Malagasy Dialects and the Peopling of Madagascar

TL;DR

This study investigates the origins and diversification of Malagasy dialects using automated lexicostatistical methods to shed light on the island's colonization history and linguistic relationships.

Contribution

It applies a novel automated analysis combining lexicostatistics and glottochronology to Malagasy dialects, providing new insights into their historical development and origins.

Findings

Identifies linguistic relationships among Malagasy dialects.

Provides estimates for colonization timelines.

Clarifies the connection between Malagasy and Indonesian languages.

Abstract

The origin of Malagasy DNA is half African and half Indonesian, nevertheless the Malagasy language, spoken by the entire population, belongs to the Austronesian family. The language most closely related to Malagasy is Maanyan (Greater Barito East group of the Austronesian family), but related languages are also in Sulawesi, Malaysia and Sumatra. For this reason, and because Maanyan is spoken by a population which lives along the Barito river in Kalimantan and which does not possess the necessary skill for long maritime navigation, the ethnic composition of the Indonesian colonizers is still unclear. There is a general consensus that Indonesian sailors reached Madagascar by a maritime trek, but the time, the path and the landing area of the first colonization are all disputed. In this research we try to answer these problems together with other ones, such as the historical configuration of Malagasy dialects, by types of analysis related to lexicostatistics and glottochronology which draw upon the automated method recently proposed by the authors \cite{Serva:2008, Holman:2008, Petroni:2008, Bakker:2009}. The data were collected by the first author at the beginning of 2010 with the invaluable help of Joselin\`a Soafara N\'er\'e and consist of Swadesh lists of 200 items for 23 dialects covering all areas of the Island.