Talk:Malagasy language

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2006 comments[edit]

Hmm...not nearly as much information as I was hoping for. Surely the English speaking world knows more about the Malagasy language than this? More on phonology, grammar, anything! Is Malagasy isolating or agglutinative? Ergative or nominative-accustaive? How do nouns and verbs inflect, if at all? Genders? And so many other basic questions...--C.M.67.170.176.203 16:14, 3 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There are several issues with this page:

1) Madagascar is home to around 17 million people, most of whom speak Malagasy, not 6 million as stated in the article. 2) I have heard of between 18-21 tribes in Madagascar, not 36 as stated in the article. I say 18-21 instead of one number because it is not generally agreed upon. --Brownlemur 20:28, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Malagasy Wiktionary is vast because of a bot[edit]

While this isn't necessarily related to this article, why in the world does Malagasy have so many Wiktionary articles? It has over 1 million, right up there with Chinese, French and English. No offense to the people who speak it, but I can't for the life of me figure out why a relatively obscure language, and in a place that isn't all that developed, has so many. --76.18.249.70 (talk) 21:59, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Clearly there are quite a few people out there who are passionate about getting Madagascar represented on the net. I applaud them. :) Lemurbaby (talk) 12:00, 31 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed the same thing just today. I've visited the site, but can't quite work out the language to figure out whether it's the work of a whole community or just a select group of people translating existing Wiktionary projects and diving into Malagasy dictionaries. I'd love to find out, though.Rubykuby (talk) 19:50, 29 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The place is not developped. And then? Having a non-developped country does not avoid us to make such things. What do you think some people outside Madagascar do? Maybe most of Malagasy do not have money enough, but that has no importance. A few amount of us can use a computer like an European or an American do. You just need to be inventive and things can go fast, very fast, as 76.18.249.70 has noticed. --Jagwar - (( talk )) 21:29, 3 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Still, it's weird to have a language with just 18 million native speakers (in 2007) have a number even close to that of English and French. They must be very dedicated! 212.139.111.99 (talk) 19:54, 3 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You can read about it here: http://terakasorotany.wordpress.com/2013/03/27/my-history-of-the-malagasy-wiktionary/ 2:17, 4 April 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.55.205.150 (talk)

A very large number of the articles are for foreign words bot-translated from other Wiktionaries, some 300 to 500/day – some background:

The link given by 173.55.205.150 has now moved to the author Jagwar's own domain, at https://www.terakasorotany.com/?m=201303 (also archived).
- Jagwar there describes using a bot (on github) for mass addition of articles from other Wiktionaries, automatically translated into Malagasy, with some troubles due to copyright infringements (details of which I could not find).
In a later post Five ways to enrich Wiktionary (dated 2015-09-05), Jagwar describes contributing to Wiktionary both manually and with programmatic assistance (e.g. NLP), admits that it can create many erroneous pages, claims it creates even more correct pages and concludes "Malagasy, my native tongue, has 3.75 million only thanks to my efforts in trying to create the biggest dictionary in Malagasy that has ever existed.".
Jagwar's manual contributions to Malagasy Wikipedia are here, their bot's here. His bot to add Malagasy to en.Wiktionary was refused bot status on 2012-08-05.

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_News/archive_2#Bot-dominated_wikis is a complaint about these wikis.

PJTraill (talk) 12:51, 16 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Malagasy literature?[edit]

Some open questions:

When did Malagasy evolve as a written language?
Have other alphabet than the latin alphabet been used?
What was the written language used by the Merina monarchy? (Or were these people illiterate?)

