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76-425: The Sakalava denominate a number of smaller ethnic groups that once comprised an empire, rather than an ethnic group in its own right. The origin of the word Sakalava itself is still subject to controversy, as well as its actual meaning. The most common explanation is the modern Malagasy translation of Sakalava meaning long ravines, denoting the relatively flat nature of the land in western Madagascar. Another theory

152-542: A verb–object–subject (VOS) word order : Mamaky reads boky book ny the mpianatra student Mamaky boky ny mpianatra reads book the student "The student reads the book" Nividy bought Merina The Merina people (also known as the Imerina , Antimerina , Hova , Borizany or Ambaniandro ) formerly called Amboalambo are the largest ethnic group in Madagascar . They are

228-665: A 70% similarity in lexicon with the Merina dialect. The Eastern dialects are: The Western dialects are: Additionally, the Bushi dialect (41,700 speakers) is spoken on the French overseas territory of Mayotte , which is part of the Comoro island chain situated northwest of Madagascar. The two main dialects of Malagasy are easily distinguished by several phonological features. Sakalava lost final nasal consonants, whereas Merina added

304-547: A phonological quality not unlike that of Portuguese . /o/ is marginal in Merina dialect, found in interjections and loan words, though it is also found in place names from other dialectical areas. /ai, au/ are diphthongs [ai̯, au̯] in careful speech, [e, o] or [ɛ, ɔ] in more casual speech. /ai/ , whichever way it is pronounced, affects following /k, ɡ/ as /i/ does. The alveolars /s ts z dz l/ are slightly palatalized . /ts, dz, s, z/ vary between [ts, dz, s, z] and [tʃ, dʒ, ʃ, ʒ] , and are especially likely to be

380-622: A protectorate in 1894, which the then Merina Queen refused to sign to. The Second Franco-Hova War followed in 1895, when the French military landed in Mahajanga (Majunga) and marched by way of the Betsiboka River to the capital, Antananarivo , taking the city's defenders by surprise. In 1896, the French annexed Madagascar , and in 1897 the Merina people became the residents of the colony of French Madagascar . In early 20th century,

456-541: A recent tomb. The Merine people were divided into three strata: the Andriana (nobles), the Hova (freemen), and the lowest strata called Andevo (slaves). Each strata had been then hierarchically subdivided. The Andriana are divided into six sub-strata, each had an inherited occupation, and were endogamous. The nineteenth century records show that Andevo or slaves were imported blacks, and they constituted about

532-519: A third of the Merina society. The Merina society sold highland slaves to both Muslim and European slave traders on Madagascar coast, as well as bought East African and southeast African slaves from them for their own plantations between 1795 and 1895. Marriage and any sexual relations between the fotsy and mainty were a taboo. According to a 2012 report by Gulnara Shahinian, the United Nation's Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery,

608-597: A voiceless [ə̥] : Final *t became -[tse] in the one but -[ʈʂə̥] in the other: Sakalava retains ancestral *li and *ti, whereas in Merina these become [di] (as in huditra 'skin' above) and [tsi] : However, these last changes started in Borneo before the Malagasy arrived in Madagascar. The language has a written literature going back presumably to the 15th century. When the French established Fort-Dauphin in

684-417: A word, but they are pronounced /p, t/ . @ 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, except in the case where its absence leads to an ambiguity: tanàna ("city") must have the diacritic to discriminate itself from tanana ("hand"). They may however be used in

760-491: Is an Austronesian language and dialect continuum spoken in Madagascar . The standard variety, called Official Malagasy, is an official language of Madagascar alongside French . Malagasy is the westernmost Malayo-Polynesian language , brought to Madagascar with the settlement of Austronesian speakers from the Sunda Islands (about 7,300 kilometres or 4,500 miles away) around the 5th century AD or perhaps between

836-506: Is considered the national language of Madagascar. It is one of two official languages alongside French in the 2010 constitution put in place the Fourth Republic. Previously, under the 2007 constitution, Malagasy was one of three official languages alongside French and English. Malagasy is the language of instruction in all public schools through grade five for all subjects, and remains the language of instruction through high school for

