Malagasy language

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This article is about the Malagasy language. For the Malagasy ethnic group, see Malagasy people. For the residents or citizens of Madagascar, see Demographics of Madagascar

Malagasy
Spoken in:	Madagascar, Comoros, Réunion, Mayotte
Total speakers:	17 million
Language family:	Austronesian  Malayo-Polynesian   Borneo-Philippines    Barito     Malagasy
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	mg
ISO 639-2:	mlg
ISO 639-3:	mlg
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Malagasy (in French also: Malgache) is the national language of Madagascar.

Contents 1 History 2 Phonology 2.1 Vowels 2.2 Consonants 3 Orthography 3.1 Diacritics 4 Grammar 4.1 Word Order 4.2 Verbs 4.3 Nouns, Pronouns, Locative Adverbials 5 Lexicography 6 Samples 7 References 8 Additional references 9 See also 10 External links

[edit] History

The Malagasy language is unrelated 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 except for its Polynesian morphophonemics.^[1] Malagasy shares much 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 Austronesian people who had come from 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.^[2] The Malagasy language also includes borrowings from Bantu languages (notably 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).

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 Bible, which was translated into Malagasy in 1835 by British Christian missionaries^[3] working in the highlands area of Madagascar. The first bilingual renderings of religious texts are those by Etienne de Flacourt ^[4], who also published the first dictionary of the language.^[5]

[edit] Phonology

[edit] Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i, y /i/		o /u/
Mid	e /e/		ao, ô /o/
Open		a /a/

[edit] Consonants

		Bilabial	Labiodental	Dental	Alveolar	Retroflex	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m			n
Plosive or affricate	Voiceless	p		t	ts	ʈʂ	k
	Voiceless prenasalized	mp		nt	nts	ɳʈʂ	ŋk
	Voiced	b		d	dz	ɖʐ	ɡ
	Voiced prenasalized	mb		nd	ndz	ɳɖʐ	ŋɡ
Fricative	Voiceless		f		s			h
	Voiced		v		z
Lateral					l
Trill					r

The alveolars /s z l/ are slightly palatalized. The velars /k g/ are palatalized after /i/ (e.g., alika /alikʲa/ '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 /e/) are devoiced, and in some cases almost completely elided; thus fanorona is pronounced [fḁˈnornḁ].

[edit] 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 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.

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

[edit] Diacritics

Diacritics are not obligatory in standard Malagasy. They may however be used in the following ways:

• ` (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" 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) 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/.

[edit] Grammar

[edit] Word Order

Malagasy has a highly unusual Verb Object Subject word order:

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").

[edit] 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 tanana aho.
• (2) Sasako amin'ny savony ny tanana.
• (3) Anasako ny tanana ny savony.

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 tanana 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").

[edit] 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.

[edit] Lexicography

The first dictionnary 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 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.

[edit] Samples

The following samples are of the Imerina dialect (also known as 'Official Malagasy'), spoken in the capital of Madagascar and in the central highlands or "plateau," home of the Imerina tribe.^[6] 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?	Rahaoviana?
Where?	Aiza?
Why?	Fa maninona?
How?	Ahoana?
How many?	Firy?
How much?	Hoatrinona?
What's your name?	Iza no anaranao?
For	Ho any
Because	Satria
I don't understand.	Tsy azoko.
Yes, I understand.	Eny, azoko.
Help!	Vonjeo!
Can you help me please?	Afaka manampy ahy ve ianao?
Where are the bathrooms?	Aiza no ivoahana?
Do you speak English?	Mahay teny anglisy ve ianao?
I do not speak Malagasy.	Tsy mahay teny Gasy 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 mankany 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 no ataoko anao?
I like...	Tiako...
I love you.	Tiako ianao.
Numbers
one	iray
two	roa
three	telo
four	efatra
five	dimy
six	enina
seven	fito
eight	valo
nine	sivy
ten	folo
eleven	iray ambin'ny folo
twelve	roa ambin'ny folo
twenty	roapolo
thirty	telopolo
forty	efapolo
fifty	dimampolo
sixty	enim_polo
seventy	fitopolo
eighty	valopolo
ninety	sivinfolo
one hundred	zato
two hundred	roan_jato
one thousand	arivo
ten thousand	iray alina
one hundred thousand	iray hetsy
one million	iray tapitrisa
3,568,942	roa amby (ambin'ny) efapolo sy sivin_jato sy valo arivo sy enina alina sy dimy hetsy sy telo tapitrisa

[edit] References

[edit] 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.

[edit] See also

• Étienne de Flacourt
• Gabriel Ferrand
• Jean Joseph Rabearivelo

[edit] External links

• Ethnologue report for "Plateau" Malagasy, a major dialect of Malagasy.
• Malagasy - English Dictionary
• PanAfrican L10n page on Malagasy (information for/on localization)
• La Bible Malgache en texte intégral – the complete text of the 1865 Malagasy Bible