This section needs to beupdated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(August 2025)
Linguistic research on the relationship between the Fijian and Polynesian languages shows that they are not simply a case of one borrowing from the other. Instead, they are part of the same language subgroup, the Central Pacific branch of the Austronesian language family, sharing a common ancestor. This means that a large portion of their shared vocabulary consists of cognates—words with a common origin since the vast majority of similarities come from this shared linguistic heritage. However, it is also true that some words from Polynesia have been adopted into Fijian especially from Tonga, particularly in the eastern dialects.
This section needs to beupdated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(November 2023)
In May and June 2005, several prominent Fijians sought to promote the status of the Fijian language. Fiji had no official language before the1997 Constitution, which made the Fijian language co-official withEnglish andFiji Hindi; however, it was not required to be taught in schools. The minister of education,Ro Teimumu Kepa, has also supported appeals to Chairman of the Great Council of ChiefsRatu Ovini Bokini. Similar appeals have been made byMisiwini Qereqeretabua, Director of the Institute of Language and Culture, and byApolonia Tamata, a linguistics professor at theUniversity of the South Pacific in Suva. They have stated that recognition of the Fijian language is essential for the basic identity of the nation and acts as a unifying factor for the multicultural society of Fiji.
Mahendra Chaudhry, the leader of theFiji Labour Party, also supported the cause to make Fijian a national language and a compulsory subject in schools with the same status as Fiji Hindi, a position echoed byKrishna Vilas of the National Reconciliation Committee.
Since 2013, when a new constitution was adopted, Fijian is established as an official language of Fiji alongside Fiji Hindi and English.
The consonant written⟨dr⟩ has been described as aprenasalized trill[ⁿr] ortrilled affricate[ⁿdr]. However, it is only rarely pronounced with a trilled release; the primary feature distinguishing it from⟨d⟩ is that it ispostalveolar,[ɳɖ], rather than dental/alveolar.[4]
The sounds[p] and[f] occur only inloanwords from other languages. The sounds[x] and[h] only occur for speakers from certain regions of the country.
The sounds[tʃ] and[ⁿdʒ] occur as allophones of/t/ and/ⁿd/.
The glottal stop/ʔ/ occurs in the Boumaa Fijian used to illustrate this article, but is not found in the standard language. It descends from an earlier/k/ sound in most Fijian dialects.
Syllables can consist of a consonant followed by a vowel (CV) or a single vowel (V).[5]Word stress is based onmoras: a short vowel is one mora, diphthongs and long vowels are two morae. Primary stress is on 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, while if the last syllable contains either a long vowel or a diphthong, then it receives primary stress. Stress is not lexical and can shift when suffixes are attached to theroot.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).
The Fijian alphabet is based on theLatin script and consists of the following letters. There is almost a one-to-one correspondence between letters and phonemes.
In the 1980s, scholars compiling a dictionary added several more consonants and a few consonant clusters to the alphabet. These newcomers were necessary to handle words entering Standard Fijian from not only English, but from other Fijian languages or dialects as well. These are the most important additions:⟨z⟩[ⁿdʒ], as in⟨ziza⟩'ginger' and⟨h⟩[h], as in⟨haya⟩'hire'.[7]
For phonological reasons⟨ti⟩ and⟨di⟩ are pronounced[tʃi],[ⁿdʒi] rather than[ti],[ⁿdi] (cf. Japanesechi kana, or in standardBrazilian Portuguese). Hence, the Fijian name for Fiji,⟨Viti⟩, from an allophonic pronunciation of[βitʃi] as[ɸidʒi].
In addition, thedigraph⟨dr⟩ stands forretroflex[ᶯɖ], or a prenasalized trill[ɳɖr] 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,[aɛ~eiɔ~ou]. Thevowel length contrast is not usually indicated in writing, except in dictionaries and textbooks for learners of the language, where it is indicated by amacron 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 iu⟩, pronounced[ɛi̯ɔu̯ei̯eu̯oi̯ou̯i̯u].