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912-462: Is evidence that the predecessors of the Malagasy dialects first arrived in the southern stretch of the east coast of Madagascar. Adelaar (2017) proposes that a distinct Malagasy speech community had already been established in South Borneo before the early Malagasy speakers migrated to East Africa. Malagasy has a tradition of oratory arts and poetic histories and legends. The most well-known

988-740: Is not clear if they are actually trilled, or are simply non- sibilant affricates [ʈɻ̊˔ ᶯʈɻ̊˔ ɖɻ˔ ᶯɖɻ˔] . However, in another Austronesian language with a claimed trilled affricate, Fijian , trilling occurs but is rare, and the primary distinguishing feature is that it is postalveolar. The Malagasy sounds are frequently transcribed [ ʈʂ ᶯʈʂ ɖʐ ᶯɖʐ ], and that is the convention used in this article. In reduplication, compounding, possessive and verbal constructions, as well as after nasals, fricatives and liquids, 'spirants' become stops, as follows: Here, stressed syllables are indicated by grave diacritics ⟨à⟩ , although these diacritics are normally not used. Words are generally accented on

1064-434: Is pronounced [fə̥ˈnurnə̥] . According to Penelope Howe in 2019, Central Malagasy is undergoing tonogenesis , with syllables containing voiced consonants are "fully devoiced" and acquire a low tone ( /ba/ → [b̥à] ), while those containing unvoiced consonants acquire a high tone ( /pa/ → [pá] ). However, this development appears to not occur in posttonic syllables, and she called it " pitch accent " instead. Malagasy has

1140-528: Is spoken by around 25 million people in Madagascar and the Comoros . Most people in Madagascar speak it as a first language, as do some people of Malagasy descent elsewhere. Malagasy is divided across its twelve dialects between two main dialect groups; Eastern and Western. The central plateau of the island, where the capital Antananarivo and the old heartland of the Merina Kingdom is located, speaks

1216-692: Is that the Indonesian Austronesian came directly across the Indian Ocean from Java to Madagascar. It is likely that they went through the Maldives , where evidence of old Indonesian boat design and fishing technology persists until the present. The migrations continued along the first millennium, as confirmed by linguistic researchers who showed the close relationship between the Malagasy language and Old Malay and Old Javanese languages of this period. The Malagasy language originates from

1292-477: Is that the word is possibly from the Arabic saqaliba , which is in turn derived from Late Latin sclavus , meaning slave. Sakalavas are considered to be a mix of Austronesians and Bantu peoples . Austronesian people started settling in Madagascar between 400 and 900 CE. They arrived by boats and were from various southeast Asian and Oceanian groups. The earliest confirmed settlements, on Nosy Mangabe and in

1368-437: Is the language of instruction in all public schools through grade five for all subjects, and remains the language of instruction through high school for the subjects of history and Malagasy language. King Radama I welcomed Christian missionaries to establish missions on Madagascar in the 1810s. The Merina nobles were among the first to convert to Christianity. The London Missionary Society established numerous missions along

1444-456: Is the national epic, Ibonia , about a Malagasy folk hero of the same name. Malagasy is the principal language spoken on the island of Madagascar. It is also spoken by Malagasy communities on neighboring Indian Ocean islands such as Réunion , Mayotte and Mauritius . Expatriate Malagasy communities speaking the language also exist in Europe and North America. The Merina dialect of Malagasy

1520-404: The French . The Makua people from Mozambique were one of the major victims of this demand, slave capture and export that attempted to satisfy this demand. The slavery was abolished by the French administration in 1896, which adversely impacted the fortunes of Merina and non-Merina operated slave-run plantations. The dominance of the Merina kingdom over all of Madagascar came to an end with

1596-460: The Swahili , Arab and Indian and Tamil traders came to the island's northern regions. Enslaved people from mainland Africa were brought to the island in increasing numbers between the 15th and the 18th centuries, particularly to the region where Sakalava people now live. This influx of diverse people led to various Malagasy sub-ethnicities in the mid-2nd millennium. The Portuguese traders were

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1672-572: The Zafiraminia (sons of Ramini) clans from the southwestern part of the island, possibly from Arab origin. The demand for slaves by first Omani Arabs who controlled the Zanzibar slave trade, and later European slave-traders, led to slave raiding operations and exercise of control on the major ports on the north and northwest region of Madagascar. Initially the Arabs exclusively supplied weapons to

