Bushi language

Bushi
Shibushi
Kibushi
Native to	Mayotte, Madagascar
Native speakers	39,000 (2001)
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian East Barito Malagasy Bushi
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	buc
Glottolog	bush1250

Bushi (Shibushi or Kibushi) is a dialect of Malagasy spoken in the French-ruled Comorian island of Mayotte. In 1995, it was spoken by 806,000 people (767,000 in Madagascar and 39,000 in Mayotte).

Similar dialects in Madagascar

Bushi is spoken in northwestern Madagascar in the area of Antsiranana (Diego-Suarez) and Mahajanga (Majunga).

Mayotte Bushi

Bushi is known as Kibushi on Mayotte and is spoken by 40% of the islands' people (1980). It is spoken alongside the Maore dialect (Shimaore) of Comorian, a Bantu language. Historically, Kibushi and Shimaore have been spoken in certain villages but Shimaore tends to be the de facto indigenous lingua franca in everyday life, because of the larger Shimaore-speaking population. Only Shimaore is represented on the local television news program by Réseau Outre-Mer 1re. Dialects of Bushi in Mayotte (known as Shibushi in Shimaore) include Kiantalaotse and Kibushi-Kimaore (Shibushi-Shimaore in Shimaore).

Bushi is spoken along the west coast of the main island (Grande-Terre) including the villages of Bambo Est, M'Boueni, Passy-Kéli, Mronabeja, Kani-Kéli, Chirongui, Poroani, Ouangani, Chiconi, Sohoa, M'Tsangamouji, Acoua, Mtsangadoua, Handrema.

Orthography

In Mayotte, Bushi was traditionally written with an informal French-based Latin orthography. On 22 February 2006, the Conseil de la Culture, de l'Education et de l'Environnement de Mayotte introduced an official alphabet that utilizes the basic Latin alphabet without c, j, q, and x and adds three letters: ɓ, ɗ, and n̈.

Mayotte Bushi alphabet

Letter	Aa	Bb	Ɓɓ	Dd	Ɗɗ	Ee	Ff	Gg	Hh	Ii	Kk	Ll	Mm	Nn	N̈n̈	Oo	Pp	Rr	Ss	Tt	Uu	Vv	Ww	Yy	Zz
IPA Value	/a/	/b/	/ɓ/	/d/	/ɗ/	/e/	/f/	/ɡ/	/h/	/i/	/k/	/l/	/m/	/n/	/ŋ/	/o/	/p/	/r/	/s/	/t/	/u/	/v/	/w/	/j/	/z/

See also

• Mayotte: Languages