MALAGASY LANGUAGE

                                      MALAGASY LANGUAGE

Malagasy is an Austronesian language and the national language of Madagascar. Most people in Madagascar speak it as a first language as do some people of Malagasy descent elsewhere.

CLASSIFICATION:

The Malagasy language is the westernmost member of the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian language family. Its distinctiveness from nearby African languages was already noted in 1708 by the Dutch scholar Adriaan Reland.

HISTORY:

Madagascar was first settled by Austronesian peoples from Maritime Southeast Asia who had passed through Borneo.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. Far later, c. 1000, the original Austronesian settlers mixed with Bantus and Arabs, amongst others. There is evidence that the predecessors of the Malagasy dialects first arrived in the southern stretch of the east coast of Madagascar.

Malagasy has a tradition of oratory arts and poetic histories and legends. The most well-known is the national epic, Ibonia, about a Malagasy folk hero of the same name.

WRITING SYSTEM:

The language has a written literature going back presumably to the 15th century. When the French established Fort-Dauphin in the 17th century, they found an Arabico-Malagasy script in use, known as Sorabe

                                                                                                                       
                                                     
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                                                                                                                         M.Vishali