it is postalveolar, [ɳɖ], rather than dental/alveolar.
The sounds [p] and [f] occur only in loanword
Loanword
A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
s from other languages. The sounds [x] and [h] only occur for speakers from certain regions of the country.
Note the asymmetry between the fricative pairs: bilabial
Bilabial consonant
In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...
[β] vs. labiodental
Labiodental consonant
In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth.-Labiodental consonant in IPA:The labiodental consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...
[f], and dental [ð] vs. alveolar
Alveolar consonant
Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...
[s].
The vowel
Vowel
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
phonemes are:
| Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also... |
Central Central vowel A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel... |
Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark... |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| short | long | short | long | short | long | |
| Close Close vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the... |
i | iː | u | uː | ||
| Mid Mid vowel A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an open vowel and a close vowel... |
e | eː | o | oː | ||
| Open Open vowel An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue... |
a | aː |
| Closing to /i/ |
Closing to /u/ |
|
|---|---|---|
| First component is /e/ | ei̯ | eu̯ |
| First component is /o/ | oi̯ | ou̯ |
| First component is /a/ | ai̯ | au̯ |
In addition, there is the rising diphthong i̯u.
Syllable
Syllable
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of a syllable nucleus with optional initial and final margins .Syllables are often considered the phonological "building...
s can consist of a consonant followed by a vowel (CV) or a single vowel (V).
Word stress
Stress (linguistics)
In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word, or to certain words in a phrase or sentence. The term is also used for similar patterns of phonetic prominence inside syllables. The word accent is sometimes also used with this sense.The stress placed...
is based on mora
Mora (linguistics)
Mora is a unit in phonology that determines syllable weight, which in some languages determines stress or timing. As with many technical linguistic terms, the definition of a mora varies. Perhaps the most succinct working definition was provided by the American linguist James D...
s; a short vowel counts as one mora, diphthongs and long vowels count as two moras. Primary word stress then goes to the penultimate mora of the phonological word. That is, if the last syllable of a word is short, then the penultimate syllable will be stressed. If the last syllable consists of either a long vowel or a diphthong, the last syllable receives primary stress. That is, stress is on the penultimate mora
Mora (linguistics)
Mora is a unit in phonology that determines syllable weight, which in some languages determines stress or timing. As with many technical linguistic terms, the definition of a mora varies. Perhaps the most succinct working definition was provided by the American linguist James D...
. Stress is not lexical and can shift when suffixes are attached to the root
Root (linguistics)
The root word is the primary lexical unit of a word, and of a word family , which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents....
.
Examples:
- Stress on the penultimate syllable (final short vowel): síga, "day";
- Stress on the final syllable (diphthong): cauravóu, "youth" (the stress extends over the whole diphthong).
- Stress shift: rábe, "kick" → rabé-ta, "kick-TR"
Orthography
The Fijian alphabet is based on the Latin alphabetLatin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
and consists of the following letters.
A B C D E F G I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y
a b c d e f g i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w y
Among the consonants, there is almost a one-to-one correspondence between letters and phonemes:
|
|
In addition, the digraph
Digraph (orthography)
A digraph or digram is a pair of characters used to write one phoneme or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined...
dr stands for postalveolar [n̠d̠], or a prenasalized trill [n̠ᵈ̠r̠] in careful pronunciation, or more commonly for some people and in some dialects.
The vowel letters a e i o u have roughly their IPA values, [a ɛ~e i ɔ~o u]. The vowel length
Vowel length
In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may etymologically be one, such as in Australian English. While not distinctive in most dialects of English, vowel length is an important phonemic factor in...
contrast is not usually indicated in writing, except in dictionaries and textbooks for learners of the language, where it is indicated by a macron
Macron
A macron, from the Greek , meaning "long", is a diacritic placed above a vowel . It was originally used to mark a long or heavy syllable in Greco-Roman metrics, but now marks a long vowel...
over the vowel in question; Dixon, in the work cited below, doubles all long vowels in his spelling system. Diphthongs are ai au ei eu oi ou and iu, pronounced [ɛi̯ ɔu̯ ei̯ eu̯ oi̯ ou̯ i̯u].
