Bushi
Language · official in 1 country
Kibushi, as Bushi is called on Mayotte, is a dialect of Malagasy. Its nearest relatives are spoken around Antsiranana and Mahajanga in northwestern Madagascar, the part of that island closest to Mayotte, and Glottolog counts Kibosy and the Majunga speech together as one Malagasy language. In 1980 it was spoken by 40% of Mayotte's people.
The language on record
- Own name
- Kibushi
- ISO 639-3
- BUC
- Script
- Latin
- Family
- Malagasy
- Official in
- 1 country
Where Bushi is official
Mayotte, an overseas department of France, is the one entry. Its record lists Kibushi, while French law keeps French as Mayotte's sole official language.
Official beside Bushi
About Bushi
Where on Mayotte Kibushi is heard
Kibushi villages line the west coast of Grande-Terre, the main island: Bambo Est, M'Boueni, Passy-Kéli, Mronabeja, Kani-Kéli, Chirongui, Poroani, Ouangani, Chiconi, Sohoa, M'Tsangamouji, Acoua, Mtsangadoua and Handrema. Speakers of Shimaore, the island's Bantu language, call it Shibushi. Shimaore has more speakers and tends to be the everyday lingua franca, and only Shimaore is used on the local television news. The Mayotte article records two dialects, one close to Sakalava Malagasy and one close to the speech of the Antalaotra of Madagascar, both influenced by Shimaore.
How the councils of Mayotte fixed its spelling
For most of its history Kibushi was written in an informal Latin spelling borrowed from French. On 22 February 2006 the Conseil de la culture, de l'éducation et de l'environnement de Mayotte introduced an official alphabet: the basic Latin letters without c, j, q and x, plus ɓ, ɗ and n̈. On 3 March 2020 the Conseil départemental de Mayotte adopted official spellings in both Latin and Arabic script. The sound system has five vowels and 20 consonants.
Common questions
Questions about Bushi
Is Kibushi a separate language from Malagasy?
The source calls it a dialect of Malagasy. Glottolog groups Kibosy with the Malagasy of Majunga as one of the Malagasy languages.
What share of Mayotte speaks Kibushi?
40% of the island's people in 1980. A 2006 survey of schoolchildren's families put first language speakers at 13.6% and all speakers at 28.8%.
Which scripts can Kibushi be written in?
Latin and Arabic. Mayotte's departmental council adopted official spellings in both in March 2020, after a Latin alphabet with the added letters ɓ, ɗ and n̈ was introduced in 2006.