Fiji menu translator

Fijian menus are a layered thing — the words you'll see come from three languages overlapping over 150 years. Fijian (iTaukei) supplies the reef, root and earth-oven vocabulary: kokoda (raw fish in coconut cream and lime), palusami (taro leaves in coconut cream), dalo (taro), vudi (plantain), loaloa (the tiny midge-feeders pressed into fish paste). Most of these dishes are eaten with the hands or with cassava-based dipping relishes, not cutlery.

Fiji-Hindi (sometimes called Fiji Baat) contributes the curries, rotis, dals, pulaos and sweets brought by indentured labourers from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar between 1879 and 1916. Words like roti, aloo, barfi, lassi and pulao (the Fijian-Hindi spelling of pilau) are everywhere. English sits on top — most menus list both, with English describing the cooking style and Fijian naming the local variant.

A few translation traps to watch. Mate is not the Australian farewell — in Fijian it literally means "death" and appears in compound words like mate ni valu (livestock disease) or i mate (dead fish). Don't order the "dead fish" — that's not what it means on a menu. Yaqona is the ceremonial name; kava is the common transliteration. Rourou and dalo leaves are the same thing — just the leaf of the taro. Vakalolo is sometimes mistranslated as "lolo pudding"; lolo is the Fijian word for coconut cream, and vakalolo means "in the manner of coconut cream".

If a dish is marked totoka on a market sign, that means fresh — a useful filter when choosing reef fish or greens. Kai simply means food; kana is the verb "to eat". A phrase you'll hear at the table is vinaka vakalevu — "thank you very much" — and the right reply is to try the food, even just a small mouthful. Refusing food in a village is considered mildly offensive.

• This is a glossary, not a recipe book. Spelling variants and regional pronunciation vary across Fiji's 14 provinces and 300+ islands.
• Some dishes are taboo in certain villages or for certain kin groups (e.g. shark for some matrilineal clans, turtle almost universally, certain fish for women in some communities). The tool can't tell you which applies at your table — ask.
• Indian-Muslim and Indian-Sikh communities in Fiji may have halal or vegetarian-only menus that differ from the generic Fijian-Indian offering — ask about ghee, beef, and onions if it matters to you.
• Some translations are approximate. The closest English for palusami is "taro-leaf parcels in coconut cream" but in practice the dish varies from village to village.
• For ciguatera risk on a particular fish, use the Kokoda Ciguatera Risk tool — this glossary doesn't score risk, it only labels names.