Language of Anjouan

The official languages of Anjouan are French, Arabic and Comorian (Shikomor), which is a blend of Arabic and Swahili. Comorian is the most widely used language on the all the Comoros Islands, including Anjouan. On each island, a slightly different dialect of the language is spoken; the lingo of Anjouan is called Shindzuani, that of Mohel Shimmali; that of Maore Shimaore and that of Grand Comoro Shingadzija.

There is no official alphabet for Shindzuani; but scripts in both Arabic and Latin are used. Shimasiwa is another name for Comorian, and the literal meaning of Shimasiwa is ‘language of islands’. It is also the language of Udzima wa ya Masiwa, the national anthem of the "moon islands" ("al-qamar" is Arabic for "moon").

70 kilometres from Anjouan is the island of Mayotte that houses two distinct linguistic communities: the first, the largest, speaks Maore, a language belonging to the Bantu linguistic group, the second is a dialect of Malagasy spoken in roughly twenty villages scattered over the island. The Malagassy dialect belongs to the Austronesian languages.

The Malagasy speakers also know Maore, but the reverse is not true. The Maore language of Mayotte is a Bantu language just as is Ngazidja spoken in Grande Comore. Maore presents several major differences as compared to Ngazidja and Mwali (the languages spoken on the two more northern islands of the Comoro archipelago) and is much more clearly related to the language spoken on the neighboring island of Anjouan (the Nzuani language).

Language of Anjouan at a glance…

By: Mini Sreenarayanan

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