-- Petri Krohn 14:46, 15 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

When the French established Fort-Dauphin in the 17th century, they found an arabico-malagasy script in use. The oldest known document in that script is a short Malagasy-Dutch vocabulary from the early 17th century first published in 1908 by Gabriel Ferrand. Radama I, the first literate representative of the Merina monarchy, though extensively versed in the arabico-malagasy tradition, opted for alphabetization in Latin characters and invited the Protestant London Missionary Society to establish schools and churches. Eklir (talk) 20:32, 1 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the information. I corrected Radama I of Madagascar based on this. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 23:50, 17 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. - I see you have already expanded this article. One question remains: what is the relationship between the Sorabe alphabet, the Ajami script and the arabico-malagasy script? -- Petri Krohn (talk) 00:01, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Malagasy Scouting[edit]

Can someone render "Be Prepared", the Scout Motto, into Malagasy? Thanks! Chris 03:27, 8 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

We say : voahomana Jagwar - ((talk)) 17:52, 18 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Redundant categorization[edit]

There is no reason for a language to appear in both a sub-group category and in the main language family. I am gradually removing most individual languages from Category:Austronesian languages. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 09:07, 21 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. kwami (talk) 19:50, 21 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome! I'll appreciate your assistance at Talk:Borneo-Philippines languages. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 20:05, 21 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I feel that the procedure of removing individual languages from main language family categories is scientifically unwarranted, especially in cases where subgrouping techniques are contested as is the case for Austronesian where foundations for classification are unstable and moving, especially since techniques, in the absence of phylogenetical certainties, took a definitely typological bent. The procedure also conflicts with other editorial decisions that were made when allowing cross-referencings such as List of Austronesian languages and List of Austronesian regions. Eklir (talk) 21:53, 1 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Help[edit]

Is there a free translator from English to Malagasy? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.33.56.43 (talk) 14:50, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, there is one : in freelang, this is the link :

Malagasy-French online dictionnary

-- 83.199.66.126 (talk) 11:03, 4 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

PS: I added it in the main article as External link. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.199.66.126 (talk) 11:04, 4 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This one does English, French and Malagasy: http://www.encyclopediemalgache.org/bins/alphaLists?lang=fr

Lemurbaby (talk) 16:30, 5 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

IPA[edit]

We should use the IPA for sentences in mapagasy. Jagwar - ((talk)) 17:56, 18 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The IPA for the sentences could use a bit of elucidation. What exactly do superscripted vowels denote, for example? This might be a specialist notation, and that's fine, but anyone who knows general IPA should (in theory) be able to pronounce those, and there ought to be a key somewhere if it is a specialist notation. Also, is this an informal pronunciation? That's mostly out of curiosity; the preceding section notes that vowels are devoiced or elided when speaking rapidly, and it looks like that has been applied everywhere. Vaaarr (talk) 17:04, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, superscripted vowels are used here to note the deformation of the consonant like « ^j » in the palatalized t (« t^j »). They are generally omitted when speaking rapidly but they must be pronounced when speaking slowly or loudly, or when the following word starts with a consonant. The phonetic transcription of fanorona ([fḁˈnurnḁ]) is incorrect if ḁ is a elisioned vowel : labial deformaiton has been omitted (It should be /fa.ˈnu.r^w.nḁ/). --Jagwar - (( talk )) 18:56, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting then. It might be good for the sake of the article to give the table a second column of pronunciation, so that the rapid pronunciation is listed alongside the careful pronunciation. Few articles get to that level of detail in terms of variation, which is something that pains me. A propos Jagwar, je vois que vous êtes un(e) francophone. Je sais aussi bien parler français, pas très courant, mais en tout cas, en train de discuter ceci vous pouvez utiliser celle que vous trouvez la plus agréable, pour faciliter la communication, pourvu qu'on fournit des traductions. [Approximate translation: Jagwar and I might talk in French on this point to ease communication, since we both turn out to be Francophones, and we should provide translations] Vaaarr (talk) 23:36, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(j'ai corrigé les fautes d'accents que vous avez commis, and I made translation of the words which may be difficult to be understood) Il est bien rare de discuter en français sur la wikipédia anglophone, mais si vous pouvez comprendre ce que j'écris, il n'y a pas de quoi (vous me facilitez (make easy) vraiment la communication, croyez-moi) ; alors, commençons : l'élision des voyelles (vowel) se fait généralement lorsqu'ils sont à la fin des pour la voyelle finale a ; et à la fin du mot pour les voyelles y et o (qui sont respectivement prononcées /i/ ou /j/ et /u/ ou /w/) sauf pour les mots monosyllabiques tels que ny ou encore vy. La règle est simple, et en tout cas, logique. Une règle (rule) équivalente existe en français pour la lettre e (prononcé dans 99 pour cent des cas /ə/ à la fin des mots)

trans : the elision of vowels occurs at the end of sentences for letter a and at the end of words for o and y, except for monosyllabics like ny, vy where tonic accent must be put). An equivalent rule exists in french for the letter e.

