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Campaign For a Tetrasyllabic Capital of Madagascar

The capital of Madagascar is Antananarivo. This is pronounced 'Tananarive' because in Malagasy you don't bother with the first or last syllables of place names.

The French changed the spelling to Tananarive, but the old place name spellings were restored in the 1960s following independence. Of course many assumed that they had restored an old name rather than an old spelling, so you invariably hear Europeans pronounce the capital with six syllables instead of four.

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