The Beosi are short-statured hunter-gatherers of the central highlands of Madagascar. They are distinct from the Mikea hunter-gatherers and horticulturalists of the lowlands.
| Regions with significant populations | |
|---|---|
| Madagascar | |
| Languages | |
| Malagasy | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| other Malagasy peoples, not necessarily close to the Mikea |
Language
edit| (possible substrate language) | |
|---|---|
| Ethnicity | Beosi |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | None (mis) |
| Glottolog | vazi1234 |
The Boesi speak a dialect of the Malagasy language, which originated in southern Borneo. Speculation that there may be remnants of a Vazimba language in Beosi speech was investigated by Blench & Walsh (2009). Beosi speech was found to have a relatively high proportion of vocabulary that cannot be identified with words in other varieties of Malagasy, substantially more than the Mikea dialect, and is more likely than Mikea to retain a Vazimba substrate, if such a thing even exists. The possibility is complicated by the extensive use of evasive language and cant by the Beosi, which is designed to hinder understanding by outsiders.[1]
Notes
edit- ^ Blench & Walsh, 2009 draft ms, "The vocabularies of Vazimba and Beosi: do they represent the languages of the pre-Austronesian populations of Madagascar?".