FIJI

FIJI. A country in Oceania, consisting of some 330 islands. Languages: Fijian and English (both official), the Pacific languages Rotuman, Gilbertese, Tongan, and the Indian languages Gujarati, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu. Fiji was a British colony from 1874 to independence in 1970. Originally wholly Melanesian, the population became multi-ethnic through colonialism, especially the importing of plantation labourers from the Pacific islands and India. There are longstanding tensions between ethnic Fijians and the Indian community.

English in Fiji ranges from low-prestige varieties (the BASILECT) to a high-prestige variety (the ACROLECT). The language of education is STANDARD ENGLISH on a BrE model. A stable pidgin English did not develop, although some early plantation labourers knew MELANESIAN PIDGIN ENGLISH and later labourers arrived speaking a stable variety of the same PIDGIN, learned in Queensland. A pidginized Fijian was used on plantations. Features of local English include: (1) The focus marker ga (You ga, you ga tell it It's you who tells it) and the politeness marker mada (Wait mada). (2) Use of one as an indefinite article, as in varieties of IndE: Tonight I'm going to one party. (3) Use of us two as the first-person dual inclusive (myself and one other): I can't give you us two's money because us two poor. (4) The use of fella as the third-person pronoun with human reference: Fella put that fella's hand in front He put his hand in front. (5) Local words such as Fijian tanoa a bowl for making kava, and Hindi roti Indian flat bread. Such features as us two and fella are similar to those in Melanesian Pidgin English and indigenous languages; others are shared not only with pidgin and creole English but also with basilectal varieties of English as in Singapore, such as the use of been as a pre-verbal marker of past tense (He been swear He swore) and lack of copula (That one nice house That is a nice house).