330 
MADAGASCAR. 
European tongues. It has all the soft liquid 
flow of Italian, and is especially adapted for 
setting to music. In the old songs of the people 
one has often been struck by the plaintive wild¬ 
ness of the phrases, and the sympathy of the 
strain to which they have been set. In the new 
order of things, the improved music at the cap¬ 
ital, for which the Malagasy are indebted very 
much to Mr Kichardson (who was till lately the 
energetic head of the Normal School there), is a 
matter of congratulation and delight. 
The growth of the language, here as elsewhere, 
has been coextensive with the progress of the 
nation. The introduction of European or other 
foreign ways and thoughts has been followed by an 
extension of the vocabulary, till now perhaps nearly 
one-third of the words in daily use in the country 
are of foreign origin, and are either boldly trans¬ 
planted into the language, or slightly transformed 
to suit the Malagasy mode of spelling and pro¬ 
nunciation. Nearly the whole of the theological 
terms now in use are imported, and are embodied 
almost literally in the Malagasy; and the mili¬ 
tary tactics of the native army, as well as the 
civil administration, are all directed in words 
and phrases borrowed from English or French 
sources. To illustrate this, we may mention for 
example kemistry , la farine, boty, dekana (aide- 
de-camp), Baiboly , soavaly (cheval), Gazetty, 
