Notes
- ↑ Blench & Walsh, 2009 draft ms, "The vocabularies of Vazimba and Beosi: do they represent the languages of the pre-Austronesian populations of Madagascar?".
| Indigenous | |
|---|---|
| Immigrant | |
See also: Vazimba | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
|---|---|
| Madagascar | |
| Languages | |
| Malagasy | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| other Malagasy peoples, not necessarily close to the Mikea |
The Beosi are short-statured hunter-gatherers of the central highlands of Madagascar. They are distinct from the Mikea hunter-gatherers and horticulturalists of the lowlands.
| (possible substrate language) | |
|---|---|
| Ethnicity | Beosi |
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | None (mis) |
| Glottolog | vazi1234 |
The Boesi speak a dialect of the Malagasy language, which originated in southern Borneo. Speculation that there may be remnants of a Vazimba language in Beosi speech was investigated by Blench & Walsh (2009). Beosi speech was found to have a relatively high proportion of vocabulary that cannot be identified with words in other varieties of Malagasy, substantially more than the Mikea dialect, and is more likely than Mikea to retain a Vazimba substrate, if such a thing even exists. The possibility is complicated by the extensive use of evasive language and cant by the Beosi, which is designed to hinder understanding by outsiders. [1]
| Indigenous | |
|---|---|
| Immigrant | |
See also: Vazimba | |
Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately 400 kilometres off the coast of East Africa across the Mozambique Channel. At 592,800 square kilometres (228,900 sq mi) Madagascar is the world's second-largest island country, after Indonesia. The nation is home to around 30 million inhabitants and consists of the island of Madagascar, along with numerous smaller peripheral islands. Following the prehistoric breakup of the supercontinent Gondwana, Madagascar split from the Indian subcontinent around 90 million years ago, allowing native plants and animals to evolve in relative isolation. Consequently, Madagascar is a biodiversity hotspot; over 90% of its wildlife is endemic.
The history of Madagascar is distinguished clearly by the early isolation of the landmass from the ancient supercontinent containing Africa and India, and by the island's late colonization by human settlers from the Sunda islands and from East Africa. These two factors facilitated the evolution and survival of thousands of endemic plant and animal species, some of which have gone extinct or are currently threatened with extinction. Trade in the Indian Ocean at the time of first colonization of Madagascar was dominated by Indonesian ships, probably of Borobudur ship and K'un-lun po types.
The Austronesian languages are a language family widely spoken throughout Maritime Southeast Asia, Madagascar, the islands of the Pacific Ocean and Taiwan. There are also a number of speakers in continental Asia. They are spoken by about 386 million people. This makes it the fifth-largest language family by number of speakers. Major Austronesian languages include Malay, Javanese, Sundanese, and Tagalog (Filipino). According to some estimates, the family contains 1,257 languages, which is the second most of any language family.
The languages of Africa are divided into several major language families:
The Merina people are the largest ethnic group in Madagascar. They are the "highlander" Malagasy ethnic group of the African island and one of the country's eighteen official ethnic groups. Their origins are mixed, predominantly with Austronesians arriving before the 5th century AD, then many centuries later with Arabs, Africans and other ethnic groups. They speak the Merina dialect of the official Malagasy language of Madagascar.
The Malagasy are an Austronesian-speaking African ethnic group native to the island country of Madagascar. Traditionally, the population have been divided by subgroups. Examples include "Highlander" groups such as the Merina and Betsileo of the central highlands around Antananarivo, Alaotra (Ambatondrazaka) and Fianarantsoa, and the "coastal dwellers" with tribes like the Sakalava, Bara, Vezo, Betsimisaraka, Mahafaly, etc. The Merina are also further divided into two subgroups. The “Merina A” are the Hova and Andriana, and have an average of 30–40% Bantu ancestry. The second subgroup is the “Merina B”, the Andevo, who have an average of 40-50% Bantu ancestry. They make up less than 1/3 of Merina society. The Malagasy population was 2,242,000 in the first census in 1900. Their population experienced a massive growth in the next hundred years, especially under French Madagascar.
The Mikea are a group of Malagasy-speaking horticulturalists and foragers who are often described as the lowland hunter-gatherers of Madagascar. They inhabit the Mikea Forest, a patch of mixed spiny forest and dry deciduous forest along the coast of southwestern Madagascar. The Mikea are predominantly of Sakalava origin, although the term describes a lifestyle rather than an ethnic group per se, and individuals from a variety of Malagasy ethnic groups are found among the Mikea. The family encampments of the Mikea shift from prime corn planting territory at the edge of the forest in the rainy season to the interior forest rich with tenrecs and other game in the dry season, when the community becomes highly dependent on spongy tubers to meet their daily demand for water. Their lifestyle is interdependent with that of their neighboring Vezo fishermen and the Masikoro farmers and herders, with whom they trade products caught, foraged or cultivated in the forest. Many Mikea also occasionally engage in paid work such as guarding the zebu herds or tending the corn fields of others.
Malagasy cuisine encompasses the many diverse culinary traditions of the Indian Ocean island of Madagascar. Foods eaten in Madagascar reflect the influence of Southeast Asian, African, Oceanian, Indian, Chinese and European migrants that have settled on the island since it was first populated by seafarers from Borneo between 100 CE and 500 CE. Rice, the cornerstone of the Malagasy diet, was cultivated alongside tubers and other Southeast Asian and Oceanian staples by these earliest settlers. Their diet was supplemented by foraging and hunting wild game, which contributed to the extinction of the island's bird and mammal megafauna. These food sources were later complemented by beef in the form of zebu introduced into Madagascar by East African migrants arriving around 1,000 CE.
Malagasy mythology is rooted in oral history and has been transmitted by storytelling, notably the Andriambahoaka epic, including the Ibonia cycle. At least 52-59% of the country is an adherent of the religion, which is known as Fomba Gasy. Adherence to Fomba Gasy is high amongst the Sakalava people, as they are reluctant to convert to faiths of foreign origin.
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Malagasy is an Austronesian language and the national language of Madagascar. Malagasy is the westernmost Malayo-Polynesian language, brought to Madagascar by the settlement of Austronesian peoples from the Sunda islands around the 5th century AD. The Malagasy language is one of the Barito languages and is most closely related to the Ma'anyan language, still spoken on Borneo to this day. Malagasy also includes numerous Malay loanwords, from the time of the early Austronesian settlement and trading between Madagascar and the Sunda Islands. After c. 1000 AD, Malagasy incorporated numerous Bantu and Arabic loanwords, brought over by traders and new settlers.
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Petter's big-footed mouse, is a Madagascan rodent in the genus Macrotarsomys. With a head and body length of 150 mm (5.9 in) and body mass of 105 g (3.7 oz), it is the largest species of its genus. Its upper body is brown, darkest in the middle of the back, and the lower body is white to yellowish. The animal has long whiskers, short forelimbs, and long hindfeet. The tail ends in a prominent tuft of long, light hairs. The skull is robust and the molars are low-crowned and cuspidate.
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