Madagascar

Etymology
Borrowed from, from Madageiscar, popularly reputed as a corrupted transliteration of by 's misreading of Arabic. The maps of particular interest are that of al-Idrisi in the 12th century, who produced the Tabula Rogeriana, the most advanced world map at the time.

The actual misconstrued term was listed alongside  which lent its name to Comoros; Madagascar however likely being the original based on its dimensions.

The map in question warps the direction of Africa's east coast to be parallel to the coast of southeast Asia, prompting a conflation of the regions furthest east and furthest south, in the reaches of Arab exploration. This perhaps makes the Island of Mālāī both representing Madagascar and an island in Indonesia, likely Sumatra, in close proximity to Malaysia. To conflate matters further, the populations of both regions are of Austronesian background, a fact pointed out by Arab explorers who identified Madagascar as colony of the former region. A second wave of Austronesians, including Malays, did indeed migrate to the island after the first group had originally left from what was likely Southern Borneo from linguistic and genetic analysis.

"Mālāī-Gezīra" also holds connection to the term for the people and languages of the island,, which had earlier forms and , because of dialect division.

Translations

 * Afrikaans: Madagaskar
 * Amharic: ማዳጋስካር
 * Arabic:
 * Armenian: Մադագասկար
 * Assamese: মাদাগাস্কাৰ
 * Assyrian Neo-Aramaic: ܡܲܕܲܓܲܫܩܲܪ
 * Azerbaijani:
 * Belarusian: Мадагаска́р
 * Bengali:
 * Breton:
 * Bulgarian: Мадагаска́р
 * Burmese: မဒါဂတ်စကား
 * Catalan:
 * Chinese:
 * Mandarin:
 * Czech:
 * Danish:
 * Dhivehi: މަޑަގަސްކަރަ
 * Dutch:
 * Esperanto:
 * Estonian:
 * Finnish:
 * French:
 * Galician:
 * Georgian:
 * German:
 * Greek:
 * Hausa: Madagaskar
 * Hebrew: מדגסקר
 * Hindi: मेडागास्कर,
 * Hungarian:
 * Icelandic:
 * Ingrian: Madagaskara
 * Interlingua: Madagascar
 * Italian:
 * Japanese:
 * Kamba: Madagaska
 * Kazakh:
 * Khmer: ម៉ាដាហ្គាស្ការ
 * Kikuyu: Madagaska
 * Korean: ,
 * Kyrgyz: Мадагаскар
 * Lao: ມາດາກັດກາ, ມາດາກາສະກາ
 * Latin:
 * Latvian: Madagaskara
 * Lithuanian:
 * Luhya: Madagaska
 * Luo: Madagaska
 * Macedonian: Мадага́скар
 * Malagasy:
 * Malay: Madagaskar
 * Manx: Madagascar
 * Maori: Marakāhia, Matakahaka
 * Meru: Madagaska
 * Mongolian: Мадагаскар
 * Navajo: Mágí Bitseeʼ Noodǫ́zí Bikéyah
 * Norman: Madagascar
 * Norwegian:
 * Bokmål:
 * Nynorsk:
 * Persian:
 * Pitcairn-Norfolk: Madagascar
 * Polish:
 * Portuguese: ,
 * Punjabi:
 * Romanian:
 * Russian:
 * Scots: Madagascar
 * Serbo-Croatian:
 * Cyrillic: Мадагаскар
 * Roman:
 * Sinhalese: මැඩගස්කරය
 * Slovak: Madagaskar
 * Slovene:
 * Spanish:
 * Swahili:, Madagaska
 * Swedish:
 * Tagalog:
 * Tajik:
 * Tatar: Мадагаскар
 * Thai:
 * Tibetan: མ་ད་གཱ་སི་ཀར
 * Tigrinya: ማዳጋስካር
 * Turkish:
 * Turkmen: Madagaskar
 * Ukrainian:
 * Urdu: مڈغاسکر
 * Uyghur: ماداگاسكار
 * Uzbek:
 * Vietnamese: Ma-đa-gát-xca
 * Western Panjabi: مڈغاسکر
 * Yiddish: מאַדאַגאַסקאַר
 * Yoruba: Madagásíkà

Noun

 * 1)  A resident of Madagascar.