Syntax
The normal Fijian word order is VOS (verb–object–subject):- E rai-c-a (1) na no-na (2) vale (3) na gone (4).
- 3-sg.-sub. see-trans.-3-sg.-obj. (1) the 3-sg.-poss. (2) house (3) the child (4).
- (The child sees his house.)
The national language debate
In May and June 2005, a number of prominent Fiji Islanders called for the status of Fijian to be upgraded. It was not an official language before the adoption of the 1997 ConstitutionConstitution of Fiji
The 1997 Constitution of Fiji was the supreme law of Fiji from its adoption in 1997 until 2009 when President Josefa Iloilo purported to abrogate it. It was also suspended for a period following the 2000 coup d'état led by Commodore Frank Bainimarama....
, which made it co-official with English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
and Hindustani
Hindustani language
Hindi-Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language and the lingua franca of North India and Pakistan. It is also known as Hindustani , and historically, as Hindavi or Rekhta...
. It is still not a compulsory subject in schools, however; the present Education Minister, Ro Teimumu Kepa
Teimumu Kepa
Teimumu Vuikaba Kepa is a Fijian chief and politician. A former students' coordinator at the University of the South Pacific when Kepa chose to enter the University to embark on her Bachelor of Arts Degree and was a principal of Corpus Christi Collegebefore that, until she succeeded her late...
, has endorsed calls for it to be made so, as has Great Council of Chiefs
Great Council of Chiefs (Fiji)
The Great Council of Chiefs is a now dormant 1997 constitutional body in the Republic of the Fiji Islands. In April 2007 the council was suspended, due to an unworkable relationship with Frank Bainimarama, leader of an "interim government" which came to power through a military coup in December 2006...
Chairman Ratu Ovini Bokini
Ovini Bokini
Ratu Ovini Bokini Ratu was a Fijian chief and political leader. Bokini, who held the chiefly title of Tui Tavua, succeeded Epeli Ganilau as Chairman of the Great Council of Chiefs on 21 July 2004, and was reelected to this post for a full three-year term on 27 July 2005.A formal gathering of...
. Similar calls came from Misiwini Qereqeretabua, the Director of the Institute of Fijian Language and Culture, and from Apolonia Tamata, a linguistics
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
lecturer
Lecturer
Lecturer is an academic rank. In the United Kingdom, lecturer is a position at a university or similar institution, often held by academics in their early career stages, who lead research groups and supervise research students, as well as teach...
at Suva
Suva
Suva features a tropical rainforest climate under the Koppen climate classification. The city sees a copious amount of precipitation during the course of the year. Suva averages 3,000 mm of precipitation annually with its driest month, July averaging 125 mm of rain per year. In fact,...
’s University of the South Pacific
University of the South Pacific
The University of the South Pacific is a public university with a number of locations spread throughout a dozen countries in Oceania. It is an international centre for teaching and research on Pacific culture and environment. USP's academic programmes are recognised worldwide, attracting students...
, who both said that recognition of the Fijian language is essential to the nation’s basic identity, as a unifying factor in Fiji’s multicultural society.
Fiji Labour Party
Fiji Labour Party
The Fiji Labour Party is a political party in Fiji, which holds observer status with the Socialist International. Most of its support at present comes from the Indo-Fijian community, although it is officially multiracial and its first leader was an indigenous Fijian, Dr. Timoci Bavadra. It is...
leader Mahendra Chaudhry
Mahendra Chaudhry
Mahendra Pal Chaudhry is a Fijian politician and the leader of the Fiji Labour Party...
also endorsed the call for Fijian to be made a national language and a compulsory school subject, provided that the same status be given to Hindi
Hindi
Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
—a position echoed by Krishna Vilas of the National Reconciliation Committee.