The evidence that Malagasy is itself one of these Oceanic tongues, and not an offshoot of the comparatively recent standard Malay is overwhelming, and need not here detain us[541]. The diffusion of this Austronesian language over the whole island--even amongst distinctly Negroid Bantu populations, such as the Betsileos and Tanalas--to the absolute exclusion of all other forms of speech, is an extraordinary linguistic phenomenon more easily proved than explained. There are, of course, provincialisms and even what may be called local dialects, such as that of the Antankarana people at the northern extremity of the island who, although commonly included in the large division of the western Sakalavas, really form a separate ethnical group, speaking a somewhat marked variety of Malagasy. But even this differs much less from the normal form than might be supposed by comparing, for instance, such a term as _maso-mahamay_, sun, with the Hova _maso-andro_, where _maso_ in both means "eye," _mahamay_ in both = "burning," and _andro_ in both = "day." Thus the only difference is that one calls the sun "burning eye," while the Hovas call it the "day's eye," as do so many peoples in Malaysia[542]. So also the fish-eating _Anorohoro_ people, a branch of the _Sihanakas_ in the Alaotra valley, are said to have "quite a different dialect from them[543]." But the statement need not be taken too seriously, because these rustic fisherfolk, who may be called the Gothamites of Madagascar, are supposed, by their scornful neighbours, to do everything "contrariwise." Of them it is told that once when cooking eggs they boiled them for hours to make them soft, and then finding they got harder and harder threw them away as unfit for food. Others having only one slave, who could not paddle the canoe properly, cut him in two, putting one half at the prow, the other at the stern, and were surprised at the result. It was not to be expected that such simpletons should speak Malagasy properly, which nevertheless is spoken with surprising uniformity by all the Malayan and Negro or Negroid peoples alike. In Madagascar, however, the fusion of the two races is far less complete than is commonly supposed. Various shades of transition between the two extremes are no doubt presented by the _Sakalavas_ of the west, and the _Betsimisarakas_, _Sitanakas_, and others of the east coast. But, strange to say, on the central tableland the two seem to stand almost completely apart, so that here the politically dominant Hovas still present all the essential characteristics of the Oceanic Mongol, while their southern neighbours, the _Betsileos_, as well as the _Tanalas_ and _Ibaras_, are described as "African pure and simple, allied to the south-eastern tribes of that continent[544]."