Western Fijian language
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Western Fijian, also known as Wayan is an Oceanic language spoken in Fiji by about 57,000 people.
It is distinct from Eastern Fijian (also known as Bauan or Standard Fijian).
Phonology
| Labial | Dental/ Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | lab. | ||||||
| Nasal | m mː | n | ŋ | ŋʷ | |||
| Plosive | voiced/pren. | ᵐb | ⁿd | ⁿdʒ | ᵑɡ | ᵑɡʷ | |
| voiceless | t | tʃ | k | kʷ | (ʔ) | ||
| Fricative | voiced | β | ð | ||||
| voiceless | s | h | |||||
| Trill | r ⁿr | ||||||
| Approximant | w | l | j |
/mː/ is heard in the Wayan dialect.
Most Fijian languages have a unique prenasalized alveolar trill, transcribed here as ⟨ⁿr⟩. Western Fijian in particular, is unique among Fijian languages for having labialized velar consonants. All vowels come in long and short forms, and so does the bilabial nasal (/m/).