Where does Madagascar language come from?

Although Madagascar is located off the Eastern coast of Africa, its language Malagasy is not related to any African language. It is actually part of the Austronesian language family and its closest relative is Ma’anyan of south Borneo (Kalimantan, Indonesia).

The first settlers must have come from Borneo over 2000 years ago, but this fact was lost until Norwegian Otto Dahl noticed the similarity of languages in the 1950s, which was confirme by genetics studies published in 2005 by a UK team. 

And, by the way, this is the entrance of our office in Antananarivo, Madagascar’s capital!