Bushi language
Encyclopedia
Bushi, Shibushi, or Kibushi is a language spoken in Madagascar
Madagascar
The Republic of Madagascar is an island country located in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa...

 and the French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

-ruled Comorian
Comoro Islands
The Comoros Islands form an archipelago of volcanic islands situated off the south-east coast of Africa, to the east of Mozambique and north-west of Madagascar. They are divided between the sovereign state of Comoros and the French overseas department of Mayotte...

 islands of Mayotte
Mayotte
Mayotte is an overseas department and region of France consisting of a main island, Grande-Terre , a smaller island, Petite-Terre , and several islets around these two. The archipelago is located in the northern Mozambique Channel in the Indian Ocean, namely between northwestern Madagascar and...

. In 1995, it was spoken by 806,200 people (767,000 in Madagascar and 39,200 in Mayotte).

Madagascar Bushi

Bushi is spoken in northwestern Madagascar in the area of Antsiranana
Antsiranana
Antsiranana , named Diego-Suarez prior to 1975, is a city at the northern tip of Madagascar.Antsiranana is the capital of Diana Region.-Transports:...

 (Diego-Suarez) and Mahajanga
Mahajanga
Mahajanga is a city and a district on the north-west coast of Madagascar.- City :The City of Mahajanga is the capital of the Boeny region. Population: 135,660 ....

 (Majunga).

Mayotte Bushi

Bushi is known as Kibushi on Mayotte and is spoken by 40% of the islands' people (1980). It is spoken alongside Shimaore
Shimaore language
Maore Comorian, or Shimaore , is one of the two indigenous languages spoken in the French-ruled Comorian islands of Mayotte; Shimaore being a dialect of the Comorian language, while KiBushi is an unrelated Malayo-Polynesian language originally from Madagascar...

, a form of Comorian
Comorian language
Comorian is the most widely used language on the Comoros and Mayotte. It is a set of Swahili dialects but with a much stronger Arabic influence than standard Swahili...

, a Bantu
Bantu languages
The Bantu languages constitute a traditional sub-branch of the Niger–Congo languages. There are about 250 Bantu languages by the criterion of mutual intelligibility, though the distinction between language and dialect is often unclear, and Ethnologue counts 535 languages...

 language. Historically, Kibushi and Shimaore have been spoken in certain villages but Shimaore tends to be the de facto indigenous lingua franca
Lingua franca
A lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.-Characteristics:"Lingua franca" is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic...

 in everyday life, because of the larger Shimaore-speaking population. Only Shimaore is represented on the local television news program by RFO
Réseau France Outre-mer
Réseau Outre-Mer 1ère or Outre-Mer 1ère , is a network of radio and television stations operating in France's overseas departments and territories around the world.The Outre-Mer 1ère network includes:...

. Dialects of Bushi in Mayotte (known as Shibushi in Shimaore) include Kiantalaotse and Kibushi-Kimaore (Shibushi-Shimaore in Shimaore).

Bushi is spoken along the west coast of the main island (Grande-Terre) including the villages of Bambo Est, M'Boueni, Passy-Kéli
Passy-Kéli
Passy-Kéli is a village in the commune of Kani-Kéli on Mayotte....

, Mronabeja
Mronabeja
Mronabeja is a village in the commune of Kani-Kéli on Mayotte....

, Kani-Kéli
Kani-Kéli
Kani-Kéli is a commune in the French overseas department of Mayotte, in the Indian Ocean....

, Chirongui
Chirongui
Chirongui is a commune in the French overseas department of Mayotte, in the Indian Ocean....

, Poroani
Poroani
Poroani is a village in the commune of Chirongui on Mayotte....

, Ouangani
Ouangani
Ouangani is a commune in the French overseas department of Mayotte, in the Indian Ocean....

, Chiconi
Chiconi
Chiconi is a commune in the French overseas department of Mayotte, in the Indian Ocean....

, Sohoa
Sohoa
Sohoa is a village in the commune of Chiconi on Mayotte....

, M'tsangamouji
M'Tsangamouji
M'Tsangamouji is a commune in the French overseas department of Mayotte, in the Indian Ocean....

, Acoua
Acoua
Acoua is a commune in the French overseas department of Mayotte, in the Indian Ocean....

, M'tsangadoua, Handrema
Handrema
Handrema is a village in the commune of Bandraboua on Mayotte....

.

Orthography

In Mayotte, Bushi was traditionally written with an informal French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

-based Latin
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...

 orthography. On 22 February 2006, the Conseil de la Culture, de l'Education et de l'Environnement de Mayotte introduced an official alphabet that utilizes the basic Latin alphabet without c, j, q, and x and adds three letters: ɓ, ɗ, and n̈.
Mayotte Bushi alphabet
Letter
Letter (alphabet)
A letter is a grapheme in an alphabetic system of writing, such as the Greek alphabet and its descendants. Letters compose phonemes and each phoneme represents a phone in the spoken form of the language....

 
Aa Bb Ɓɓ Dd Ɗɗ Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Kk Ll Mm Nn N̈n̈ Oo Pp Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Yy Zz
IPA Value
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...

/a/ /b/ ɓ /d/ ɗ /e/ /f/ /ɡ/ /h/ /i/ /k/ /l/ /m/ /n/ ŋ /o/ /p/ /r/ /s/ /t/ /u/ /v/ /w/ j /z/

External links

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