An Austronesian (Oceanic) language and one of Fiji's three official languages — spoken alongside English and Fiji Hindi by most of the indigenous Fijian population.
Where it’s spoken
Fijian (Na vosa vakaviti) is one of three official languages of Fiji (with English and Fiji Hindi) and is the mother tongue of most of the 56% iTaukei (indigenous Fijian) majority. Standard Fijian is based on the Bauan dialect, traditionally the most prestigious. About 350,000 speak it as a first language, with another 200,000 using it as a second language.
What it sounds like
Fijian has prenasalized voiced stops (mb, nd, ng) written simply as b, d, q in the alphabet — so “Nadi” is pronounced “Nandi” and the q in Cakaudrove is “ng.” The vowels are five with phonemic length. Stress falls on the penultimate syllable.
How it’s written
Fijian uses the Latin alphabet with distinctive letter assignments designed by Methodist missionary David Cargill in the 1830s: b = mb, c = th (as in “this”), d = nd, g = ng (as in “sing”), q = ngg. These conventions reduce the alphabet size and reflect the language’s prenasalized stops.
History
Fijian’s Oceanic ancestry connects it to languages across the Pacific. Indo-Fijian arrival from 1879 added Fiji Hindi to the linguistic mix. Most modern Fijians are bilingual or trilingual.
Find more languages by letter
Fijian starts with F and ends with N. Browse other languages along the same letter.
Languages that contain a letter from "Fijian":