Miegunyah: from bark huts to grand houses and a Fiji cane farm

Indigenous loanwords comprise an important component of the lexicons of the Englishes of former British colonies. Often these words are used as placenames, which are in turn transported across the country with little knowledge of their origin or meaning. In this article we trace the adoption of gunyah into Australian English, and its use in the house name and toponym Miegunyah/Meigunyah/Mygunyah, extending to a sugarcane plantation near Nadi, on Vitilevu, Fiji.