Bushi or Kibosy (''Shibushi'' or ''Kibushi'') is a dialect of Malagasy spoken in the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by th ...

island of

Mayotte Mayotte (; french: Mayotte, ; Shimaore: ''Maore'', ; Kibushi: ''Maori'', ), officially the Department of Mayotte (french: Département de Mayotte), is an overseas department and region and single territorial collectivity of France. It is loc ...

. Malagasy dialects most closely related to Bushi are spoken in northwestern Madagascar in the area of

Antsiranana Antsiranana ( mg, Antsiran̈ana ), named Diego-Suárez prior to 1975, is a city in the far north of Madagascar. Antsiranana is the capital of Diana Region. It had an estimated population of 115,015 in 2013. History The bay and city originally u ...

(Diego-Suarez) and Mahajanga (Majunga), which is also the closest point in Madagascar to Mayotte. Kibosy and Majunga together are considered one of the Malagasy languages by ''

Glottolog ''Glottolog'' is a bibliographic database of the world's lesser-known languages, developed and maintained first at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany (between 2015 and 2020 at the Max Planck Institute for ...

.''

Geographical distribution

Bushi is known as Kibushi on Mayotte and is spoken by 40% of the island's people (1980). It is spoken alongside the

Maore dialect Maore Comorian, or ''Shimaore'' ( French ''Mahorais''), is one of the two indigenous languages spoken in the French-ruled Comorian islands of Mayotte; Shimaore being a dialect of the Comorian language, while ShiBushi is an unrelated Malayo-P ...

(''Shimaore''), a

Bantu Bantu may refer to: *Bantu languages, constitute the largest sub-branch of the Niger–Congo languages *Bantu peoples, over 400 peoples of Africa speaking a Bantu language * Bantu knots, a type of African hairstyle *Black Association for National ...

language. Historically, Kibushi and Shimaore have been spoken in certain villages but Shimaore tends to be the ''de facto'' indigenous

lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...

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 The term réseau derives from a French word meaning "network". It may mean: *a network of fine lines on a glass plate, used in photographic telescopes to make a corresponding network on photographs of the stars: see Réseau plate *a system of weat ...

. 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 Mronabeja is a village in the commune of Kani-Kéli on Mayotte Mayotte (; french: Mayotte, ; Shimaore: ''Maore'', ; Kibushi: ''Maori'', ), officially the Department of Mayotte (french: Département de Mayotte), is an overseas department and ...

, Kani-Kéli,

Chirongui Chirongui is a commune in the French overseas department of Mayotte, in the Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia ...

, Poroani,

Ouangani Ouangani is a commune in the French overseas department of Mayotte, in the Indian Ocean. Geography Climate Ouangani has a tropical savanna climate (Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely u ...

Chiconi Chiconi is a commune in the French overseas department of Mayotte, in the Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia t ...

Sohoa Sohoa is a village in the commune of Chiconi on Mayotte Mayotte (; french: Mayotte, ; Shimaore: ''Maore'', ; Kibushi: ''Maori'', ), officially the Department of Mayotte (french: Département de Mayotte), is an overseas department and region a ...

M'Tsangamouji M'Tsangamouji is a commune in the French overseas department of Mayotte, in the Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by ...

Acoua Acoua is a commune in the French overseas department of Mayotte, in the Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to ...

Mtsangadoua Mtsangadoua is a village in the commune of Acoua on Mayotte Mayotte (; french: Mayotte, ; Shimaore: ''Maore'', ; Kibushi: ''Maori'', ), officially the Department of Mayotte (french: Département de Mayotte), is an overseas department and re ...

, and

Handrema Handrema is the smallest village in the commune of Bandraboua on Mayotte. In 2007, its population was 1,485. Its beach is stony and surrounded by mangrove A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal saline or brackish water. The te ...

Phonology

In Mayotte, Bushi was traditionally written with an informal French-based

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

orthography. On 22 February 2006, the introduced an official alphabet that utilizes the basic Latin alphabet without c, j, q, and x and uses three extra letters: ɓ, ɗ, and n̈. Here, the letters used in the orthography are bolded, their IPA counterparts in brackets. On March 3, 2020, the announced the adoption of official orthographies in both Latin and Arabic scripts for Kibushi.https://cg976.fr/ressources/dcp/?file=alphabets-langues-mahoraises

Vowels

Bushi has five vowels.

Consonants

Bushi has 20 consonants.

Notes

Languages of the Comoros Languages of France Malagasy language Mahoran culture {{Mayotte-stub

Geographical distribution

Phonology

Vowels

Consonants

See also

Notes