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This article is about the Malagasy language. For the Malagasy ethnic group, see Malagasy people
Malagasy people

The Malagasy ethnic group forms the vast majority of the population of Madagascar. They are divided into two subgroups: the "Highlander" Merina, Sihanaka and Betsileo of the central plateaux around Antananarivo, Alaotra and Fianarantsoa, and the c?tiers elsewhere in the country....
. For the residents or citizens of Madagascar, see Demographics of Madagascar
Demographics of Madagascar

This article is about the demographics features of the population of Madagascar, including population density, Ethnic group, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population....


Malagasy is the national language of Madagascar
Madagascar

Madagascar, or Republic of Madagascar , is an island nation in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa. The main island, also called Madagascar, is the List of islands by area, and is home to 5% of the world's plant and animal species, of which more than 80% are Endemism to Madagascar....
.

Malagasy language is unrelated to nearby African languages, instead being the westernmost member of the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian
Austronesian languages

The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Maritime Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia....
 language family, a fact noted as long ago as the eighteenth century.






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This article is about the Malagasy language. For the Malagasy ethnic group, see Malagasy people
Malagasy people

The Malagasy ethnic group forms the vast majority of the population of Madagascar. They are divided into two subgroups: the "Highlander" Merina, Sihanaka and Betsileo of the central plateaux around Antananarivo, Alaotra and Fianarantsoa, and the c?tiers elsewhere in the country....
. For the residents or citizens of Madagascar, see Demographics of Madagascar
Demographics of Madagascar

This article is about the demographics features of the population of Madagascar, including population density, Ethnic group, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population....


Malagasy is the national language of Madagascar
Madagascar

Madagascar, or Republic of Madagascar , is an island nation in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa. The main island, also called Madagascar, is the List of islands by area, and is home to 5% of the world's plant and animal species, of which more than 80% are Endemism to Madagascar....
.

History

The Malagasy language is unrelated to nearby African languages, instead being the westernmost member of the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian
Austronesian languages

The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Maritime Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia....
 language family, a fact noted as long ago as the eighteenth century. It is related to the Malayo-Polynesian languages of Indonesia
Indonesia

The Republic of Indonesia , is a transcontinental country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Comprising Islands of Indonesia, it is the world's largest Archipelago state....
, Malaysia
Malaysia

Malaysia is a federation that consists of States of Malaysia in Southeast Asia with a total landmass of . The capital city is Kuala Lumpur, while Putrajaya is the seat of the federal government....
, and the Philippines
Philippines

The Philippines, officially known as the Republic of the Philippines, is a country in Southeast Asia with Manila as its capital city. It comprises 7,107 islands in the western Pacific Ocean....
, and more closely with the South-east Barito group of languages spoken in Borneo
Borneo

Borneo is the List of islands by area and is located at the centre of Maritime Southeast Asia. Administratively, this island is divided between Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei....
 except for its Polynesian morphophonemics. Malagasy shares much of its basic vocabulary with Ma'anyan language, a language from the region of the Barito River
Barito River

Barito is a river in South Kalimantan, Indonesia which passes through the city of Banjarmasin.References...
 in southern Borneo
Borneo

Borneo is the List of islands by area and is located at the centre of Maritime Southeast Asia. Administratively, this island is divided between Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei....
. This indicates that Madagascar was first settled by Austronesian people
Austronesian people

Austronesian people are a population group present in Oceania and Southeast Asia who speak, or had ancestors who spoke, one of the Austronesian languages....
 from Island South-East Asia who had transited through Borneo, though it is not clear precisely when or why such colonisation took place. Later, the original Austronesian settlers must have mixed with East Africans and Arabs, amongst others. http://www.agape1.fr is the first Malagasy webradio which broadcasts in the Malagasy language. The Malagasy language also includes some borrowings from Arabic
Arabic language

Arabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages languages such as Hebrew language and Aramaic language....
, and Bantu languages
Bantu languages

The Bantu languages constitute a grouping belonging to the Niger-Congo languages family. This grouping is deep down in the genealogical tree of the Bantoid grouping, which in turn is deep down in the Niger-Congo tree....
 (notably Swahili). The language has a written literature going back presumably to the 15th century. When the French established Fort-Dauphin
Tôlanaro

T?lanaro or Tolagnaro is a city in Madagascar. It is the capital of the Anosy region, of the T?lanaro district, and is in the former Toliara Province....
 in the 17th century, they found an arabico-malagasy script in use. The oldest known manuscript in that script is a short Malagasy-Dutch vocabulary from the early 17th century first published in 1908 by Gabriel Ferrand though the script must have been introduced into the South-East area of Madagascar in the 15th century. Radama I
Radama I of Madagascar

