Note 540 — Chapter VII

Loc. cit. p. 77. Thus, to take the days of the week, we have:—Malagasy alahady, alatsinainy; old Arab. (Himyar.) al-áhadu, al-itsnáni; modern Arab. el-áhad, el-etnén (Sunday, Monday), where the Mal. forms are obviously derived not from the present, but from the ancient Arabic. From all this it seems reasonable to infer that the early Semitic influences in Madagascar may be due to the same Sabaean or Minaean peoples of South Arabia, to whom the Zimbabwe monuments in the auriferous region south of the Zambesi were accredited by Theodore Bent.