Vezo is a dialect of Malagasy spoken by

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, ...

in the provinces of

Mahajanga Mahajangā (French: Majunga) is a city and an administrative district on the northwest coast of Madagascar. The city of Mahajanga (Mahajanga I) is the capital of the Boeny Region. The district (identical to the city) had a population of 258,068 ...

and

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 ...

. It is among southern dialects of Malagasy along with Southern Sakalava,

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 ...

, Tandroy-Mahafaly, Bara and

Tanosy The Antanosy ("people of the island") is a Malagasy ethnic group who primarily live in the Anosy region of southeastern Madagascar, though there are also Antanosy living near Bezaha, where some of the Antanosy moved after the Merina people conq ...

Classification

Vezo dialect belongs to the

Austronesian Austronesian may refer to: *The Austronesian languages *The historical Austronesian peoples The Austronesian people, sometimes referred to as Austronesian-speaking peoples, are a large group of peoples who have settled in Taiwan, maritime Sout ...

language family. Vezo language is very close to Southern sakalava dialect phonetically.

Geographic distribution

Vezo is a very popular dialect among the nomadic Vezo tribe and it's the main dialect spoken in the city of

Vocabulary

Numerals

Animals

References

{{Languages of Madagascar Verb–object–subject languages Languages of Madagascar