Beosi

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.

Beosi
Regions with significant populations
Madagascar
Languages
Malagasy
Related ethnic groups
other Malagasy peoples, not necessarily close to the Mikea

Language
(possible substrate language)
EthnicityBeosi
Language codes
ISO 639-3None (mis)
Glottologvazi1234

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
  1. Blench & Walsh, 2009 draft ms, "The vocabularies of Vazimba and Beosi: do they represent the languages of the pre-Austronesian populations of Madagascar?".
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