Maore Comorian, orShimaore (FrenchMahorais), is one of the two indigenous languages spoken in theFrench island ofMayotte; Shimaore being a dialect of theComorian language, whileShiBushi is an unrelatedMalayo-Polynesian language originally fromMadagascar. Historically, Shimaore- and ShiBushi-speaking villages on Mayotte have been clearly identified, but Shimaore tends to be thede facto indigenouslingua franca in everyday life, because of the larger Shimaore-speaking population. Only Shimaore is represented on the local television news program byMayotte La Première. The 2002 census references 80,140 speakers of Shimaore in Mayotte itself, to which one would have to add people living outside the island, mostly in metropolitan France. There are also 20,000 speakers of Comorian in Madagascar, of which 3,000 are Shimaore speakers.

The same 2002 census indicates that 37,840 persons responded as knowing how to read or write Shimaore. However this number has to be taken with caution, since it was a few years after this census was taken that a standard writing system was introduced.

From asociolinguistic perspective,French tends to be regarded by many Shimaore speakers as the language of higher education and prestige, and there is a temptation by native Mahorans to provide an all-French education to their children. This puts a lot of pressure on Shimaore and the language may become endangered in the near future if nothing is done.^{[citation needed]}

Although French remains the official language in Mayotte, Shimaore will probably be taught in Mahoran schools starting in the next few years,^[when?] and a pilot project began in fall 2004. As in many parts of France where local languages are introduced in the school system, this has led to tensions between partisans of a French-centered education system and administrations, versus those promoting a more diversified approach.^{[citation needed]} Shimaore's position in this regard is however different from other French regions (such asBrittany), since the language is locally spoken by a majority of the population. The project in Mayotte has been inspired by similar projects involvingSwahili in eastern Africa countries.

Mayotte is a geographically small territory, but frequent exchanges between villages only began in the last quarter of the twentieth century. As of 2004, linguistic differences between the east and west part of the island, and between the main city of Mamoudzou and the remote villages, are still noticeable, especially when it comes to phonological differences. One typical example is the wordu-la (to eat), notably pronounced this way in the city due to the influence of a brand of yogurt bearing the same name, but pronouncedu-dja in other parts of the island.

This language features an unusual contrast between/w,β,v,b,ɓ/.

This is a basic five-vowel system similar to that of languages such asSpanish.

Shimaore was traditionally written with an informalFrench-basedLatin alphabet. On 22 February 2006, theConseil de la Culture, de l'Éducation et de l'Environnement de Mayotte introduced an official alphabet developed byAssociation ShiMé that utilizes the basic Latin alphabet without c, q, and x and adds three letters: ɓ, ɗ, and v̄.^[5] On 3 March 2020, the Conseil départemental de Mayotte announced the adoption of official orthographies in both Latin and Arabic scripts for Shimaore.^[3][6]

Maore Arabic Alphabet, officially recognized alongside Latin since 2020, consists of 35 letters, of which 27 are from the original Arabic script, and 9 are created for sounds not found in Arabic. However, many of the letters in Maore have a different pronunciation than their Arabic counterpart.

Whereas in Arabic there are 3 vowels, in Maore there are 5. While the common convention inSwahili Ajami orthography has been to use two newdiacritics, which are modified varieties of two existing diacritics, in Maore Arabic alphabet, only the 3 original Arabic diacritics are used. Arabic vowels themselves represent vowels [a], [u], and [i].

The vowel [o] is created by adding awaw "و" and azero-vowel diacritic (sukun) after the consonant.

The vowel [e] is created by adding aya' "ي" and azero-vowel diacritic (sukun) after the consonant.

In Maore Arabic Alphabet, (similar toSwahili Ajami Script) stressed syllables are marked, either withalif "ا" (if the vowel of the syllable is [a]),waw "و" (if the vowel of the syllable is [u]), orya' "ي" (if the vowel of the syllable is [i]). These letters are written with no diacritic, not evenzero-vowel diacritic (sukun). (the existence or lack thereof of the zero-vowel diacritic is what distinguishes between [e] and a stressed [i]). This does not apply to stressed syllables containing vowels [o] or [e].

In most cases, the stressed syllable happens to be the one before last.

Whereas in Arabic, the letterʿayn is used as apharyngeal consonant, in Maore it has a unique role of being the carrier for nasal vowels. Meaning that with the use ofdiacritics (and the letterwaw "و" andya' "ي" as needed), nasal vowels are written.

When non-nasal vowels are at the beginning of a word,alif-hamza "أ / إ" is used as a carrier of the appropriate diacritic (followed by the letterwaw "و" andya' "ي" as needed.)

[7]

• Abdou Baco

• Languages of Mayotte

• Blanchy, Sophie (1987).L'interprète. Dictionnaire Mahorais - Français et Français - Mahorais. CMAC, Mayotte. L'Harmattan, Paris.
• Cornice, Abdillahi D. (1999).Manuel grammatical de shimaore. Mamoudzou, Mayotte: L'Association SHIME - Le SHImaorais MEthodique.
• Johansen Alnet, Aimee (2009).The clause structure of the Shimaore dialect of Comorian (Bantu). Ph.D thesis. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois.
• Kordji, Chamsidine, Martine Jaquin, et alia (1999).Narifundrihe shimaore - Apprenons le shimaore. Association SHIME, Mamoudzou.
• Maandhui, Ousseni (1996).Parlons Shimaore. Editions du Baobab, Mamoudzou.
• Rombi, Marie-Françoise (1983).Le Shimaore (Île de Mayotte, Comores): Première approche d'un parler de la langue comorienne. Paris: Société d'Etudes Linguistiques et Anthropologiques de France (SELAF).

• Ylangue
• SHIME
• Johansen Alnet's Thesis

• Languages of the Comoros
• Culture of Mayotte

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