Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Appendix 2
THE MALAGASY LANGUAGE
PRONUNCIATION
The Malagasy alphabet is made up of just 21 letters (the English al-
phabet with C, Q, U, W and X omitted). Pronunciation is as follows:
a as in 'hat'
e as in 'bet'
o oo as in 'too'
i/y as ee in 'seen' but shorter
g as in 'get'
h almost silent
j as ds in 'pads'
s between the s in 'sip' and the sh in s'ship' but varies regionally
ai like y in 'my'
ao like ow in 'cow'
eo pronounced ay-oo
STRESSED SYLLABLES
Some syllables are stressed, others almost eliminated. This
causes great problems for visitors and unfortunately - like in English - the basic rules are
frequently broken. Generally, the stress is on the penultimate syllable, except in words end-
ing in -na,
-ka
and
-tra
where stress shifts forward to the preceding syllable.
Occasionally a word may change its meaning depending on how it is stressed:
tánana
means 'hand', and
tanána
means 'town'. (This phenomenon is also common in English:
desért
means 'abandon', and
désert
means 'a hot dry place'.)
Malagasy wordsalways endinavowel. Usually this final vowel isvirtually silent, except
inthecase of
-e
which isalways stressed. That said, there isregional variation: forexample,
you will hear
azafady
('please/pardon') pronounced both as 'azafad' and 'azafadee'.
