Fijian Language Guide

Official language in
Fiji
Script
Latin

Where it's spoken

Fiji's Constitution addresses Fijian, there called iTaukei, in a provision headed "Official or national languages": it states that the Constitution is adopted in the English language, that translations are to be made available in the iTaukei and Hindi languages, and that the English version prevails if the meaning of a provision differs between the versions. The same Constitution requires that conversational and contemporary iTaukei and Fiji Hindi be taught as compulsory subjects in every primary school. In a separate provision, the Constitution states that all citizens of Fiji, of any ethnicity, are to be known as Fijians; throughout the document, the name used for the indigenous language itself is iTaukei rather than Fijian. Fijian speakers themselves call their language na vosa vakaviti, literally "the language in the Fijian way."

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Script & pronunciation

This app writes Fijian in the Latin alphabet. Fijian spelling is fully phonemic — a given letter always stands for the same sound — but several ordinary Latin letters represent sounds quite different from their English values: b stands for [mb], d for [nd], q for [ŋg], g for [ŋ], and c for [ð]. Because the spelling itself gives no visual warning of this, this app adds a separate pronunciation guide for the words where it could mislead a reader, rather than transcribing every card: the place name Nadi is given the pronunciation guide Nan-di, and Beqa is given Mben-gga.

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Grammar essentials

When a Fijian sentence spells out both its subject and its object as full phrases, the more usual order places the verb first, then the object, then the subject last — an order called verb-object-subject, or VOS — although other orders occur as well. This app's own data agrees: the card Au taukena e dua na vola ni vakabisinisi. Ko au o Smith. ("I have a reservation. My name is Smith.") states in its own grammar note that Fijian tends to be VOS. Fijian also has no verb that works the way English "to have" does: studies of Fijian possession find that Fijian has never developed a transitive "have" verb, and a sentence corresponding to "I have a car" is instead built with an existential verb together with the preposition vei ("to/at") marking the person who has it — literally, "a car exists to me." This app's card asking Do you have Facebook? is built the same way, as E tiko Facebook vei iko? — literally "Does Facebook exist to you?" — and the card for "my contact information," Na iwalewale ni veiwekani vei au, explains in its own grammar note that vei is a preposition of possession or direction, so that vei au means "mine" or "to me." Negation works on a related principle: a clause is made negative by placing the word sega — which by itself means "there is none" — before it, as in this app's card Sega ni rawa vei au ni vosa e na vosa Vakaviti. ("I can't speak vosa Vakaviti"), where sega negates the clause that follows it.

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Politeness & etiquette

Fijian shows respect toward the person being addressed mainly through pronoun choice: a reference grammar of Fijian describes how using a plural word for "you," rather than the singular, when speaking to a single person functions as a mark of respect. This was traditionally reserved for addressing a person of hereditary rank, but has extended to other people accorded respect, including a prime minister, a director, a bishop, or a teacher. This app's own data agrees: the card for asking a hairdresser E rawa ni kemuni tomatoma / perm-taka na ulu au? ("Can you straighten / perm my hair?") uses the plural kemuni for "you" even though it addresses one person.

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