Radama I "the Great" , the first king of Madagascar, united the island under his rule.In 1810, he succeeded his father Andrianampoinimerina as king of Merina, a small area in the central plateau of the island, around Antananarivo....
, the first literate representative of the Merina monarchy
History of Madagascar

The recorded history of Madagascar began in the 7th century when the Arabs established trading posts along the northwest coast of the island. Madagascar's prehistory began when the first human settlers arrived, which included a large component from Southeast Asia....
, though extensively versed in the arabico-malagasy tradition, opted for alphabetization in Latin characters and invited the Protestant London Missionary Society
LMS

LMS may refer to:* Leamington Spa railway station, England; National Rail station code LMS* Learning management system* Least mean squares filter, an adaptive filter algorithm for digital signal processing...
 to establish schools and churches.

Malagasy has a rich tradition of oral and poetic histories and legends. The most famous is the national epic, Ibonia
Malagasy mythology

Madagascar mythology is rooted in oral history and has been transmitted by storytelling , notably the Andriambahoaka epic, including the Ibonia cycle....
, about a Malagasy folk hero of the same name.

The first book
Book

A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of paper, parchment, or other material, usually fastened together to hinge at one side....
 to be printed in Malagasy is the Bible
Bible

The Bible is the central religious text of Judaism and Christianity. The exact Books of the Bible is dependent on the religious traditions of specific denominations....
, which was translated into Malagasy in 1835 by British Christian missionaries working in the highlands area of Madagascar. The first bilingual renderings of religious texts are those by Etienne de Flacourt
Étienne de Flacourt

Etienne de Flacourt was a France governor of Madagascar, born at Orl?ans in 1607. He was named governor of Madagascar by the French East India Company in 1648....
 , who also published the first dictionary of the language.

Phonology


Vowels

Front
Front vowel

A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant....
 Central
Central vowel

A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel....
 Back
Back vowel

A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant....
Close
Close vowel

A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant....
i, y
 o
Mid
Mid vowel

A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an open vowel and a close vowel....
e
 ao, ô
Open
Open vowel

An open vowel is a vowel sound of a type used in most spoken languages. The defining characteristic of an open vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth....
 a
 


Consonants

Bilabial
Bilabial consonant

In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...
 Labiodental
Labiodental consonant

In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants Place of articulation with the lower lip and the upper teeth. The labiodental consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...
 Dental
Dental consonant

In linguistics, a dental consonant or dental is a consonant that is articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth, such as , , , and in some languages....
 Alveolar
Alveolar consonant

Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the Dental alveolus of the superior teeth....
 Retroflex
Retroflex consonant

In phonetics, retroflex consonants are consonant sounds used in some languages. The tongue is placed behind the alveolar ridge, and may even be curled back to touch the palate: that is, they are articulated in the postalveolar consonant to palatal consonant region of the mouth....
 Velar
Velar consonant

Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the Soft palate)....
 Glottal
Glottal consonant

Glottal consonants are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricatives, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider them to be consonants at all....
Nasal
Nasal consonant

A nasal consonant is produced with a lowered soft palate in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The oral cavity still acts as a resonance chamber for the sound, but the air does not escape through the mouth as it is blocked by the tongue....
     
Plosive
or
affricate
Affricate consonant

Affricate consonants begin as stop consonants but release as a fricative consonant rather than directly into the following vowel....
 Voiceless  
Voiceless prenasalized
Prenasalized consonant

Prenasalized stops or consonants are phonetics sequences of nasal consonant plus plosive consonant that behave phonology like single consonants....
  
Voiced  
Voiced prenasalized
Prenasalized consonant

Prenasalized stops or consonants are phonetics sequences of nasal consonant plus plosive consonant that behave phonology like single consonants....
  
Fricative
Fricative consonant

Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two Place of articulation close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German language , the final consonant of Bach; or the side of the tongue ag...
 Voiceless    
Voiced     
Lateral
Lateral consonant

Laterals are "L"-like consonants pronounced with an occlusion made somewhere along the axis of the tongue, while air from the lungs escapes at one side or both sides of the tongue....
      
Trill
Trill consonant

In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the place of articulation. Standard Spanish <rr > as in perro is an alveolar trill, while in Parisian French it is almost always uvular trill....
      


