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Malagasy (in French also: Malgache) is the national language of Madagascar. Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... The Malagasy (in French also les Malgaches) ethnic group forms the vast majority of the population of Madagascar. ... Madagascars population is predominantly of mixed Asian and African origin. ... Current distribution of Human Language Families A language family is a group of related languages said to have descended from a common proto-language. ... The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia. ... The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages used by some 351 million speakers. ... The Borneo-Philippines languages (or Outer Hesperonesian or Outer Western Malayo-Polynesian languages) are a branch of the Austronesian family which include the languages of the Philippines, much of Borneo, the northern peninsula of Sulawesi, and Madagascar, as outlined in Wouk and Ross (2002). ... ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family. ... ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages. ... ISO 639-3 is in process of development as an international standard for language codes. ... Articles with similar titles include the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the “International Phonetic Alphabet”. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ... Phonetics (from the Greek word φωνή, phone meaning sound, voice) is the study of the sounds of human speech. ... Unicode is an industry standard designed to allow text and symbols from all of the writing systems of the world to be consistently represented and manipulated by computers. ...

History

Malagasy has a fairly limited relationship to nearby African languages, instead being the westernmost member of the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian language family, a fact noted as long ago as the eighteenth century. It is related to the Malayo-Polynesian languages of Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines, and more closely with the South-east Barito group of languages spoken in Borneo. Malagasy shares 90% of its basic vocabulary with Maanyan, a language from the region of the Barito River in southern Borneo. This indicates that Madagascar was first settled by Indonesians from this area, though it is not clear precisely when or why such colonisation took place. Later, the original Indonesian settlers must have mixed with East Africans and Arabs, amongst others^{[citation needed]}. The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages. ... The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia. ... The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Borneo is the third largest island in the world. ...

The Malagasy language also includes borrowings from Bantu languages, Swahili and Arabic, as well as from French (the former colonial rulers of Madagascar) and English (spoken by 18th century pirates as well as Christian missionaries from Great Britain).^{[citation needed]} Map showing the approximate distribution of Bantu vs. ... Swahili (also called Kiswahili; see Kiswahili for a discussion of the nomenclature) is an agglutinative Bantu language widely spoken in East Africa. ... Arabic ( or just ) is the largest living member of the Semitic language family in terms of speakers. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...

The language has a written literature going back to the 15th century. Malagasy has a rich tradition of oral and poetic histories and legends. The most famous is the national epic, Ibonia, about a Malagasy folk hero of the same name.

The first book to be printed in Malagasy is the Malagasy Bible which was translated by British Christian missionaries working in the highlands area of Madagascar. The Bible was the first book to be printed in sub-Saharan Africa. A chained book in the Bodleian Library at Oxford University 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, and within protective covers. ... Printing is an industrial process for reproducing copies of texts and images, typically with ink on paper using a printing press. ... This Gutenberg Bible is displayed by the United States Library of Congress. ... A political map showing national divisions in relation to deonte Shepard Club Of America Free burgers for new members the ecological break (Sub-Saharan Africa in green) A geographical map of Africa, showing the ecological break that defines the sub-Saharan area Sub-Saharan Africa is the term used to...

Phonology

Vowels

Vowels Near-close Close-mid Mid Open-mid Near-open Open Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a rounded vowel. ... A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. ... A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. ... A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. ... A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. ... An open vowel is a vowel sound of a type used in most spoken languages. ...

Consonants

The alveolars /s z l/ are slightly palatalized. The velars /k g/ are noticeably palatalized after /i/ (e.g., alika /alikʲa/ "dog"). In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. ... In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lips and the upper teeth, or viceversa. ... Dentals are consonants such as t, d, n, and l articulated with either the lower or the upper teeth, or both, rather than with the gum ridge as in English. ... Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli (the sockets) of the superior teeth. ... Postalveolar (or palato-alveolar) consonants are consonants articulated with the tip of the tongue between the alveolar ridge (the place of articulation for alveolar consonants) and the palate (the place of articulation for palatal consonants). ... Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate (the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum). ... Glottal consonants are consonants articulated with the glottis. ... A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. ... Affricate consonants begin as stops (most often an alveolar, such as or ) but release as a fricative (such as or or, in a couple of languages, into a fricative trill) rather than directly into the following vowel. ... In phonetics, a voiceless consonant is a consonant that does not have voicing. ... A voiced consonant is a sound made as the vocal cords vibrate, as opposed to a voiceless consonant, where the vocal cords are relaxed. ... In phonetics, a voiceless consonant is a consonant that does not have voicing. ... Prenasalized stops are phonetic sequences of nasal plus plosive that behave phonologically like single consonant. ... A voiced consonant is a sound made as the vocal cords vibrate, as opposed to a voiceless consonant, where the vocal cords are relaxed. ... Prenasalized stops are phonetic sequences of nasal plus plosive that behave phonologically like single consonant. ... Fricatives (or spirants) are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. ... In phonetics, a voiceless consonant is a consonant that does not have voicing. ... A voiced consonant is a sound made as the vocal cords vibrate, as opposed to a voiceless consonant, where the vocal cords are relaxed. ... A nasal consonant is produced when the velum—that fleshy part of the palate near the back—is lowered, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. ... 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. ... In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the place of articulation. ... Palatalization means pronouncing a sound nearer to the hard palate, making it more like a palatal consonant; this is towards the front of the mouth for a velar or uvular consonant, but towards the back of the mouth for a front (e. ...