1748-412: The first Franco-Hova War of 1883 to 1885, triggered by the disputed lease signed by Radama II. At the war's end, Madagascar ceded Antsiranana (Diégo Suarez) on the northern coast to France and paid 560,000 gold francs to the heirs of Joseph-François Lambert, a Frenchman who had been promised lucrative trade privileges under King Radama II that had later been revoked. The French declared Madagascar as

1824-461: The "highlander" Malagasy ethnic group of the African island and one of the country's eighteen official ethnic groups . Their origins are mixed, predominantly with Austronesians arriving before the 5th century AD with Bantu Africans resulting in a core population known as Vazimba, later by large number of Javanese and a minority of Arabs, Indians and Europeans. They speak the Merina dialect of

1900-401: The 17th century, they found an Arabico-Malagasy script in use, known as Sorabe ("large writings"). This Arabic-derived Sorabe alphabet was mainly used for astrological and magical texts. The oldest known manuscript in that script is a short Malagasy-Dutch vocabulary from the early 17th century, which was first published in 1908 by Gabriel Ferrand though the script must have been introduced into

1976-424: The 18th century – the other two being Sakalava kingdom on the west-northwest and Betsimisaraka kingdom on the east-northeast. These early Merina settlers through their industriousness and innovative abilities built vast irrigation projects that helped drain the plateau marshes, irrigate arable lands, and grow rice two times every year. They emerged as the politically dominant group and a wealthy kingdom towards

2052-774: The 1920s through communists who gained concessions by partnering with the French Left in France. A famine in 1943–44 led to an open rebellion in Madagascar. The 1946 constitution of the French Fourth Republic made Madagascar a territoire d'outre-mer (overseas territory) within the French Union. Madagascar gained full independence in 1958 as the Malagasy Republic . The Merina people faced competition from other ethnic groups. The first president of

2128-456: The 2010 constitution putting in place the Fourth Republic. Previously, under the 2007 constitution, Malagasy was one of three official languages alongside French and English. Merina is the national language of Madagascar. An estimated 7.5 million people were fluent in this language in 2011, according to Ethnologue. It is written in Latin script, introduced by Christian missionaries. Merina

2204-631: The 7th and 13th centuries. The Malagasy language is one of the Barito languages and is most closely related to the Ma'anyan language , still spoken on Borneo . Malagasy also includes numerous Malay loanwords, from the time of the early Austronesian settlement and trading between Madagascar and the Sunda Islands. After c.  1000 AD , Malagasy incorporated numerous Bantu and Arabic loanwords brought over by traders and new settlers. Malagasy

2280-663: The Arab traders. It was adopted by the rulers of the Sakalava people in the eighteenth century, in order to gain the military support of the Omani and Zanzibar Sultanates, as the influence of Merina people and the European traders increased. Significant percentage of the Sakalava converted to Islam during the reign of Andriantsoly, while continuing their traditional religious practices such as spirit worship. Christianity (35%) arrived among

2356-709: The Dutch scholar Adriaan Reland in 1708. Among all Austronesian languages, Dahl (1951) demonstrated that Malagasy and Ma'anyan – an East Barito language spoken in Central Kalimantan , Indonesia, on the island of Borneo – were particularly closely related. The language also has apparent influence from early Old Malay . Furthermore, there appears to be a Bantu influence or substratum in Malagasy phonotactics (Dahl 1988). There are some Sanskrit loanwords in Malagasy, which are said to have been borrowed via Malay and Javanese . Adelaar (1995) suggested that

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2432-418: The French trader Joseph-François Lambert signed a disputed lease with King Radama II for plantation lands for sugarcane cultivation and industries along the Madagascar coastal plains. The Merina people called the Malagasy living along the coasts as Cotier . These operations and plantations were worked by the forced labor of imported slaves. The largest influx of slaves was brought in by the 'Umani Arabs and

