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Fiji Culture
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Fiji’s is a land known
for its contrasting cultures that live side by side to one another.
The land is home too Indo-Fijians, Pacific islanders, Chinese,
and European people. The native Fijians are descended from a
Melanesian people who came from the west and began settling
here around 500 B.C. Most Fijians still live in small villages
along the coast, and you will see many traditional thatch bures,
or houses, scattered in the countryside away from the main |
roads. Members of each tribe cultivate and grow food crops in
small "bush gardens" on plots of communally owned native
land assigned to their families. More than 80% of the land in Fiji
is owned by Fijians. When meeting and talking to the Fijian people,
it's difficult to imagine that hardly more than a century ago their
ancestors were among the world's most ferocious cannibals. Today
the only vestiges of this past are the four-pronged wooden cannibal
forks sold in handcraft shops. This is an interesting gift to bring
back home, it can start a great dinner conversation!
Language
Fiji has three official languages. Fijians speak Fijian, the Indians
speak Hindi, and they speak English to each other. Schoolchildren
are taught in their native language until they are capable to be
taught in English. So don’t worry when traveling to Fiji,
you will have little trouble of getting around the country, because
people do understand and speak English. Fijian is similar to the
Polynesian languages spoken in Tahiti, the Cook Islands, Samoa,
and Tonga in that it uses vowel sounds similar to those in Latin,
French, Italian, and Spanish. Fijians still speak a variety of dialects
in their villages, but the official form of Fijian, and the version
taught in the schools systems is based on the language of Bau, the
small island that came to dominate western Fiji during the 19th
century.
More Information:
 www.state.gov
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