The glottochronology of Malagasy speech communities

English-speaking scholars know much about Madagascar, but the history of its peopling and settlement is subject to dispute and alternative interpretations among scholars in France and Madagascar. The primary dilemma for the Malagasy historian has to do with the fact that the Malagasy share many attributes with populations of the nearby East African coast. Many Malagasy institutions and physical types could be quite at home in Tanzania or in Kenya. The native languages of Madagascar are not African, however, but are members of the Indonesian subgroup of the Malayo-Polynesian family. Biologically the populations of Madagascar show their debt to a gene pool consisting of contributions from Africa and Indonesia.