malagasy words, part two.

now that i am finally starting to be able to speak malagasy (coming up on 5 months here), i realize more and more each day what an amazing language it is. being a bit of a "verbivore" myself, i love to pour over my trusty malagasy-english dictionary daily, making connections with words i hear and how they are defined. i have found that the malagasy language is fascinating, and at times words i stumble across have a poetic or onomatopoeic quality, so i wanted to share some of my findings.

here are a few basics for all of you out there who love words as much as i do.

first of all, ALL verbs in the malagasy language start with the letter M. to change the verb to past tense, you change the M to an N. to make it future tense, change it to an H.

for example:
Mianatra= to study
Nianatra= studied
Hianatra= will study

there are no malagasy irregular verbs. this makes learning the language easy (sort of) once you get some of the basic rules down. read on.

there are many prefixes that you can add to a verb to change it's meaning, while always keeping true to the original root verb.

for example, add a P to the beginning of the verb (after the M) to make it a profession or something that one does.

for example:
Mianatra= to study
becomes
MPianatra= a student

other examples:
Mavandy= to lie, therefore MPavandy= a liar.
Mandoky= to cook, therefore MPandoky= a cook.

here's the cool part. you can also at "Mamp" to the beginning of that same root verb to change it once again. "Mamp" basically causes that verb to happen.

thus:
Mianatra= to study
becomes
MAMPianatra= to teach (to cause studying to happen)
and if you add a P to the beginning:
MPAMPianatra= a teacher

pretty cool, huh?

here are some other interesting tidbits on the malagasy language.
double the word if it is only somewhat of that quality.

thus:
mafana= hot
mafananafana= warm

or
mitovy= the same
mitovytovy= sort of similar

once you know root words and verbs, you start to see how words are combined to create new words and change their meanings.

for example:
solomaso= eyeglasses
from the two root words
misolo= to change
maso= the eye

or
miasa loha= stressed
from the two root words
miasa= to work
loha= head

sometimes, as i said, there are words that are simply onomatopoeic in nature.
i remember finding this word in the dictionary when i first moved here and fell in love with the definition:

misasasasa= to make a sound of rushing water; to make a sound like falling rain or leaves rustling in the wind.

the root verb?
misasa, which means simply, to wash.

and finally, a verb that defines my life.
miala nenina= to do everything possible so that one will have no regrets later.