Bien cordialement, --Jagwar - (( talk )) 11:16, 28 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Corriger des fautes, ca m'est egal, les "fautes" ne sont que la faute de mon ordinateur, qui n'ont pas un methode facile pour ajouter des lettres avec accent. Je comprends le francais specialise pour des etudes linguistiques, alors il ne vaut pas le peine d'ajouter les traductions pour ces mots. Si on continuera comme ca, le francais dominera la page, alors nous devrions continuer a mon sandbox, j'ai etabli un espace pour ca. [trans: some banter, and then: this might get long, so we should move this discussion to a space that I set up on my sandbox so that French doesn't dominate the page.] Vaaarr (talk) 23:14, 2 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm copying the rest of the conversation at User:Vaaarr/sandbox#Malagasy_Talk here, as it's interesting and pertinent to the article. — kwami (talk) 11:34, 29 May 2011 (UTC):[reply]

Autre choses concernant les règles d'élision : celles-ci s'élident lorsque l'accent tonique primaire est passée. C'est-à-dire, que lorsque l'accent tonique principal (notamment celui du radical) a été prononcée, tous les voyelles des syllabes suivantes s'élident, sauf si le mot contient une voyelle /e/ après la place de l'accent tonique (par exemple : kapaike se prononce /ka.ˈpaj.ke/.

Une autre règle concernant l'accent tonique : le katrana, qui se réfère aux trois syllabes élidées à la fin des mots. Lorsqu'un mot se termine par un des trois syllabes citées précédemment, l'accent tonique est sur l'avant-avant-dernière syllabe du mot sauf si le mot contient une voyelle /e/ après la place de l'accent tonique (par exemple sorena se prononce /su.ˈre.n^a/ et torina se prononce /ˈtu.r^j.n^a/. Cependant, des irrégularités d'accent tonique existent dûs notamment aux racines phonétiquement monosyllabiques. --Jagwar - (( talk )) 08:55, 4 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Avant de repondre: les lettres <<a>> eleves veulent dire quoi exactement (utilisant IPA)? J'avais suppose qu'ils denotaient des voyelles [a] elisees, mais je peux a la fois remarquer que les lettres <<j>> et <<w>> eleves ne denote que la palatisation et la labialisation, pas voyelles propres. Pour les <<o>> et les <<e>> j'ai la meme question. Il faut etre tout clair, eh. Vaaarr (talk) 07:33, 12 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Je suis désolé pour la réponse tardive, j'etais en effet en train de m'occuper du Wiktionnaire en malgache,

Au risque de passer pour un radoteur, je vais reformuler ce que j'avais dit. Les lettres a élevées se prononcent comme un a expiré mais non prononcé. Quant à la lettre "o", elle se prononce u dans tous les mots malgaches (je ne parle pas des emprunts lexicaux éventuels). Cette voyelle déforme les consonnes placées en fin de mot en les labialisant. Le y qui n'est qu'un i final, déforme la consonne finale en fin de mot en la palatalisant. Quant à la voyelle e, elle ne s'élide jamais et prend au contraire l'accent tonique (sauf dans certains accents régionaux, qui sont parlés sur la côte ouest de Madagascar ; bien que cette exception existe, elle est toutefois rare).

