Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Language
Just a few basic tips to help you with pronunciation of some of the place names (thanks to a combination of our guidebook and South Pacific phrasebook). The written Fijian you see today was devised by 19th century British missionaries (so blame them for anything you find a little odd!).
So basically, vowel sounds are similar, and generally the penultimate syllable of words is stressed (unless the last vowel is a long vowel). Finally, there are a number of consonants that are pronounced differently than you might expect:
b is pronounced mb
d --------- “ -------- nd
g --------- “ -------- ng (which many of you should already know!)
q --------- “ -------- ngg
c --------- “ -------- th
So:
Beqa is pronounced Mbengga
Nadi --------- “ -------- Nandi
Sigatoka ---- “ -------- Singatoka
So basically, vowel sounds are similar, and generally the penultimate syllable of words is stressed (unless the last vowel is a long vowel). Finally, there are a number of consonants that are pronounced differently than you might expect:
b is pronounced mb
d --------- “ -------- nd
g --------- “ -------- ng (which many of you should already know!)
q --------- “ -------- ngg
c --------- “ -------- th
So:
Beqa is pronounced Mbengga
Nadi --------- “ -------- Nandi
Sigatoka ---- “ -------- Singatoka
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