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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 See also 9 External links

Malagasy 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. 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 from this area, 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.^{[citation needed]}

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 Malagasy Bible which was translated by British Christian missionaries working in the highlands area of Madagascar.

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

		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].

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.

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" 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/.

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").

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.

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

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.

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.

• 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.

The following samples are of the Imerina dialect, spoken in the capital of Madagascar and in the central highlands or "plateau," home of the Imerina 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?	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 mahazo aho.
Yes, I understand.	Een, 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

^[1]

This article or section is missing citations or needs footnotes. Using inline citations helps guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies.(December 2006)

• Jean Joseph Rabearivelo

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