Malagasy Words and Their Meanings: The Names Behind Our Yoga Products

Why our products have names you can't pronounce (yet)

If you've ordered from Ladina Yoga, you've probably paused over a name on the label. Ravinala, Masoandro, Sarobidy: they might not roll of the tongue easy in English, and that was a choice.

I grew up in Madagascar, my ancestors moved there from India four generations ago. Our bolsters, cushions and baskets are made there, by people whose language I heard every day as a child. When it came to naming the pieces, I wanted the words to carry that origin instead of hiding it behind something like "Zen Cushion Blue".

Scroll down to understand what each name means, where it comes from, and why it ended up on the product it did.

A quick note on Malagasy

Malagasy is the national language of Madagascar, spoken across the island. Its story surprises most people: although Madagascar sits off the coast of East Africa, Malagasy belongs to the Austronesian family, and its closest relatives are spoken in Borneo. Over centuries it absorbed words from Bantu languages, Arabic, French and English, which makes it a fitting language for a brand about things woven together. 

Two tips if you want to say the names out loud: the letter o is pronounced "oo", and the last syllable of a word is often barely sounded.

Ladina: interwoven

The brand name comes from mandadina, the act of braiding things together by hand. I chose it because it reflects back to nature. Everything we make starts as something growing, whether that's rubber, cotton, raffia or buckwheat, long before it becomes a mat, a basket or a cushion. And well, because nature is simply where we come from, where we belong, where we find grounding and peace.

Ravinala: the traveller's tree (Ravinala Studio and Travel Mat)

Ravina means leaf and ala means forrest, so Ravinala is "the leaves of the forest". It's the Malagasy name for the tree of the traveller, which is native to Madagascar and has become one of the island's national symbols.

Shop Ravinala Travel Mat

It earned its English name by helping travellers in two ways. Rainwater collects in the cup-shaped bases of its leaves, about a litre in each, and the story goes that travellers would stop and drink from it (although it is not very safe to!). Its leaves also grow in a single flat fan that tens to line up east to west, so the tree doubled as a rough compass.

Botanists are careful to say "tends to": not every tree follows the rule, and the likely reason is that the fan turns to catch the sun as it crosses the sky.

A tree that looks after people on the move felt like the only possible name for a mat built to travel.

Masoandro: the eye of the day (Masoandro Yoga Bag)

Masoandro is the Malagasy word for sun. Taken apart, it's maso (eye) and andro (day), so the sun is "the eye of the day". It's one of my favourite word in the language, and it went on the bag that carries your mat out into it.

Ravi Be (Ravi Be Yoga Bag)

Ravi Be means big leaf: ravina (leaf) shortened to ravi, and be (big). It's a sibling to Ravinala, the leaves of the forrest. In Madagascar, a big leaf has long been the simplest way to wrap, carry or serve things, which made it a natural name for a bag.

Sarobidy: precious (Sarobidy Storage Baskets)

Sarobidy means precious, or valuable. The baskets are handwoven by Malagasy artisans with raffia, and the name is a small acknowledgement of how much skill and time goes into each one.

Voanio: coconut (Voanio Meditation Cushion)

Voanio is the Malagasy word for coconut, a staple of coastal cooking in Madagascar and a smell that takes me straight back to childhood. A grounding name for the cushion you sit on to come back to yourself.

Makena: the happy one (Makena Eye Pillow and Bolster)

Makena is the one name in the range that isn't Malagasy. It's an East African name meaning "the happy one".  It went on the eye pillow and bolster, the pieces you reach for when you need to stop, which is often when happiness starts to come back.

About the other pieces

A few pieces carry names from elsewhere. The Warrior Red Velvet and Warrior Black mats are named for their colour and strength, and Courbe d'Energy is French, named by the artist Jessi Avila. The Kapha yoga bag takes its name from Ayurveda, the traditional Indian system of medicine, where Kapha is the dosha of earth and water. Every new piece made in Madagascar will get a Malagasy name, and I'll keep adding them here.

Why it matters to me

A name is the first thing you learn about an object, and most yoga products are named to sound calm and say nothing. Naming these pieces in Malagasy is my way of making sure you know where they come from and who made them or designed them, before you've even unrolled anything.

If you have a word from your own family's language that holds something English can't quite say, I'd love to hear it. Comment below, or tell me on Instagram at @ladinayoga.

Shop the full range here