Malagasy

Malagasy is not associated with nearby African languages . It is the most western of the Malay-Polynesian languages ​​belonging to the Austronesian family . This fact was established back in the XVIII century. The Malagasy language is related to the languages ​​of Indonesia , Malaysia and the Philippines . Closest to it are the languages spoken on the island of Kalimantan . The basic vocabulary of the Malagasy language coincides 90% with the vocabulary of the Ma'anyan language in the area of ​​the Barito River in the south of Kalimantan. This means that Madagascar was populated by immigrants from there. It is not known exactly why this relocation occurred. Later, Indonesian immigrants mixed with East Africans and Arabs .

In the Malagasy language, there are borrowings from the Bantu , Swahili and Arabic languages, as well as from French (in the past the language of the colonial government of Madagascar) and English (which was spoken in the 18th century by pirates whose bases were on the island).

The language has written literature from the 15th century and a rich tradition of oral poetic traditions and legends.

Since 1823, the language has been written based on the Latin alphabet . Prior to this, the Arabic alphabet Surabe was used in the "magic" and astrological texts. Spelling is based mainly on phonetic principles, but with a few exceptions. The letter i at the end of the words is replaced by y , and the letter o is read as [ u ].

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.

Diacritical badges are also used, but their use is contrary to the standard. So, to indicate stress , signs can be arbitrarily used: acute , gravis , umlaut . The last sign, along with the tilde , when placed above the letter n turns it into a velar sonoric [ ŋ ]. The circumflex is preserved in the spelling of words borrowed from the French language.

The sound system is characterized by a strict alternation of consonants and vowels. Most (about 90%) of root words begin with a consonant. Not a single root word ends in a consonant ^[1] .

Vowels

Consonants

One of the features of the consonantism of the Malagasy language is the presence of prenasalized consonants . They are formed during the simultaneous articulation of the nasal with explosive and affricates, giving complex indivisible sound complexes. In transcription, these sounds are indicated with the inscribed letter of the nasal consonant before the sign of the main consonant.

Notes:

• the velar [ k ] and [ g ] in the position after the vowel [ i ] are palatalized, and the next vowel after them is iotated;
• spelling all consonants are written as they are heard, except for the sound [ d z ], which is indicated by the letter j , and the sound [ ŋ ], which is written before the velar [ k ] and [ g ] with the usual letter n , and before the vowel - n with two dots ( n̈ ) or with tilde ( ñ ).

Accent

The Malagasy language is characterized by dynamic stress with elements of quantitative stress . In polysyllabic words, the stress falls, as a rule, on the penultimate syllable ( mòra , karàma , farafàra ), and in words ending in -ka , -tra , -na - on the third from the end. In derivative and borrowed words, stress can fall on other syllables: ôperà .

Sometimes stress plays a meaningful role:

• vòvo (“top”) - vovò (“dog barking”);
• gàga (“surprised”) - gagà (“be surprised”).

• Arakin V.D. Malgash language. - M .: Publishing house of oriental literature, 1963. - 64 p. - ( Languages ​​of the foreign East and Africa ).