In order tonegate a phrase or clause in Fijian, certain verbs are used to create this distinction. These verbs of negation are known as semi-auxiliary verbs. Semi-auxiliary verbs fulfil the functions of main verbs (in terms of syntactic form and pattern) and have a NP or complement clause as their subject[8] (complements clauses within negation are introduced by relatorsni (which refers to an event, which is generally a non-specific unit) orme (which refers is translated as "should", referring to the event within the complement clause should occur)).[9] Within a complement clause, the semi-auxiliary verb qualifies the predicate.[8]
One semi-auxiliary verb used to express negation in Fijian issega. This semi-auxiliary can be translated as either "there are no-" or "it is not the case that", depending on the subject it relates to.[10] In terms of numerical expression,sega is also used to express the quantity "none".[11] This negator can be used in almost all situations, with the exception of the imperative or in ame (classifier) clauses.[10] Whensega takes a NP as its subject, the meaning "there are no-" is assumed:
Predicate clauses can also be negated in Fijian with the semi-auxiliary verbsega. This can only be completed when the predicate is placed into a complement clause.[10] The subject ofsega must also beni, which introduces the complement clause. It is then translated as "it is not the case that (predicate clause)".[10] An example of this construction is shown here:
"John is not going (lit: it is not the case that John is going)"[10]
Hence, the only way a verb (which is generally the head of a predicate phrase) can be negated in Fijian is when it forms part of the [e sega ni VERB] construction.[10] However, in Fijian the head of a predicate phrase may belong to almost any word class. If another word (e.g. a noun) is used, the structure of negation alters.[10] This distinction can be shown through diverse examples of the negating NPs in Fijian. The below examples show the difference between a noun as the head of a NP and a noun as the head of a predicate in a complement clause, within negation:
au tovele-a se kana vinaka a kaa kana yai {(se sega)}
1SG test-TR whether eat good ART food this or not
"I'll test whether this food tastes good or not"[13]
Another common negator isꞌua orwaaꞌua, which is translatable as "don't, not".[8] Differently tosega, this semi-auxiliary verb is used for imperatives and inme clauses. Therefore, these semi-auxiliaries are fixed, and cannot be used interchangeably.[14]ꞌUa andwaaꞌua have the same meaning, howeverwaaꞌua may be more intense; in most instances either semi-auxiliary verb can be used.[14]ꞌua ~waaꞌua can take a NP as its subject, but most commonly takes theni complement as a subject,[15] which is demonstrated below:
au saa vei-.vutuni.-takina sara me+u saa waakua ni vaka-.yaco-ra tale a caka.caka yai i+na siga.tabu
1SG ASP repent-TR MODIF should+1SG ASP not INT make-happen-TR again ART REDUP-do INT on+ART Sunday
"I repented (of hunting pigs on the sabbath) so that I won't ever again do this activity on Sunday"[16]
In the case of pronouns, they can only be negated when they form part of the NP, when acting as the predicate head.[17] Therefore, pronouns cannot be the NP subject of semi-auxiliary verbssega orꞌua ~waaꞌua in the way that general nouns can.[17]
Sega andꞌua ~waaꞌua can be combined with other auxiliary verbs to produce diverse constructions.[18] Bothsega andꞌua ~waaꞌua can connect with semi-auxiliaryrawa'can' to negate the concept of possibility which is attached to the verb'can' (resulting in constructions such as'can't' and'shouldn't').[19]
Two main modifiers,soti'a lot' andsara'very; (go) right on, immediately' play key roles in negation in Fijian, and work in conjunction with semi-auxiliary verbs.Soti is added after negatorssega andꞌua ~waaꞌua, and functions as an intensity marker.[20] The constructionsega soti is translatable as'not a lot of, not very'. Thesega soti construction requires an adjective (or an adverb which results from an adjective), and must takeni (complement clause) as its subject in order to function.[20]Soti can be found in position immediately aftersega, but may also be found after theni relator without changing the meaning of the phrase.[21] The primary construction is shown below:
"I'm not as clever as Sepo (lit: I am not clever, to be the same as Sepo)"[20]
Similarly, tosoti, the modifiersara'very; (go) right on, immediately' can also be used in conjunction withsega andꞌua ~waaꞌua. This combination is used to stress the negative sense and aspect of a phrase.[21]
The pronominal system of Fijian is remarkably rich. Like many other languages, it recognises threepersons; first person (speaker),second person (addressee), and third person (all other). There is no distinction between human, non-human, animate, or inanimate.[22] Four numbers are represented; singular,dual,paucal, and plural—'paucal' refers to more than two people who have some relationship, as a family or work group; if none, 'plural' is used. Like many other Oceanic languages, Fijian pronouns are marked fornumber andclusivity.[23]
Each pronoun can have five forms, but some person-number combinations may have the same form for more than one function,[25] as can be seen in the table above.
The forms are:
Cardinal – used when a pronoun occurs as the head of a NP. A cardinal pronoun is usually preceded by the proper articleo, except when preceded by a preposition:
The major clausal structure in Fijian minimally includes a predicate, which usually has a verb at its head.[26] The initial element in the predicate is the subject form pronoun:
This 'subject marker + verb' predicate construction is obligatory, every other constituent is optional. The subject may be expanded upon by an NP following the predicate:
"[the children] are going" or "They [the children] are going"[26]
The subject pronoun constituent of a predicate acts mainly as a person marker.