2508-410: The Madagascar natives named Vazimba about whom little is known. According to the island's oral traditions, the "most Austronesian looking" Merina people reached the interior of the island in the 15th century and established their society there because of wars and migrant pressure at the coast. Merina people were settled in the central Madagascar, formed one of the three major kingdoms on the island by

2584-510: The Mananara Valley, date to the eighth century. Bantu-speaking farmers, moving from Central and East Africa, arrived in Madagascar in the ninth century. According to Gwyn Campbell, "the most accurate genetic data to date indicates that the founding settlement, on the northwest coast, comprised a maximum of 20 households, totalling [sic] around 500 people, either genetically mixed, or half Austronesian and half African." Later, Africans of

2660-517: The Merina dialect. The Merina dialect is the basis of Standard Malagasy, which is used by the government and media in Madagascar. Standard Malagasy is one of two official languages of Madagascar alongside French, in the 2010 constitution of the Fourth Republic of Madagascar. Malagasy is written in the Latin script introduced by Western missionaries in the early 19th century. Previously, the Sorabe script

2736-401: The Merina people in 1883–1885 and in 1895, colonized Madagascar in 1895–96 and abolished the Merina monarchy in 1897. They built innovative and elaborate irrigation infrastructure and highly productive rice farms in high plateaus of Madagascar by the 18th century. The Merina people were socially stratified with hierarchical castes , inherited occupations and endogamy , and one or two of

2812-477: The Merina people led an anti-French nationalist movement. The group, based in Antananarivo, was led by a Malagasy Protestant clergyman, Pastor Ravelojoana. A secret society dedicated to affirming Malagasy cultural identity was formed in 1913, calling itself Iron and Stone Network (in local language, Vy Vato Sakelika – VVS). Repressed at first with numerous arrests over 1915 and 1916, the movement re-emerged in

2888-602: The Protestant London Missionary Society to establish schools and churches. The first book to be printed in Malagasy using Latin characters was the Bible , which was translated into Malagasy in 1835 by British Protestant missionaries working in the highlands area of Madagascar. The current Malagasy 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

2964-595: The Republic, Philibert Tsiranana , was a coastal Malagasy of Tsimihety ethnicity, and he was able to consolidate his power with a winner-takes-all system, while the Merina nationalists of the Congress Party for the Independence of Madagascar was weakened by rifts between leftist and ultranationalist factions. The Merina form much of the elite and educated middle-class of Madagascar. They are influential in

3040-479: The Sakalava extended across what is now the provinces of Antsiranana , Mahajanga and Toliara . The Sakalava kingdom reached its peak geographic spread between 1730 and 1760, under King Andrianinevenarivo. According to local tradition, the founders of the Sakalava kingdom were Maroseraña (or Maroseranana, "those who owned many ports") princes, from the Fiherenana (now Toliara ). They may also be descended from

3116-595: The Sakalava in exchange for slaves. These slaves were obtained from slave raids to Comoros and other coastal settlements of Madagascar, as well as from merchant ships arriving from the Swahili coast of Africa. The Sakalava kingdom quickly subjugated the neighbouring territories in the Mahafaly area, starting with the southern ones. The Merina oral histories and documents in Comoros mention series of annual expeditions by Sakalava slave raiders against their villages through

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3192-425: The Sakalava kingdom explains the great diversity among its constituents, who continue to perpetuate distinctive regional customs, both culturally and linguistically. About the latter, the only real unifying factor of the different Sakalava dialects is their common membership to the western subgroup of Madagascar languages with strong influence from Africa, which distinguishes them from central and east coast languages of

3268-449: The Sakalava never again posed a threat to the central highlands, which remained under Merina control until the French colonization of the island, a century later, in 1896. The dynasty Zafimbolamena Belihisafra . After the reign of Abdriantonkafo the kingdom was split into two entities: Andramahatindriarivo was succeeded by In 1941 islands of Nosy Be and Nosy Komba became a French Protectorate. The historical formation process of

3344-399: The Sakalava people (60%), called Fomba Gasy, was centered around royal ancestor worship, aided by the noble dady lineage who preserved the remains of the deceased rulers. The dady priests would conduct a ceremony called Tromba , whereby they divined the spirits of the dead ancestors and communicated their words back to the Sakalava people. Islam (5%) arrived among the Sakalava people with

