Why isn’t Malagasy regarded as an African language?
Malagasy is a major Austronesian language spoken
on a large island just off the African coast.
However, linguists concerned with Malagasy attend
Austronesianist conferences
As a consequence, understanding of the processes
that led to the evolution of Malagasy are limited by a
lack of knowledge of Bantu etc.
Yet Malagasy is;
Shot through with African loanwords and with
non-Austronesian words that may be of African
origin
Has partially restructured its grammar on what
are presumably African models
This paper is a brief overview of recent research in
this area