Maore

Why Shimaore became the island's common tongue

Mayotte has two native languages, Shimaore and Kibushi, a dialect of Malagasy. Villages of each are clearly identified, but Shimaore has the larger population and tends to be the language of daily life across the island. In a 2006 survey by the French education ministry, 55.1% named it as a mother tongue and 88.3% spoke it at all. Shindzwani, the Comorian of Anjouan, is fully intelligible with it; Shingazidja and Shimwali generally are not.

Regular traffic between villages began only in the last quarter of the twentieth century, and in 2004 speech still differed between east and west and between Mamoudzou and the remote villages. The word for to eat is u-la in the city, a pronunciation credited to a yogurt brand of that name, and u-dja elsewhere.

Shimaore takes an Arabic script beside Latin

Shimaore was long written in an informal Latin spelling taken from French. In 2006 the Conseil de la Culture, de l'Éducation et de l'Environnement de Mayotte introduced an alphabet devised by Association ShiMé, dropping c, q and x and adding ɓ, ɗ and v̄. On 3 March 2020 the Conseil départemental de Mayotte adopted official Latin and Arabic orthographies. The Arabic one has 35 letters, uses ʿayn to carry nasal vowels and marks the stressed syllable, usually the one before last.

Does French schooling put it at risk

Many speakers regard French as the language of higher education and prestige, and some families raise their children in French alone. A pilot project to teach Shimaore in schools began in autumn 2004, modelled on Swahili teaching in East Africa.