Fijian language

Information about Fijian language

Fijian (Na vosa vaka-Viti)
Spoken in:Fiji
Region:Spoken as first language on Vanua Levu, the eastern half of Viti Levu, and on the lesser islands of Kadavu, Nayau, Lakeba, Oneata, Moce, Komo, Namuka, Kabara, Vulaga, Ogea and Vatoa; spoken as second language in the rest of Fiji
Total speakers:350,000 native speakers, 200,000 second-language users
Ranking:
Genetic classification:
Official status
Official language of:Fiji
Regulated by:
Language codes
ISO 639-1fj
ISO 639-2fij
SIL
See also: Language – List of languages


Fijian is an Austronesian language of the Malayo-Polynesian family spoken in Fiji. It has 350,000 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.

Standard Fijian is based on the language of Bau, which is an East Fijian language.

Phonology

The consonant phonemes of Fijian are as shown in the following table:

  Bilabial Labiodental Dental and
alveolar		 Palatal Velar Labiovelar
Plosive (p)mb  tnd  kŋg  
Nasal  m   n   ŋ  
Fricative  β(f) sğ  (x)   
Trill      r      
Prenasalized trill      nr      
Approximant        j   w
Lateral approximant      l      


The sounds [p f] occur only in loanwords from other languages. The sounds [x h] only occur in certain regions of the country.

The vowel phonemes are:

Monophthongs Short Long
Front Back Front Back
Closeiuiːuː
Mideoeːoː
Openaaː


Diphthongs Closing
to [i]		 Closing
to [u]
First component is [i] iu
First component is [e]eieu
First component is [o]oiou
First component is [a]aiau

Orthography

The Fijian alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet 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:
  • b = [mb]
  • c = [ğ]
  • d = [nd]
  • f = [f]
  • g = [ŋ]
  • j = [x]
  • k = [k]
  • l = [l]
  • m = [m]
  • n = [n]
  • p = [p]
  • q = [ŋɡ]
  • r = [r]
  • s = [s]
  • t = [t]
  • v = [β]
  • w = [w]
  • y = [j]
In addition, the digraph dr stands for postalveolar [n̠d̠], sometimes trilled [n̠d̠r̠] for some people or in careful pronunciation.

The vowel letters a e i o u have roughly their IPA values, but 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.

Word stress falls on any long vowel or diphthong, or the penultimate vowel in an accent unit, which may be either two or three moras in length: tū [ˈtuː] 'stand', kau [ˈkau] 'wood', gone [ˈŋone] 'child', tagane [taˈŋane] 'male'. In longer words, the last accent unit is emphasized; the accented vowels in preceding units are perceived as having secondary accent: itukutuku [iˌtukuˈtuku] 'story', kedatou [ˌkendaˈtou] 'we (3)'.

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

See main article: National language debate in Fiji


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 Constitution, 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.

Sources

  • Dixon, R. M. W. (1989). A Grammar of Boumaa Fijian. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-15428-9. 
  • Schütz, Albert J. (1985). The Fijian Language. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 0-8248-1005-8. 

See Also

East Fijian Languages

West Fijian languages

External links

Motto
Rerevaka na Kalou ka Doka na Tui
Fear God and honour the Queen
Anthem
God Bless Fiji
..... Click the link for more information.
Vanua Levu (IPA: [βa nu a le βu]), formerly known as Sandalwood Island, is the second largest island of Fiji. Located 64 kilometres to the north of the larger Viti Levu, the island has an area of 5,587.
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Viti Levu (IPA: [ˈβiti ˈleβu]) is the largest island in the Republic of Fiji, the site of the nation's capital, Suva, and home to a large majority of Fiji's population.
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Kadavu (IPA: [ka nda βu]), with an area of 411 square kilometers, is the fourth largest island in Fiji, and the largest island in the Kadavu Group
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Lakeba (IPA: [la ke mba]) is an island in Fiji's Southern Lau archipelago. Situated at 18.20° South and 178.80° East, it has a land area of 58.9 square kilometers and a total shoreline of 32 kilometers.
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KOMO may refer to the two flagship Fisher Communications stations, both located in Seattle, Washington:
  • KOMO-TV, channel 4, an ABC television affiliate
  • KOMO (AM), 1000 kHz, an all-news station
KOMO
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Ogea [aka Erima] is a Papuan language spoken by approximately 700 people living in an area 18 kilometers south of the town of Madang, in the Madang Province of Papua New Guinea.
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Vatoa (IPA: [βa to a]) (known as Turtle Island after Cook's visit) is an outlier of Fiji's Lau Group.

