Social:Pidgin Fijian
| Pidgin Fijian | |
|---|---|
Fijian-based pidgin | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | None (mis) |
| Glottolog | pidg1237[1] |
Pidgin Fijian (also known as Jargon Fijian, Fijian Pidgin, Broken Fijian) was a plantation language used by iTaukei (Indigenous) Fijians and foreigners in Fiji's plantations.[2]
History
Indigenous Fijians first came into contact with Europeans in 1800s when a few sailors were stranded in a shipwreck.[2] After that initial incident, contact between Indigenous Fijians and Europeans became common. The Europeans then started to exploit Fiji's resources.[3] The cotton plantation industry began in the 1860s.[2] The development of Pidgin Fiji is correlated with the development of plantation agriculture in Fiji.[2]
At this point, the Europeans only used Fijian labourers and needed a form of communication to use between them.[2] The cotton industry collapsed in 1870, but the European settlers found other crops, such as sugar, to farm.[4] The plantation industry then grew, compelling the European settlers to recruit more labourers from neighbouring Pacific Islands.[4]
The new labour workers came from various islands with around 180 different languages.[4] Because there was a need for communication and there was no mutually intelligible language between all, Jargon Fijian was modified and became the lingua franca on the plantations.[4]
The sugar plantation industry rapidly grew. With a higher demand for labourers, the European settlers recruited labourers from India.[4] Between 1879 and 1916, over 60 000 Indians from vast areas of India were brought to Fiji as labour workers.[5] Jargon Fijian was being used more often, leading to its pidginization.[2]
Features
Pidgin Fijian began as a jargon and developed into a pidgin but never extended further into an extended pidgin or pidgin creole.[5] Pidgin Fijian has features that can trace to simplifications made by Indigenous Fijians to make it easier for foreigners to learn.[2] There is evidence of modifications that were errors made by Europeans and other foreigners.[2]
English was not a target language in Pidgin Fijian.[2] The European settlers were given orders to learn the language of the labourers and believed that non-Europeans should not learn English to put them in their "place."[2]
References
- ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds (2017). "Pidgin Fijian". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. http://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/pidg1237.
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 Siegel, Jeff (1987). Language contact in a plantation environment: a sociolinguistic history of Fiji. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521325776.
- ↑ Siegel, Jeff (1985). Plantation languages in Fiji (Thesis). The Australian National University. pp. xvii, 368 leaves. doi:10.25911/5D723A3CECB53.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 Mangubhai, Francis; Mugler, France (December 2003). "The Language Situation in Fiji" (in en). Current Issues in Language Planning 4 (3–4): 367–459. doi:10.1080/14664200308668058. ISSN 1466-4208. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14664200308668058.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Siegel, Jeff (1982). "Plantation Pidgin Fijian". Oceanic Linguistics 21 (1/2): 1–72. doi:10.2307/3623154. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3623154.
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