Words are generally accented on the penultimate syllable, unless the word ends in ka, tra or na, in which case they are accented on the antepenultimate syllable. In many dialects, unstressed vowels (except /e/) are devoiced, and in some cases almost completely elided; thus fanorona is pronounced "fa-NOORN-ah", with the final syllable barely spoken. (Malagasy sounds similar to its French transliteration Malgache.) In music, see elision (music). ... Fanorona is a board game indigenous to Madagascar and derived from Alquerque. ...

Orthography

Malagasy has been written using the Latin alphabet since 1823, before which the Arabic Ajami script, or Sorabe ("large writings") as it is known in Madagascar, was used for astrological and magical texts. The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. ... The term Ajami, or Ajamiyya, which comes from the Arabic root for foreign or stranger has been applied to Arabic-based orthographies of African languages. ... Sorabe, or Sora-be, is an alphabet based on Arabic used to transcribe the Malagasy language and the Antemoro dialect in particular. ...

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 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 /ʈʂ/ and /ɖʐ/ 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. The orthography of a language specifies the correct way of writing in that language. ...

@ 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

Diacritics are not obligatory in standard Malagasy. They may however be used in the following ways: A diacritic mark or accent mark is an additional mark added to a basic letter. ...

• ` (grave accent) 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) may be used in
  • very old dictionaries, along with grave accent
  • dialects such as Bara
  • French (Tuléar) and French-spelled (Antsirabé) names. Malagasy versions are Toliara/Toliary and Antsirabe.
• ^ (circumflex) is used as follows:
  • ô shows that the letter is pronounced /o/ and not /u/, in malagasified foreign words (hôpitaly) and dialects (Tôlan̈aro). In standard Malagasy, "ao" is used instead.
  • sometimes the single-letter words "a" and "e" are written "â" and "ê" but it does not change the pronunciation
• ¨ (diaeresis) is used with n̈ in dialects for a velar nasal /ŋ/. Examples are place names such as Tôlan̈aro, Antsiran̈ana, Iharan̈a, Anantson̈o. This can be seen in maps from FTM, the national institute of geodesy and cartography.
• ~ (tilde) is used in ñ sometimes, perhaps when the writer cannot produce an n̈. In Ellis' Bara dialect dictionary, it is used for velar nasal /ŋ/ as well as palatal nasal /ɲ/.

The grave accent ( ` ) is a diacritic mark used in written Greek until 1982 (polytonic orthography), French, Catalan, Welsh, Italian, Vietnamese, Scottish Gaelic, Norwegian, Portuguese and other languages. ... The acute accent (  ) is a diacritic mark used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin and Greek scripts. ... Bara is a Malagasy dialect (or language) spoken by the Bara people in southern Madagascar, roughly the Ihorombe region. ... The circumflex ( ˆ ) (often called a caret, a hat or an uppen) is a diacritic mark used in written Greek, French, Dutch, Esperanto, Norwegian, Romanian, Slovak, Vietnamese, Japanese romaji, Welsh, Portuguese, Italian, Afrikaans and other languages, and formerly in Turkish [citation needed]. It received its English name from Latin circumflexus (bent... In linguistics, a, diaeresis, or dieresis (AE) (from Greek (diaerein), to divide) is the modification of a syllable by distinctly pronouncing one of its vowels. ... A tilde. ... Bara is a Malagasy dialect (or language) spoken by the Bara people in southern Madagascar, roughly the Ihorombe region. ... The velar nasal is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... The palatal nasal is a type of consonant, used in some spoken languages. ...

Grammar

Word Order

Malagasy has a highly unusual Verb Object Subject word order: Verb Object Subject - commonly used in its abbreviated form VOS - is a term in Linguistic typology. ... Word order, in linguistic typology, refers to the order in which words appear in sentences across different languages. ...

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) that the student read").

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

Verbs

Verbs can be either sejunctive (having a separate object) or adjunctive (taking a joined subject, like a personal pronoun). Sejunctive forms are used for active verbs, while adjunctive forms are used for the passive voice. Look up adjunct in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Voice, in grammar, is the relationship between the action or state expressed by a verb, and its arguments (subject, object, etc. ... In grammar, voice is the relationship between the action or state expressed by a verb, and its arguments (subject, object, etc. ...

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 known Vocabulaire Anglais-Malagasy was published in 1729. An 892 page Malagasy-English dictionary was published by James Richardson of the London Missionary Society 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. The London Missionary Society was a non-denominational missionary society formed in England in 1795 by evangelical Anglicans and Nonconformists, largely Congregationalist in outlook, with missions in the islands of the South Pacific and Africa. ...

• Richardson: A New Malagasy-English Dictionary. Farnborough, England: Gregg Press 1967, 892 p. ISBN 0-576-11607-6
• 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.

References

This article or section is missing citations and/or footnotes. This article or section contains insufficiently sourced phrases. Using inline citations helps guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. You may improve the article or discuss this issue on its talk page. Help on using footnotes is available. This article has been tagged since December 2006. Image File history File links Information. ...

See also

• Jean Joseph Rabearivelo

Jean Joseph Rabearivelo (1901 - 1937), was a Malagasy poet writing in both Malagasy and French. ...

External links

Malagasy language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

• Ethnologue report for "Plateau" Malagasy, a major dialect of Malagasy.
• Malagasy - English Dictionary
• PanAfrican L10n page on Malagasy (information for/on localization)