Masikoro is a dialect of Malagasy spoken by

Masikoro The Masikoro are a group of farmers and herders who inhabit areas surrounding the Mikea Forest, a patch of mixed spiny forest and dry deciduous forest along the coast of southwestern Madagascar in Toliara Province. Along with Vezo and Mikea, th ...

in the province of

Toliara Toliara (also known as ''Toliary'', ; formerly ''Tuléar'') is a city in southern Madagascar. It is the capital of the Atsimo-Andrefana region, located 936 km southwest of the national capital Antananarivo. The current spelling of the name ...

Classification

Masikoro dialect belongs to the Austronesian language family and part of the subgroup of malagasy dialect known as Southern malagasic. It's very close to

Vezo The Vezo is a Sakalava Malagasy term for ''Bajo'', the semi-nomadic maritime or sea people from Central–Eastern Indonesia (esp. Flores Sea) who settled in southern Madagascar. They speak a variety of Malagasy language, Malagasy dialect continuum, ...

and Southern Sakalava.

Geographic distribution

Masikoro is a very popular dialect in the inland of

Atsimo Andrefana Atsimo-Andrefana (South West) is a region of Madagascar. It borders Menabe in north, Amoron'i Mania and Haute Matsiatra in northeast, Ihorombe and Anosy in east and Androy in southeast. The capital is Toliara and the population was 1,799,088 in ...

while Vezo dialect dominated its coast.

References

Malagasy language Verb–object–subject languages Languages of Madagascar {{Austronesian-lang-stub