The alveolars are slightly palatalized
Palatalization

Palatalization or palatalisation generally refers to two phenomena:*As a process or the result of a process, the effect that front vowels and the palatal approximant frequently have on consonants;...
. The velars are palatalized after (e.g., alika 'dog').

Words are generally accented on the penultimate syllable, unless the word ends in ka, tra or na, in which case they are stressed on the antepenultimate syllable. In many dialects, unstressed vowels (except ) are devoiced, and in some cases almost completely elided
Elision

Elision is the omission of one or more sounds in a word or phrase, producing a result that is easier for the speaker to pronounce. Sometimes, sounds may be elided for euphony effect....
; thus fanorona
Fanorona

Fanorona is a board game indigenous to Madagascar and derived from Alquerque....
 is pronounced .

Orthography

Malagasy has been written using the Latin alphabet
Latin alphabet

The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. It evolved from the western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumae alphabet, and was initially developed by the Ancient Romes to write the Latin....
 since 1823, before which the Arabic Ajami script
Ajami script

The term Ajami , or Ajamiyya , which comes from the Arabic root for "foreign" or "stranger" has been applied to Arabic script of African languages....
, or Sorabe ("large writings") as it is known in Madagascar
Madagascar

Madagascar, or Republic of Madagascar , is an island nation in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa. The main island, also called Madagascar, is the List of islands by area, and is home to 5% of the world's plant and animal species, of which more than 80% are Endemism to Madagascar....
, was used for astrological and magical texts.

The alphabet consists of 21 letters: a, b, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, r, s, t, v, y, z. The orthography
Orthography

The orthography of a language specifies the correct way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Orthography is derived from Greek language ????? orth?s and ???fe?? gr?phein ....
 maps rather straightforwardly to phonetics. The letters i and y both represent the /i/ sound (y is used word-finally, and i elsewhere), while o is pronounced /u/. The affricates /??/ and /??/ are written tr and dr, respectively, while /ts/ and /dz/ are written ts and j. The letter h is often silent. All other letters have essentially their IPA values.

@ is used informally as a short form for amin'ny, which is a preposition followed by the definite form, meaning for instance with the.

Diacritics

Diacritic
Diacritic

A diacritic is a small sign added to a letter to alter pronunciation or to distinguish between similar words. The term derives from the Greek language d?a???t???? ....
s are not obligatory in standard Malagasy. They may however be used in the following ways:
  • ` (grave accent
    Grave accent

    The grave accent is a diacritical mark used in written Catalan language, French language, Greek language until 1982 , Italian language, Norwegian language, Occitan language, Portuguese language, Scottish Gaelic language, Vietnamese language, Welsh language, Dutch language, and other languages....
    ) shows the stressed syllable in a word. It is frequently used for disambiguation. For instance in "tanàna" (town) and "tanana" (hand), where the word that is an exception to the usual pronunciation rules (tanàna) gets an accent. Using accent on the word that follows the pronunciation rules ("tànana") is less common, mainly in dictionaries.
  • ´ (acute accent
    Acute accent

    The acute accent is a diacritic mark used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin alphabet, Cyrillic alphabet and Greek alphabet writing systems....
    ) may be used in
    • very old dictionaries, along with grave accent
    • dialects such as Bara
      Bara Malagasy

      Bara is a Malagasy dialect spoken by the Bara people in southern Madagascar, roughly the Ihorombe region.There is some literature written about Bara, for instance Elli's Bara-Italian language illustrated dictionary, now sold out....
    • French (Tuléar) and French-spelled (Antsirabé) names. Malagasy versions are Toliara/Toliary and Antsirabe.
  • ^ (circumflex
    Circumflex

    The circumflex is a diacritic mark used in written Serbian language, Croatian language, Esperanto, French language, West Frisian language, Norwegian language, Romanian language, Slovak language, Vietnamese language, Romaji, Romanization of Persian, Welsh language, Portuguese language, Italian language, Afrikaans language, Turkish language...
    ) is used as follows:
    • ô shows that the letter is pronounced /o/ and not /u/, in malagasified foreign words (hôpitaly) and dialects . In standard Malagasy, "ao" or "oa" (as in "mivoaka") is used instead.
    • sometimes the single-letter words "a" and "e" are written "â" and "ê" but it does not change the pronunciation
  • ¨ (diaeresis
    Diaeresis

