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 of...
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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.
Standard Fijian is based on the language of Bau, which is an East Fijian language.
The consonant phonemes of Fijian are as shown in the following table:
The sounds [p] and [f] occur only in loanwords 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.
Syllables can consist...
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