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language spoken by the various tribes which inhabit Madagascar was essentially a spoken language, no symbols or pictures of the nature of writing having been found, until the early part of the present century; since which time the English Missionaries, by degrees, reduced it to its present alphabetic form. The characters chosen for it were those of our own English alphabet, with the exception of the five letters c, q, u, w, x, which have no corresponding sounds in Malagasy: but some, or all, of these (especially w) seem likely to be incorporated into the Malagasy language along with foreign words which require their use.

With regard to the place which Malagasy occupies among languages, there can be no doubt at all that it belongs to the Malayo-Polynesian group, or that it seems to have the closest affinity to the Malay proper and the Eastern Polynesian; although it is still a puzzle why the Malagasy people, who are chiefly of African origin (with the exception of the Hova tribe), should use a Malay language.

The use of infixes is a feature which the Malagasy language possesses in common with other languages of the Malayo-Polynesian group; and on this subject Mr. Keane has kindly given the following valuable information:—"The infix syllable om (um, am, om) is a feature which Malagasy has in common with Khmèr