    In linguistics, diaeresis, or dieresis, is the pronunciation of two adjacent vowels in two separate syllables rather than as a diphthong, and it is also the name of the diacritic mark used to prompt the reader to pronounce adjacent vowels in this manner....
    ) is used with in dialects for a velar nasal . Examples are place names such as . This can be seen in maps from FTM, the national institute of geodesy and cartography.
  • ~ (tilde
    Tilde

    The tilde is a grapheme with several uses. The name of the character comes from Spanish language, from the Latin wikt:titulus meaning a title or superscription, though the term ?tilde? has evolved in that language and now has a different meaning in Linguistics....
    ) is used in ñ sometimes, perhaps when the writer cannot produce an . In Ellis' Bara
    Bara Malagasy

    Bara is a Malagasy dialect spoken by the Bara people in southern Madagascar, roughly the Ihorombe region.There is some literature written about Bara, for instance Elli's Bara-Italian language illustrated dictionary, now sold out....
     dialect dictionary, it is used for velar nasal
    Velar nasal

    The velar nasal is a type of consonantal sound, used in some Speech communication languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is N....
      as well as palatal nasal
    Palatal nasal

    The palatal nasal is a type of consonant, used in some Speech communication languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is J....
     .


Grammar


Word Order

Malagasy has a highly unusual Verb Object Subject
Verb Object Subject

In linguistic typology, 'Verb Object Subject' or 'Verb Object Agent' - commonly used in its abbreviated form 'VOS' or 'VOA' - represents the language-classification type of which the following sequence of the three constituents, in neutral expressions, is an example: "Eats oranges Sam."...
 word order
Word order

In linguistics, word order typology refers to the study of the different ways in which languages arrange the constituents of their sentences relative to each other, and the systematic correspondences of between these arrangements....
:

Mamaky boky ny mpianatra
(reads book the student)
"The student is reading the book"

Nividy ronono ho an'ny zaza ny vehivavy
(bought milk for the child the woman)
"The woman bought milk for the child"

Within phrases, Malagasy order is typical of head initial languages: Malagasy has prepositions rather than postpositions (ho an'ny zaza "for the child"). Determiners precede the noun, while quantifiers, modifying adjective phrases, and relative clauses follow the noun (ny boky "the book(s)", ny boky mena "the red book(s)", ny boky rehetra "all the books", ny boky novakin'ny mpianatra "the book(s) read by the student(s)").

Somewhat unusually, demonstrative determiners are repeated both before and after the noun ity boky ity "this book" (lit. "this book this").

Verbs

Verbs have syntactically three productive "voice" forms according to the thematic role they play in the sentence: the basic "agent focus" forms of the majority of Malagasy verbs, the derived "patient focus" forms used in "passive" constructions, and the derived "goal focus" forms used in constructions with focus on instrumentality. Thus

  • (1) Manasa amin'ny savony ny tanako aho. ("I am washing my hands with soap".)
  • (2) Sasako amin'ny savony ny tanako. ("My hands are washed with soap by me".)
  • (3) Anasako ny tanako ny savony. ("It is with soap that my hands are washed by me".)


all mean "I wash my hands with soap" though focus is determined in each case by the sentence initial verb form and the sentence final (noun) argument: manasa "wash" and aho "I" in (1), sasako "wash" and ny tanako in (2), anasako "wash" and ny savony "soap" in (3). It should be noted that there is no equivalent to the English preposition with in (3).

Verbs inflect for past, present, and future tense, where tense is marked by prefixes (e.g., mividy "buy", nividy "bought", hividy "will buy").

Nouns, Pronouns, Locative Adverbials

Malagasy has no grammatical gender, and nouns do not inflect for number. However, pronouns and demonstratives have distinct singular and plural forms (cf. io boky io "that book", ireto boky ireto "these books").

There is a complex series of personal and demonstrative pronouns, depending on the speaker's familiarity and closeness to the referent.

Lexicography

The first dictionary of the language is Étienne de Flacourt's Dictionnaire de la langue de Madagascar published in 1658 though earlier glossaries written in arabico-malagasy script exist. A later Vocabulaire Anglais-Malagasy was published in 1729. An 892 page Malagasy-English dictionary was published by James Richardson of the London Missionary Society
London Missionary Society

The London Missionary Society was a non-denominational missionary society formed in England in 1795 by evangelical Anglicanism and Nonconformism, largely Congregational church in outlook, with missions in the islands of the Oceania and Africa....
 in 1885. It is available as a reprint. It seems that a similar English-Malagasy dictionary was never published. Later works have been of lesser size.

