Origin
Even though, Madagascar is part of the Africa continent, our language is not among the African languages groups. All materials I read reveal that Malagasy language belongs to the Austronesian family, which includes Indonesian and Malayo-Polynesian languages. Furthermore, it has been pointed out that the closest language to Malagasy is the language called Maanjan spoken in southern Borneo.
Why? Because, according to researchers and historians, the first Malagasy were immigrants from Indonesia and southern Asia who came to Madagascar in about fourth century A.D. Some words of modern Malagasy are also adopted from French, Arabic, African, Dutch as well as English. It is partly because of the European pirates and traders who were sailing back and forth to the island between the 16th and 19th centuries.
Malagasy Alphabet
We have 21 letters in our alphabet. All letters are similar to those in English alphabet except C, Q, U, W, and X, which are not used in our language. However, the pronunciation is not identical to that of English alphabet.
How to Speak Like a Malagasy?
Malagasy pronunciation is not really difficult. Here are some basic rules.
The letters tr, ts, and dr are special in Malagasy language. When you find them in any Malagasy word, you should pronounce them together but not one by one. For instance, when you pronounce the word tranofalafa you should neither pronounce the tr as in the Spanish word trabajo nor in the French travail whereas it should be pronounced about the same--but not exactly--as in the English word travel. This rule is maintainable for the letters ts and dr.
The letter o is pronounced as in too or zoo but not as in love or rote.
The letter i is pronounced as in infinite but not as in finite.
When we Malagasy speak, we do not pronounce some vowel especially the a at the end of a word. For instance, the a at the end of tranofalafa and the y at the end of my name Mainty are not pronounced.
I hope that you can now pronounce the word tranofalafa correclty. For more information about Malagasy language, please try the links below. For your practice, check the useful words.
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Indian Ocean
