Fiji Hindi/Verbs

Verbs in Fiji Hindi clearly distinguish the language from Standard Hindi. Verbs are a koine of all major Eastern Hindi dialects, namely, Awadhi, Bhojpuri and Magahi and also borrows from Urdu.

The tense structure of verbs is demonstrated below, using khelo (to play) as an example and it is also compare to Standard Hindi.

Exception

 * Verbs with "ao" and "io" diphthong endings (e.g. khao, pio, bahao) or those made up of two letters, ie a consonat and "o" (e.g. bo) or a digraph and "o" (e.g. dho), have "-ya" ending for first and second person past tense. Examples:
 * Ham khaya (I ate)
 * Tum khaya (You ate)
 * Ham piya (I drank)
 * Tum piya (You drank)
 * Ham boya (I planted)
 * Yum boya (You planted)
 * Ham dhoya (I carried)
 * Tum dhoya (You carried)


 * Verbs with "eo" diphthing ending, have "-iya" ending for first and second person past tense. Example:
 * Ham liya (I took)
 * Tum liya (You took)


 * The verb jao (go) chnages to ga in past tense, examples:
 * Ham gaya (I went)
 * Uu gais (He/She went)


 * There is a tendency to remove consonant clusters. For example, the present continuous of badlo (change) is badaltaa (am changing)