The relationship between the name of the country, MADAGASIKARA (Madagascar in English), and the name of its inhabitants and their language, MALAGASY, is explained as follows: Firstly, the letters D and L can be exchanged in certain situations. We see it frequently in the dialects of the Island: vady/valy (spouse), fady/faly (forbidden), anjavidy/anjavily (heather). We see it also in North America, where Dakota and Lakota dictionaries have lists of words with identical meaning and a spelling difference from D to L. Let us apply that exchange: MADAGASIKARA becomes MALAGASIKARA. Secondly, MALAGASIKARA is in fact MALAGASY-KARA; one can recognize in the ending the Persian or Arabic word قارة which means continent. It is unclear if the name comes from the Persians or the Arabs. Either way, we note that the combined areas of all the islands known to these navigators, from Cyprus to the Comoros and from Sri Lanka to the Balearic Islands, barely amount to one sixth of the Great Island's area; small wonder that they viewed it as a continent.