Malagasy language Totally Explained

Everything about Malagasy Language totally explained

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 (in French also: Malgache) is the national language of Madagascar.
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. 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 isn't clear precisely when or why such colonisation took place. Later, the original Austronesian settlers must have mixed with East Africans and Arabs, amongst others. 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 working in the highlands area of Madagascar. The first bilingual renderings of religious texts are those by Etienne de Flacourt, who also published the first dictionary of the language.
Phonology

Vowels

Front Central Back
Close i, y
/i/ o
/u/

Mid e
/e/ ao, ô
/o/

Open a
/a/

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/ (for example, alika /alikʲa/ 'dog').
   Words are generally accented on the penultimate syllable, unless the word ends in ka, tra or na, in which case they're 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].
Orthography
Malagasy has been written using the Latin alphabet since 1823, before which the Arabic Ajami script, or Sorabe ("large writings") as it's 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
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's 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 doesn't 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 can't produce an n̈. In Ellis' Bara dialect dictionary, it's used for velar nasal /ŋ/ as well as palatal nasal /ɲ/.

Grammar

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").
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's no equivalent to the English preposition with in (3).
   Verbs inflect for past, present, and future tense, where tense is marked by prefixes (for example, mividy "buy", nividy "bought", hividy "will buy").
Nouns, Pronouns, Locative Adverbials
Malagasy has no grammatical gender, and nouns don't 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 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.
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. 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 don't speak Malagasy. Tsy mahay teny Gasy aho.

I don't speak French. Tsy mahay teny frantsay aho.

I'm thirsty. Mangetaheta aho.

I'm hungry. Noana aho.

I'm tired. Vizaka aho.

I need to pee. Poritra aho.

I'd 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

Further Information
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