3420-502: The Sakalava people with European traders. In early 19th century, the Sakalava sought military support of the European colonial powers in order to contain the reach of the Merina kingdom. The French military power led by Captain Passot arrived on Sakalava ports, accompanied with Jesuit and Catholic Christian missionaries. The island town of Nosy Be became their mission post, and by early 20th century, numerous Catholic churches had been built in

3496-441: The Sakalava people, and has centered around ceremonies and processions for the spirits of their deceased royalty. The procession is more than a religious event, it has historically been a form of community celebration and identity affirming festival. Tromba is also found among other ethnic groups in other parts of Madagascar, but with Sakalava it has had a long association and support of the royal dynasties, which mutually perpetuated

3572-414: The Sakalava region. Protestantism attempted to reach the Sakalava, but the animosity of Muslim Sakalava royalty for the Merina nobility who were already Protestants, as well as the refusal of Sakalava to abandon their traditional practices such as royalty spirit worship, particularly their Tromba -tradition, has made Sakalava continue with either Islam or Catholicism. Tromba has been a historic feature of

3648-504: The Southeast Barito languages , and the Ma'anyan language is its closest relative, with numerous Malay and Javanese loanwords. It is known that Ma'anyan people were brought as labourers and slaves by Malay and Javanese people in their trading fleets, which reached Madagascar by c.  50 –500 AD. Later, c.  1000 , the original Austronesian settlers mixed with Bantus and Arabs , amongst others. There

3724-563: The Tsongay region (now Mahajanga ). The chiefs of the different coastal settlements on the island began to extend their power to control trade. The first significant Sakalava kingdoms were formed about the 1650s. They dominated the western of northwestern regions of Madagascar during the 1700s. The Sakalava chiefdoms of the Menabe , centred in what was then known as Andakabe, now the town of Morondava , were principal among them. The influence of

3800-544: The Vazimba are not believed to be human at all, but rather a form of supernatural creature possessing magical powers ( mahery ). In the first seven years of their lives, boys are typically circumcised in a ritual wherein relatives request the blessings and protection of the ancestors. The Merina people also ritually kill their cattle with unusual violence, cook and consume beef prepared thereafter ceremoniously. The Merina believe their land to be tanin'drazana (the land of

3876-424: The ancestors) and show reverence to their ancestors by burying them in family tombs typically located in the ancestral village of origin. Many believe that ancestors can intervene in events on Earth, for good or for ill, and this belief shapes the actions and thoughts of many Malagasy. The cuisine of the Merina is so heavily dominated by rice that the term for eating a meal is simply "to eat rice". This staple of

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3952-563: The close of the 18th century. The capital of their kingdom remains the capital of contemporary Madagascar. Oral history traces the emergence of a united kingdom in the central highlands of Madagascar – a region called Imerina – back to early 16th-century king Andriamanelo . By 1824, a succession of Merina kings had conquered nearly all of Madagascar, particularly through the military strategy, ambitious treaties and political policies of Andrianampoinimerina (circa 1785–1810) and his son Radama I (1792–1828). The colonial British empire recognized

4028-632: The coast of Madagascar in the 1820s. Those who converted were offered scholarships in London and apprenticeship in Manchester. Due to the influence of British missionaries, the Merina upper classes converted to Protestantism entirely in the mid-19th century, following the example of their queen, Ranavalona II . The early spread of Protestantism among the Merina elite resulted in a degree of class and ethnic differentiation among practitioners of Christianity. The French preferred Catholic interpreters and

4104-431: The descendants of former slave castes continue to suffer in contemporary Madagascar Merina society, and inter-caste marriages socially ostracized. The Vazimba feature prominently in Merina oral history and popular imagination. It has been speculated that the Vazimba were the original population of Madagascar, descended from Southeast Asian seafarers who may have had pygmy physical characteristics. Among some Malagasy,

4180-459: The diet is so central to the Merina that it is considered to be masina , or holy, and a common Merina belief holds that the eating of rice is the key to moral behaviour, and the French who occupied Merina lands were often looked down upon for eating bread over rice. Beef also plays a large part in the Merina diet, and according to Merina oral history, it was a servant of King Ralambo who discovered that cows were edible and shared this knowledge with