  • Richardson: A New Malagasy-English Dictionary. Farnborough, England: Gregg Press 1967, 892 p. ISBN 0-576-11607-6 (Original edition, Antananarivo: The London Missionary Society, 1885).
  • Diksionera Malagasy-Englisy. Antananarivo: Trano Printy Loterana 1973, 103 p.
  • An Elementary English-Malagasy Dictionary. Antananarivo: Trano Printy Loterana 1969, 118 p.
  • English-Malagasy Phrase Book. Antananarivo: Editions Madprint 1973, 199 p. (Les Guides de Poche de Madagasikara.)
  • Paginton, K: English-Malagasy Vocabulary. Antananarivo: Trano Printy Loterana 1970, 192 p.
  • Rakibolana Malagasy. Fianarantsoa: Régis RAJEMISOA - RAOLISON 1995, 1061 p.


Samples

The following samples are of the Merina dialect (also known as "Official Malagasy"), spoken in the capital of Madagascar and in the central highlands or "plateau," home of the Merina
Merina

The Merina is the largest ethnic group in Madagascar. Boasting a population of 3 million, which equals to about one-quarter of the country's population, they speak a Malayo-Polynesian language and are concentrated in the central highlands....
 tribe. It is generally understood throughout the island.
English Malagasy
English Anglisy
Yes Eny
No Tsia
Hello! and How are You? Manao ahoana!
Hello! (rural areas) Salama!
I'm fine, thank you. Tsara fa misaotra.
Goodbye! Veloma!
Please Azafady
Thank you Misaotra
You're welcome Tsy misy fisaorana.
Excuse me Azafady with arm and hand pointing to the ground
Sorry Miala tsiny
Who? Iza?
What? Inona?
When? Rahoviana?
Where? Aiza?
Why? Fa maninona?
How? Ahoana?
How many? Firy?
How much? Hoatrinona?
What's your name? Iza ny anaranao?
For Ho an'ny
Because Satria
I don't understand. Tsy mazava.
Yes, I understand. Eny, mazava.
Help! Vonjeo!
Can you help me please? Afaka manampy ahy ve ianao azafady?
Where are the bathrooms? Aiza ny efitrano fivoahana?
Do you speak English? Miteny anglisy ve ianao?
I do not speak Malagasy. Tsy mahay teny malagasy aho.
I do not speak French. Tsy mahay teny frantsay aho.
I am thirsty. Mangetaheta aho.
I am hungry. Noana aho.
I am tired. Vizaka aho.
I need to pee. Poritra aho.
I would like to go to Antsirabe. Te-handeha any Antsirabe aho.
That's expensive! Lafo be izany!
I'm hungry for some rice. Noana [vary] aho.
What can I do for you? Inona azoko atao ho anao?
I like... Tiako...
I love you. Tiako ianao.
Numbers
one isa/iray
two roa
three telo
four efatra
five dimy
six enina
seven fito
eight valo
nine sivy
ten folo
eleven iraika ambin'ny folo
twelve roa ambin'ny folo
twenty roapolo
thirty telopolo
forty efapolo
fifty dimampolo
sixty enim_polo
seventy fitopolo
eighty valopolo
ninety sivifolo
one hundred zato
two hundred roan-jato
one thousand arivo
ten thousand iray alina
one hundred thousand iray hetsy
one million iray tapitrisa
one billion iray lavitrisa
3,568,942 roa amby (ambin'ny) efapolo sy sivin_jato sy valo
arivo sy enina alina sy dimy hetsy sy telo tapitrisa


Additional references

  • Biddulph, Joseph (1997). An Introduction to Malagasy. Wales. ISBN 1-897999-15-1
  • Hurles, Matthew E., et al. (2005). The Dual Origin of the Malagasy in Island Southeast Asia and East Africa: Evidence from Maternal and Paternal Lineages. American Journal of Human Genetics 76:894-901.


See also

  • Étienne de Flacourt
    Étienne de Flacourt

    Etienne de Flacourt was a France governor of Madagascar, born at Orl?ans in 1607. He was named governor of Madagascar by the French East India Company in 1648....
  • Gabriel Ferrand
  • Jean Joseph Rabearivelo
    Jean Joseph Rabearivelo

    Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo is widely considered to be Africa's first modern poet. Born Joseph-Casimir, in Tananarive , the capital of Madagascar, just five years after the island nation had become a France colony, he was the only child of an unwed mother whose family wealth had been lost....


External links

  • , a major dialect of Malagasy.
  • (information for/on localization)
  • – the complete text of the 1865 Malagasy Bible