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