4256-529: The economy, universities and government organizations of Madagascar. The Merina dialect of the Malagasy language , also called Hova, Malagasy Plateau or just Malagasy, is spoken natively by about a quarter of the population of Madagascar; it is classified as Plateau Malagasy alongside the Betsileo, Bezanozano, Sihanaka, Tanala, Vakinankaritra dialects. Hova is one of two official languages alongside French in

4332-405: The eighteenth century. The Merina king Radama I bought guns in late 18th century, launched a war with the Sakalava, which ended the hegemony of the Sakalava kingdom and their slave raids. The Merina then reversed the historical enslavement their people had faced, and began supplying slaves. Though the Merina were never to annex the two last Sakalava strongholds of Menabe and Boina ( Mahajanga ),

4408-522: The end of the 18th century. These expeditions were aided by guns obtained from the Arabs, a weapon that both Comoros and Merina people lacked. The largest and one of the most favored ports for slave trade on Madagascar was the Sakalava coastal town of Mahajanga . The Sakalava had a monopoly on slave trade in Madagascar till the end of the 18th century. Although smaller by population, their weapons permitted them wide reach and power, allowing them to force other more populous ethnic groups to pay tribute to them in

4484-401: The first Europeans to arrive in the 15th century, followed by other European powers. This influx of diverse people led to various Malagasy sub-ethnicities in the mid-2nd millennium. The Merina were probably the early arrivals, though this is uncertain and other ethnic groups on Madagascar consider them relative newcomers to the island. The Merina people's culture likely mixed and merged with

4560-560: The first Europeans to arrive in the 15th century, followed by other European powers. The founder of Sakalava legacy was Andriamisara. His descendant Andriandahifotsy ("the White Prince"), after 1610, then extended his authority northwards, past the Mangoky River , aided by weapons obtained in exchange for slave trading. His two sons, Andriamanetiarivo and Andriamandisoarivo (also known as Tsimanatona) extended gains further up to

4636-539: The following ways: After a stressed syllable, as at the end of most words and in the final two syllables of some, /a, u, i/ are reduced to [ə, ʷ, ʲ] . ( /i/ is spelled ⟨y⟩ in such cases, though in monosyllabic words like ny and vy , ⟨y⟩ is pronounced as a full [i] .) Final /a/ , and sometimes final syllables, are devoiced at the end of an utterance . /e/ and /o/ are never reduced or devoiced. The large number of reduced vowels, and their effect on neighbouring consonants, give Malagasy

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4712-589: The former slaves of the Merina people converted to Catholicism. The ruling and noble class, however was Protestant. The nobility attempted to intervene, by expelling certain Christian missions. This dynamic ultimately created religious sect divisions in contemporary demographics . Among all the Malagasy ethnicities, the Merina historically have had a highly stratified caste system. The overall society, like many ethnic groups in Africa, had two categories of people,

4788-429: The free locally called the fotsy who had ancestors with Asian Malagasy physiognomy, and the serfs or mainty who had ancestors with African physiognomy mostly captured in other parts of Madagascar. However, the fotsy-mainty dichotomy among Merina is not based on physiognomy, states Karen Middleton, but whether they have a family tomb: fotsy have family tomb, mainty are those without one or those who have established

4864-520: The grasslands in their northwest region. Unlike the Merina and Betsileo people of the interior who became highly productive rice farmers, the coastal and valley region Sakalava have historically had limited agriculture. However, in contemporary Madagascar, migrants have expanded farms and agriculture into the northwestern provinces. Malagasy language Malagasy ( / ˌ m æ l ə ˈ ɡ æ s i / MAL -ə- GASS -ee ; Malagasy pronunciation: [malaˈɡasʲ] ; Sorabe : مَلَغَسِ )

4940-428: The island, which are primarily Austronesian (Malayo-Polynesian) languages. The Sakalava people are widely distributed, over about 128,000 square kilometers in a band along the coast from Onilahy River in the southwest to Nosy Be in the north. These people also feature the zebu cattle herds similar to those found in Africa, which are less common in other regions and interior of the island. The traditional religion of

