Malagasy

Story

Malagasy is the only Austronesian language spoken in Africa, and its presence on Madagascar is one of the most astonishing stories in the history of human migration: around 1,500 years ago, seafarers from the Barito river region of southern Borneo crossed roughly 7,000 kilometres of open Indian Ocean in outrigger canoes and settled on Madagascar. The language most closely related to Malagasy today is Ma'anyan, still spoken by a small community along the Barito River in Indonesian Borneo, and the two languages share approximately 45 percent of their basic vocabulary. After the initial Austronesian settlement, Malagasy absorbed significant Bantu loanwords from East African traders and later Arabic vocabulary from Arab merchants, creating its distinctive layered character, yet it remained structurally Austronesian throughout. Linguist Otto Dahl established the Bornean origin definitively in 1951, a finding later confirmed by genetic studies showing that the highland Merina people of Madagascar carry roughly 77 percent Southeast Asian ancestry.

At a glance

• Also known as: Malagasy
• Family: Austronesian
• Region: East Africa
• Speakers: 25M (total speakers: approximately 25 million, the vast majority in madagascar where it is spoken as a first language by most of the population)
• Writing system: Latin (also historically Arabic-based Sorabe script)
• Greeting: Manahoana (hello, used at any time of day)

Spoken in

Madagascar, Comoros

Common questions