Fiji Hindi
PrintFiji Hindi
The title should be Fiji Hindi. Not Hindi, Fiji. The language is spoken only in Fiji and the Fijian diaspora. The 'Fiji' part is important. I searched under Fiji Hindi and it was not there.
Fiji Hindi is not the language of wider communication in Fiji. At best it is used by around 33% of Fiji's current population as mother tongue. English is the language of wider commuication. For intra ethnic commuication Indo-Fijians use Fiji Hindi and Fijians, i-Taukei (Fijian).
Fiji Hindi had official status in the 1997 constitution along with English and i-Taukei Fijian. In the 2013 constitution this was changed and an official language is not named.
"In the 1997 Constitution, there was greater recognition of Fiji Hindi as an official language of Fiji even though the language identified as the official language was ‘Hindustani’ rather than ‘Fiji Hindi’, causing some confusion around whether the named language was FH or Hindustani (Constitution of the Republic of Fiji, 1998, p. 2)."
Ref: Shameem, N. 2018. Fiji Hindi in Fiji. Chapter 16 in C. Seals and S. Shah (Eds). Heritage language policies around the world. Routledge.
We will update the speaker populations for Fiji Hindi [hif] (changing the name to the uninverted form) and will change the Function in Country for English [eng], Fijian [fij] and Fiji Hindi to "de facto" status at the national level. These changes will be included in the next edition of the Ethnologue.
Comments
Dear Nikhat,
Thank you for this information on the language name, language status, and the official status of Fiji Hindi [hif] in Fiji.
We will update the information in the Ethnologue database based on what you have given us here.
Best regards,
Charles Fennig
Managing Editor, Ethnologue
Add new comment