Fiji Hindi

Fiji Hindi
Fiji Baat • Fiji Hindustani
फ़िजी हिंदी (Devanagari script)
𑂣𑂺𑂱𑂔𑂲⸱𑂯𑂱𑂁𑂠𑂲 (Kaithi script)
فجی ہندی (Perso-Arabic script)
Fiji Hindi written in the Latin, Devanagari, Perso-Arabic, and Kaithi scripts
Native toFiji
EthnicityIndo-Fijians and the Indo-Fijian diaspora
Native speakers
(380,000 cited 1991)[1]
Early forms
Dialects
Official status
Official language in
 Fiji
Language codes
ISO 639-3hif
Glottologfiji1242
Linguasphere59-AAF-raf

Fiji Hindi (Devanagari: फ़िजी हिंदी; Kaithi: 𑂣𑂺𑂱𑂔𑂲⸱𑂯𑂱𑂁𑂠𑂲; Perso-Arabic: فجی ہندی) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by Indo-Fijians.[1] It is an Eastern Hindi and Bihari language, considered to be a koiné language based on Awadhi that has also been subject to considerable influence by Bhojpuri, other Eastern Hindi and Bihari dialects, and Standard Hindi-Urdu. It has also borrowed some vocabulary from English, Fijian, Telugu, Tamil, Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati, and Malayalam. Many words unique to Fiji Hindi have been created to cater for the new environment that Indo-Fijians now live in.[2] First-generation Indians in Fiji, who used the language as a lingua franca in Fiji, referred to it as Fiji Baat, "Fiji talk". It is closely related to Caribbean Hindustani and the Bhojpuri-Hindustani spoken in Mauritius and South Africa. It is largely mutually intelligible with the languages of Awadhi and Bhojpuri, as well as with the Bihari languages of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhesh, Koshi, Bagmati, Gandaki and Lumbini, and the dialects of Eastern Hindi of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Lumbini, but differs in phonetics and vocabulary with Modern Standard Hindi and Urdu.[citation needed]

  1. ^ a b Fiji Hindi at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ^ "Hindi Diwas 2018: Hindi travelled to these five countries from India". 14 September 2020. Archived from the original on 29 December 2022. Retrieved 14 September 2018.


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