Western Fijian, also known as Wayan is an

Oceanic language The approximately 450 Oceanic languages are a branch of the Austronesian languages. The area occupied by speakers of these languages includes Polynesia, as well as much of Melanesia and Micronesia. Though covering a vast area, Oceanic languages ...

spoken in Fiji by about 57,000 people. It is distinct from Eastern Fijian (also known as Bauan or Standard Fijian).

Phonology

is heard in the Wayan dialect. Most Fijian languages have a unique

prenasalized Prenasalized consonants are phonetic sequences of a nasal and an obstruent (or occasionally a non-nasal sonorant such as ) that behave phonologically like single consonants. The primary reason for considering them to be single consonants, rather ...

alveolar trill The voiced alveolar trill is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar trills is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is r. ...

, transcribed here as . 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 The voiced bilabial nasal is a type of consonantal sound used in almost all spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is m. The bilabial nasal occurs in ...

(/m/).

References

West Fijian languages Languages of Fiji {{austronesian-lang-stub