5016-412: The latter when followed by unstressed /i/ : Thus French malgache [malɡaʃ] 'Malagasy'. The velars /k ɡ ᵑk ᵑɡ h/ are palatalized after /i/ (e.g. alika /alikʲa/ 'dog'). /h/ is frequently elided in casual speech. The reported postalveolar trilled affricates /ʈʳ ᶯʈʳ ɖʳ ᶯɖʳ/ are sometimes simple stops, [ʈ ᶯʈ ɖ ᶯɖ] , but they often have a rhotic release, [ʈɽ̊˔ ᶯʈɽ̊˔ ɖɽ˔ ᶯɖɽ˔] . It

5092-443: The major and long serving monarchs of the Merina people were queens. Austronesian people started settling in Madagascar between 200 and 500 BC. They arrived by boats and were from various southeast Asian and Oceanian groups. Later Swahili-Arabs and Indian traders came to the island's northern regions. African slaves were brought to the island's coasts between the 13th and the 18th centuries. The Portuguese traders were

5168-418: The official Malagasy language of Madagascar. The Merina people are most found in the center of the island (former Antananarivo Province ). Beginning in the late 18th century, Merina sovereigns expanded the political region under their control from their interior capital outwards into the island, with their king Radama I ultimately helping unite the island under their rule. The French fought two wars with

5244-528: The penultimate syllable, unless the word ends in ka , tra and often na , in which case they are stressed on the antepenultimate syllable. Secondary stresses exist in even-numbered syllables from the last stressed syllable, when the word has more than four syllables ( fàmantàranàndro [ˌfamˌtarˈnandʐʷ] "watch, clock"). Neither prefixation nor suffixation affect the placement of stress. In many dialects, unstressed vowels (except /e/ ) are devoiced, and in some cases almost completely elided ; thus fanòrona

5320-480: The phonemic inventory. 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 letters c, q, u, w and x are all not used in native Malagasy words. Mp and occasionally nt may begin

5396-614: The practice and associated importance. The Sakalava society became socially stratified, like many other ethnic groups, with the start of the slavery. The Sakalava stratification system was hierarchical based on presumed purity of each stratum. In the Sakalava kingdom, the strata included the Ampanzaka , or the royal caste, and the Makoa , or the term for the descendants of African slaves. The Sakalava have been pastoralists with large zebu cattle herds, traditionally allowed to graze freely over

5472-524: The southeast area of Madagascar in the 15th century. The first bilingual renderings of religious texts are those by Étienne de Flacourt , who also published the first dictionary of the language. Radama I , the first literate representative of the Merina monarchy , though extensively versed in the Arabico-Malagasy tradition, opted in 1823 for a Latin system derived by David Jones and invited

5548-477: The sovereignty of the Merina kingdom and its control of the Madagascar island in 1817. Radama I welcomed European traders and allowed Christian missionaries to establish missions on Madagascar. After him, the Merina people were ruled by Queen Ranavalona I ruled from 1828 to 1861, Queen Rasoherina from 1863 to 1868, and Queen Ranavalona II ruled from 1868 to 1885. The Swahili Arab traders expanded their opportunities to trade and European colonial powers such as

5624-415: The subjects of history and Malagasy language. There are two principal dialects of Malagasy: Eastern (including Merina ) and Western (including Sakalava ), with the isogloss running down the spine of the island, the south being western, and the central plateau and much of the north (apart from the very tip) being eastern. Ethnologue encodes 12 variants of Malagasy as distinct languages. They have about

5700-472: The vocabulary of Malagasy also contains many words that are of South Sulawesi origin. Further evidence for this suggestion was presented by Blench (2018). Malagasy is the demonym of Madagascar , from which it is taken to refer to the people of Madagascar in addition to their language. Madagascar was first settled by Austronesian peoples from Maritime Southeast Asia from the Sunda Islands ( Malay archipelago ). As for their route, one possibility

5776-650: Was used, a local development of the Arabic script . The Malagasy language is the westernmost member of the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian language family , a grouping that includes languages from Indonesia , Malaysia , the Philippines and the Pacific Islands . In fact, Malagasy's relation with other Austronesian languages had already been noted by early scholars, such as

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