Fijian is averb–object–subject language, and the subject pronoun may be translated as its equivalent in English, the subject NP of a clause in Fijian follows the verb and the object if it is included.
The social use of pronouns is largely driven by respect and hierarchy. Each of the non-singular second person pronouns can be used for a singular addressee. For example, if one's actual or potential in-laws are addressed, the 2DU pronoun should be used. Similarly, when a brother or sister of the opposite sex is addressed, the 2PA pronoun should be used, and it can also be used for same-sex siblings when the speaker wishes to show respect. The 2PL pronoun can be used to show respect to elders, particularly the village chief.[25]
Possession is a grammatical term for a special relationship between two entities: a "possessor" and a "possessed". The relationship may be one of legal ownership, but in Fijian, like many other Austronesian languages, it is often much broader, encompassing kin relations, body parts, parts of an inanimate whole and personal qualities and concepts such as control, association and belonging.
Fijian has a complex system of possessive constructions, depending on the nature of the possessor and of the possessed. Choosing the appropriate structure depends on knowing[27] whether the possessor is a personal or place name, a pronoun, or a common noun (with human or non-human, animate or inanimate reference), and also on whether the possessed is a free or bound noun.
Only an animate noun may be a possessor in the true possessive constructions shown below, with possession marked on the possessed NP in a number of ways. For personal and place name possessors, the possessive construction may be made by affixing the possessive suffix–i to the possessed noun, bound or free. If the possessor is a pronoun, the possessed noun must be marked by one of the pronominal markers which specify person, number and inclusivity/exclusivity (see table). If the possessor is inanimate, the possessive particleni is usually placed between the possessed NP and the possessor NP. The particleni then indicates association, rather than formal possession, but the construction is still regarded as a possessive construction.
Free nouns can stand alone and need no affix; most nouns in Fijian fall into this class. Bound nouns require a suffix to complete them and are written ending in a hyphen to indicate this requirement.Tama-'father' andtina-'mother' are examples of bound nouns. The classes of free and bound nouns roughly correspond with the concept, common in Austronesian languages, of alienable and inalienable possession, respectively. Alienable possession denotes a relationship in which the thing possessed is not culturally considered an inherent part of the possessor, and inalienable possession indicates a relationship in which the possessed is regarded as an intrinsic part of the possessor.
Body parts and kin relations are typical examples of inalienable possession. Inanimate objects are typical examples of alienable possession.
The alienable nature of free nouns is further marked by prefixes, known as classifiers, indicating certain other characteristics. Some common examples areme- when the possessed noun is something drinkable,ke- (orꞌe) when the noun is something edible andwe- when the referent of the possessed noun is personal property.
The word order of a possessive construction for all except inanimate possessors is possessed NP-classifier(CLF) + possessive marker (POSS) + possessor NP. For an inanimate possessor, the word order is possessed NP +ni + possessor NP.[29]
POSSESSED
POSSESSED
POSSESSOR
bound noun
free noun
personal/place name
suffix-i (example 1)
classifier plus suffix-i; or suffix-i (example 2)
pronoun
pronominal suffix; or suffix-i (example 3a, b)
classifier plus possessor pronoun (example 4a, b)
human noun
pronominal suffix, expanded by post-head possessor NP; or suffix-i; or NPni NP (example 5)
classifier plus possessor pronoun, expanded by post-head possessor NP (example 6)
animate noun
NPni NP ; or pronominal suffix, expanded by post-head possessor NP
NPni NP; or classifier plus possessor pronoun, expanded by post-head possessor NP
inanimate noun
NPni NP (example 7, 8)
NPni NP (example 7, 8)
Note that there is some degree of flexibility in the use of possessive constructions as described in this table.
Era sucu ena galala na tamata yadua, era tautauvata ena nodra dokai kei na nodra dodonu. E tiko na nodra vakasama kei na nodra lewaeloma, sa dodonu mera veidokadokai ena yalo ni veitacini.
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
TheFiji Labour Party leaderMahendra Chaudhry also endorsed the call for Fijian to be made a national language and a compulsory school subject if the same status was given toFiji Hindi, a position that was echoed by Krishna Vilas of the National Reconciliation Committee.
Schütz, Albert J. (2003).Say it in Fijian : an entertaining introduction to the standard language of Fiji. Textbook Wholesalers.ISBN1862730385.OCLC156199054.
