The development of pidgin English in the Pacific in connection with
imported plantation labor has been well documented. Three varieties
and their sociolinguistic histories have been described in detail: Queensland
Canefields English (Dutton 1980), Samoan Plantation Pidgin
(Mühlhäusler 1978), and Hawaiian Pidgin English (Reinecke 1969
[1935]). Nothing substantial, however, has been written on pidgin
English in another important plantation country: Fiji.
Writers who have mentioned the language situation on Fiji’s early
plantations do not provide a very clear picture. For example, the pioneer
of pidgin and creole studies, Hugo Schuchardt, writes: “Several
sources on Viti Levu have categorically denied the existence of an
English Jargon.” But he immediately goes on to say, “perhaps because
they were thinking of the natives and not of the foreign workers.” He
also reports that E. L. Layard, the British Consul in Noumea, “believes
Bêche-le-mar English is acquired in Queensland and on the Fiji Islands”
(Schuchardt 1980 [1883]: 16, 17). In a later article Schuchardt mentions
correspondence from the Imperial German Consular Administrator in
Apia, Samoa, who says that pidgin English “does exist among the
workers recruited from Melanesia who live on the Samoan Islands, the
Fiji Islands, and in Queensland.” However, correspondence from the
German Consul in Levuka reports “no Beche-la-mer exists there,” and
Lorimer Fison, a missionary in Fiji, says: “Natives of other islands who
came to Fiji learned Fijian, not English” (ibid. 1980 [1889]: 24, 28).