(PS) Les déformations labiales, palatales et "pulmoniques" en milieu de mot sont des déformations qui résultent de la règle ka-tra-na. Cette règle s'applique sur tous les mots se terminant par les syllabes ka, tra et na, d'où son nom. Cette règle stipule que tous les mots (se terminant par les syllabes que j'ai cités précédemment) doivent porter leur accent tonique sur l'avant-avant-dernière syllabe du mot ; ce qui fait que tous les syllabes suivants ayant comme voyelles i/y et o déforment leur consonnes en les palatalisant ou en les labialisant ; en ce qui concerne le a, elle tend vers la voyelle ɐ mais elle ne devient pas "pulmonique". Les syllabes ayant comme voyelle e sont prioritaire pour l'accentuation s'ils se trouvent dans les deux dernières syllabes (en règles générale) ou sur les trois dernières syllabes (pour les mots en -ka, -tra ou en -na).

J'espère que mes explications vous ont aidé. Cordialement, --Jagwar - (( talk )) 11:46, 1 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Links to Malagasy Audio[edit]

Hi all - Regarding the link to Malagasy audio just added to the page, it's true that it does not work consistently and I don't understand why. But when it does work, we have some much needed audio for this page. Perhaps we should unlink it after we are able to either find a better outside link or can find someone willing to record pronunciations for this page. Any volunteers or suggestions for Malagasy audio? Lemurbaby (talk) 15:52, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Lemurbaby! On my personal website I am running an online Malagasy-Czech dictionary with pronunciation recs. However, on the English lang. version of my page I have also a pure list of words with pronunciation recorded by a native Malagasy - by now about 650 recorded words, still working on others. The address is [http://dominicweb.eu/en/malgastina/slovnik-malgastiny] ... see if this is of any use for you. All the best Tominiko (talk) 04:34, 5 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Early references[edit]

In Sir Thomas Herbert's travel literature Some yeares travels into divers parts of Afrique and Asia he describes the language of the native people of Madagascar which can only be assumed to be the Malagasy language. He writes down the numbers 1 to 10 which bear partial resemblence to Malagasy:

...neceſſity has taught them ſome parts of the rudiments of Arithmetick; the number 10. limits their invention, Iſſo,1., Tone,2., Tello,3., Effad,4., Fruto,5., Woubla,6., Sidda,7., Fonlo,8., Malo,9., Nel,10.,...

Jakeybean (talk) 19:47, 10 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The earliest known writing in Arabic script seem to be from about the same time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.145.71.46 (talk) 16:42, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Reeland[edit]

Note that van Reeland seems to have mentioned the Malayan languages only, and not the alleged Austronesian group. At the least, we need a quotation from the Dutchman. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.97.194.200 (talk) 12:33, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Dempwolff, in 1920, seems to have been the first to refer to Austronesian. I am not sure that van Reeland even referred to Polynesian. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.145.71.46 (talk) 13:42, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Polynesian languages did not come to the notice of Europeans in any big way until after 1708. It seems that

Van Reeland was speaking of Malayan languages only.

Roger Blench contradicts himself. In the text, he uses words like "Polynesian" and "Austronesian", then, in note 1, he admits that

"earlier sources" only refer to "Malay" and "Indonesians".

The Ethnologue web-site does not contain a quotation from Houtman or van Reeland at all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.97.194.200 (talk) 13:18, 4 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

For GA expansion[edit]

The Tamil language article is at FA and offers a good model for improving this. The article is arranged in this order:

   :1 Classification
   :2 History
      ::2.1 Etymology
      ::2.2 Old Tamil
      ::2.3 Middle Tamil
      ::2.4 Modern Tamil
   :3 Geographic distribution
   :4 Legal status
   :5 Dialects
       ::5.1 Region specific variations
          :::5.1.1 Loanword variations
   :6 Spoken and literary variants
   :7 Writing system
   :8 Phonology
       ::8.1 Vowels
       ::8.2 Consonants
       ::8.3 Āytam
       ::8.4 Numerals and symbols
   :9 Grammar
       ::9.1 Morphology
       ::9.2 Syntax
   :10 Vocabulary
   :11 Influence
   :12 See also
   :13 Footnotes
   :14 References
   :15 External links