Vatoa was the only island of present-day Fiji visited by James Cook.
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This is a list of languages, ordered by the number of native-language speakers, with some data for second-language use. Languages are listed for secondary locations only when spoken by more than 1% of the population.
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A language family is a group of languages related by descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language. As with biological families, the evidence of relationship is observable shared characteristics.
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Motto
Rerevaka na Kalou ka Doka na Tui
Fear God and honour the Queen
Anthem
God Bless Fiji
..... Click the link for more information.
This is a list of bodies that regulate standard languages.

Afrikaans Die Taalkommissie, South Africa
Arabic Academy of the Arabic Language (مجمع اللغة العربية, Syria, Egypt, Jordan,
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ISO 639 is the set of international standards that lists short codes for language names.

ISO 639 consists of different parts, of which two parts have been approved and a third part that is in the final approval (FDIS) stage. The other parts are works in progress.
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Ethnologue: Languages of the World is a web and print publication of SIL International (formerly known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics), a Christian linguistic service organization which studies lesser-known languages primarily to provide the speakers with Bibles in
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See Language (journal) for the linguistics journal.


A language is a system of symbols and the rules used to manipulate them. Language can also refer to the use of such systems as a general phenomenon.
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lists of languages:
  • List of languages by name
  • List of languages by writing system
  • List of languages by number of native speakers
  • Ethnologue list of most spoken languages

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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. It is on par with Indo-European, Afro-Asiatic and Uralic as one of the best-established ancient language families.
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Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages, with approximately 351 million speakers. These are widely dispersed throughout the island nations of Southeast Asia and the Pacific Ocean, with a smaller number in continental Asia.
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Motto
Rerevaka na Kalou ka Doka na Tui
Fear God and honour the Queen
Anthem
God Bless Fiji
..... Click the link for more information.
The Constitution of Fiji is the supreme law of Fiji.

Background

The Constitution of the Republic of the Fiji Islands dates from 1997. It is Fiji's third Constitution. The first, adopted in 1970 upon independence, was abrogated following two military coups in 1987.
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English}}} 
Writing system: Latin (English variant) 
Official status
Official language of: 53 countries
Regulated by: no official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1: en
ISO 639-2: eng
ISO 639-3: eng  
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Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu)}}} 
Writing system: Devanagari script,
Perso-Arabic script 
Official status
Official language of:  Fiji,
 India (as Hindi and Urdu),
 Pakistan (as Urdu)

Regulated by: no official regulation
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In linguistic typology, Verb Object Subject or Verb Object Agent - commonly used in its abbreviated form VOS or VOA - represents the language-classification type in which the following sequence of the three constituents, in neutral expressions, is
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Bau (IPA: [mba u]) is a small island in Fiji, off the east coast of the main island of Viti Levu.

In History

The island has a historical and political importance beyond its size.
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East Fijian languages are a subgroup of the East Fijian-Polynesian languages. They consist of four languages: Fijian, Gone Dau, Lauan and Lomaiviti, all spoken within Fiji.

External links

Ethnologue report for East Fijian
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consonant is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by a closure or stricture of the vocal tract sufficient to cause audible turbulence. The word consonant
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phoneme is the smallest unit of speech that distinguishes meaning. Phonemes are not the physical segments themselves, but abstractions of them. An example of a phoneme would be the /t/ found in words like tip,
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In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) are:

IPA Description Example
Language Orthography IPA Meaning
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In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth. The labiodental consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:

IPA Description Example
Language Orthography IPA Meaning

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In linguistics, a dental consonant or dental is a consonant that is articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth, such as /t/, /d/
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