Bushi or Kibosy (Shibushi or Kibushi) is a dialect of Malagasy spoken in the Indian Ocean island of Mayotte. Malagasy dialects most closely related to Bushi are spoken in northwestern Madagascar in the area of Antsiranana (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.
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 (Shimaore), 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 Kiantalaotsy 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, and Handrema.
Phonology In Mayotte, Bushi was traditionally written with an informal French-based Latin 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 bracketed, following their IPA counterparts. On March 3, 2020, the announced the adoption of official orthographies in both Latin and Arabic scripts for Kibushi.
Vowels Bushi has five vowels. FrontBackClose Mid Open
Consonants Bushi has 20 consonants. Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar GlottalNasal Plosive Fricative Approximant Trill
Vocabulary Numbers number or digit: to count:
Number Bushi English 1 one 2 , two 3 three 4 four 5 five 6 , , six 7 seven 8 eight 9 nine10 ten11 , eleven12 twelve13 thirteen14 fourteen15 fifteen16 sixteen17 seventeen18 eighteen19 nineteen20 twenty30 thirty40 forty50 fifty60 sixty70 seventy80 eighty90 ninety100 one hundred101 one hundred and one110 one hundred and ten111 one hundred and eleven200 , two hundred300 three hundred400 four hundred500 five hundred600 six hundred700 seven hundred800 eight hundred900 nine hundred1,000 one thousand2,000 two thousand3,000 three thousand4,000 four thousand5,000 five thousand10,000 ten thousand100,000 one hundred thousand1,000,000 one million1,000,000,000 one billion
Comparisons with Malagasy Gloss Bushi Standard Malagasy 1 2 , 3 4 5 6 , , 7 8 9 10 I , you , , he, she we they all , and , yet not too , today week in, inside thing food , child , woman man thank you France your house to listen
See also Languages of Mayotte
Notes