Lemurbaby (talk) 20:55, 22 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Useful resources here: history of transcription, gendered language use, visibility online, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, and 37. - Lemurbaby (talk) 15:49, 1 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Prenasalization[edit]

If orthographic mp, nd and so on are really prenasalized and not just nasal + oral stop sequences, why isn't it taken into account anywhere in the transcription? 46.186.36.102 (talk) 22:31, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Idk HammerHeadSharkWP (talk) 18:54, 25 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Malagasy language materials[edit]

Malagasy for beginners

https://archive.org/details/MalagasyForBeginners

Introduction to the Malagasy language

https://archive.org/details/IntroductionToTheMalagasyLanguage

A concise grammar of the Malagasy language (1883)

https://archive.org/details/cu31924026914600

https://archive.org/details/concisegrammarof00parkrich

Diksionary englisy sy malagasy ho any izay mianatra teny englisy (1875)

https://archive.org/details/diksionaryengli00sewegoog

https://archive.org/details/diksionaryengli01sewegoog

Ny Diksionary amin ny Baiboly

https://archive.org/details/NyDiksionaryAminNyBaiboly

Gramara

https://archive.org/details/Gramara

Vocabulaire français-malgache

https://archive.org/details/VocabulaireFranais-malgache

https://archive.org/details/VocablaireFranaisMalgache

Dictionnaire français malgache

https://archive.org/details/DictionnaireFranaisMalgache

R. P. H. Dubois. (1917). Essai de dictionnaire betsileo. Première partie: A-L.

https://archive.org/details/R.P.H.Dubois.1917.EssaiDeDictionnaireBetsileo.PremirePartieA-l

Introduction au malgache

https://archive.org/details/IntroductionAuMalgache

Grammaire malgache hova

https://archive.org/details/GrammaireMalgacheHova_13

Précis théorique et pratique de langue malgache : pour faciliter l'usage rapide du HOVA, clef des autres dialectes (1904)

https://archive.org/details/prcisthoriqueet00juligoog

Elements de malgache

https://archive.org/details/ElementsDeMalgache

Essai de grammaire malgache

https://archive.org/details/EssaiDeGrammaireMalgache

History of Madagascar. Comprising also the progress of the Christian mission established in 1818, and an authentic account of the persecution and recent martyrdom of the native Christians (1838)

https://archive.org/details/historyofmadagas01elli

https://archive.org/details/historyofmadagas02elliiala

Three visits to Madagascar during the years 1853-1854-1856. Including a journey to the capital; with notices of the natural history of the country and of the present civilization of the people (1859)

https://archive.org/details/threevisitstoma02elligoog

Madagascar; or, Robert Drury's journal, during fifteen years' captivity on that island. And a further description of Madagascar, by the Abbé Alexis Rochon (1890)

https://archive.org/details/cu31924073426862

Rajmaan (talk) 14:25, 9 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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Classification[edit]

@Austronesier: Considering both Ethnologue and Glottolog are talking about "Malagasy languages" or "Malagasic languages", isn't it time to cast a critical look on this article? This article presents the Merina dialect of Plateau Malagasy as "the Malagasy language" while refering to other mutually unintelligible Malagasy languages as "dialects". I believe this article should be split, the "dialects" section should possibly be under an article named Malagasy/Malagasic languages and the rest of the article should clearly point out that the "Malagasy language" or "Standard Malagasy" is based on the Merina dialect of the Plateau Malagasy language. The Dutch article linked to this article actually leads to an article about the Malagasy languages, which has a link to a further Plateau Malagasy language, which even links to an article for the Merina dialect. I wonder what you think. --Glennznl (talk) 16:40, 14 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Glennznl: That's a tricky question. There is a long tradition of documentation of the diverse Malagasy varieties, but mostly as dialects of a single "Malagasy language". Blust (The Austronesian Languages, 2013:42) recognizes (based on Verin et al. 1969) that "a number of these [dialects] score below the ‘language limit’ of 70% cognate basic vocabulary which is often thought to mark the boundary between dialects of the same language and distinct languages", but still refers to "Malagasy dialects" for convenience. Also Serva et al. (2012) discuss the internal variation of Maladasy under the header of "Malagasy dialects". A good intellegibility study is Bouwer (2007)[1][2] (check whichever link works). This clearly confirms that the idea of a single language does not hold if mutual intelligibility is considered as objective criterion.

