Rory Ewins

Pronunciation

When the Roman alphabet was adapted to create a written-language version of Fijian, some letters were made to represent consonant sounds quite different from their English-language sounds:

Letter	Pronounced	Like
b	mb	number
c	th	the
d	nd	lender
j	ch	choose
g	ng	singer
q	ngg	finger

Vowel sounds are pronounced as are Italian vowels. Thus:

Cakaudrove	Tha-kaun-dro-veh
Cakobau	Tha-kom-bau
Jale	Cha-leh
Penaia Ganilau	Pen-eye-a Nga-ni-lau
Timoci Bavadra	Tim-or-the Mba-vahn-dra
Qiqiwaqa	Ngging-gi-wahng-ga

 

Abbreviations

In this paper the following abbreviations are sometimes used:

CIA	Central Intelligence Agency of the United States
CRC	Constitutional Review Committee
FLP	Fiji Labour Party
FNP	Fijian Nationalist Party
MHR	Member of the House of Representatives
NFP	National Federation Party
RFMF	Royal (later Republic of) Fiji Military Forces

 

Page created 3 September 1998