Languagle #88: Fijian
Lutu na niu, lutu ki vuna
"The coconut falls at the foot of its own tree."
What it means
Children turn out like the people who raised them. A coconut drops at the foot of the tree it grew on, not somewhere else. Similar to 'the apple doesn't fall far from the tree', and said when a child shows the manners or habits they learned at home.
How to say it
LOO-too na NEE-oo, LOO-too kee VOO-na
Fijian stresses the second-to-last syllable. Every vowel is said clearly.
Word by word
- Lutu LOO-too: falls
- na niu na NEE-oo: the coconut
- ki kee: to
- vuna VOO-na: its base, its roots
Where it was found
A traditional Fijian saying, from a collection by the Fijian writer and academic Joseph Veramu.
Similar sayings
- German: Der Apfel fällt nicht weit vom Stamm. The apple doesn't fall far from the trunk.
How to recognise Fijian
Fijian looks simple, but several letters stand for unexpected sounds: c is the th in 'this', g is ng, q is ngg, b is mb and d is nd. Every word ends in a vowel. Other Pacific languages like Samoan and Māori use g or ng too, but none of them uses c, q, b and d the way Fijian does.
About the Fijian language
Fijian is an Oceanic language of the Austronesian family, spoken by around 350,000 people as a first language and by about as many again as a second language. It is one of Fiji's three official languages, with English and Fiji Hindi, and its standard form is based on the dialect of Bau, a small island that was once a powerful chiefdom. Its spelling surprises visitors: c is said like the 'th' in 'this', b is 'mb' and d is 'nd'.
← #87 · All answers · #89 →