The problem however is that not all varieties listed in Glottolog and Ethnologue are necessarily mutually unintelligible. So I am not sure if it is a good idea if we atomize Malagasy into twelve articles for every variant. Although we do follow the principle "one ISO 639-3 code, one article" in many other areas (e.g. for the Malay varieties). –Austronesier (talk) 19:15, 14 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Austronesier: I think the problem is the same as with the "Arabic language" and "Chinese language" and their "dialects". Blust 2013 has another interesting part: "Under such conditions it would be possible to select random points in the continuum as sufficiently distinct to justify recognizing more than one Malagasy language". So does Serva 2012: "These questions call for a new look at the Malagasy language, not as a single entity but as a constellation of variants whose histories are still to be fully understood." Bouwer also has interesting statements such as "Another important contradiction in language views of Malagasy is found in the idea that all Malagasy speak a Malagasy dialect (even the Merina people) "dialect" referring to non-standardised spoken language and that the standardised form of Merina which has become known as OM is the standard form for all Malagasy dialects." and "Outstanding and respected scholars have stated the opinion that there are only slight dialectal differences in the Malagasy language and that these differences definitely do not hinder understanding. The problem is that there is no evidence of sustained empirical investigation that would corroborate such predetermined conclusions".

I wonder if refering to "Malagasy dialects" out of convenience is carrying on (or is reinforced by) the biased language policy of the government of Madagascar, and that they are simply outdated and unscientific views that have since been proven wrong by later studies.

I think a page for every single variant is quite far-fetched as even this current page for Standard Malagasy is quite short if you leave out the dialect overview. However, the current setup does make it impossible to describe any other variant. For example, how would we describe the grammar and phonology of Sakalava Malagasy on this page? It does not quite work. Glennznl (talk) 21:43, 14 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Glennznl: I have dug up two more sources, Adelaar (2013) and Kikusawa (2012). Adelaar speaks of "Malagasy dialects", but I am not sure whether he is commited here to consider them as one language or just follows conventional practice. Kikusawa goes a bit deeper into the sociolinguistic aspect, and thus speaks of "Malagasy languages". There is an OUP Guide in progress about the Malayo-Polynesian languages, but I don't know yet how Malagasy will be covered there. Given that conventions are still fluid (inspite of Ethnologue and Glottolog), I think we should stick to "Malgasy language", but can create squibs for those variants which have more sources than just an Ethnologue and Glottolog entry, which page title "XXX Malagasy". –Austronesier (talk) 11:04, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Btw, I'm quite indifferent to the "language/dialect" question, and personally prefer "language" as default designation for distinct, well-identifiable varieties with self-identifying speakers, but some people are very ideological about these things (either way), look e.g. at this phenomenal revert[3] :) –Austronesier (talk) 11:20, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Austronesier: Alright, I don't mind sticking to a singular Malagasy language per se, but I think it should be pointed out more clearly in the article that it actually discusses just the Merina dialect of Plateau Malagasy. Perhaps the intro should contain "Official Malagasy" (this seems to be the term used rather than Standard Malagasy, but I'll look into that) and "Plateau Malagasy" as alternative terms. The dialect section could mention that the language/dialect situation is debated, mentioning the terms Malagasy languages and Malagasic languages, and pointing out the views of the government of Madagascar, Ethnologue/Glottolog and the intelligiblity studies.

It seems quite typical that marginalized, ahum "language varieties", get bullied into being dialects by speakers of dominant languages, simply because they don't have the manpower to fight back. --Glennznl (talk) 12:34, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, every material that is variety-specific should be flagged as such. I'd prefer "Merina" (AFAICS like most AN-ists), that's what I would personally use in a comparative paper if it included Standard Malagasy data. –Austronesier (talk) 13:10, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]