Somali language
The
Somali language is a member of the
East Cushitic branch of the
Afro-Asiatic family. It is spoken mostly in
Somalia and adjacent parts of
Djibouti (majority),
Ethiopia,
Kenya, and
Italy. Its speakers are known as
Somalis. Because of the civil war and
diaspora, speakers are found all over the world. The exact number of speakers is unknown but is estimated to be between 15 and 25 million.
Somali is an
Afro-Asiatic language, of the
East Cushitic branch. It is most closely related to
Oromo and
Afar. Somali has borrowed a certain number of words from Arabic since the arrival of
Islam, mainly in the religious domain. It has also borrowed words from
English and
Italian from colonial times.
Academic studies of Somali began to be published around 1900. Important later scholars are Abraham, Andrzejewski, and Saeed. Compared with other
Cushitic languages, Somali is relatively well-documented.
Somali is spoken mostly in
Somalia and
Somaliland (which broke off from Somalia in 1991, but is not yet recognized as a country), eastern
Ethiopia,
Djibouti and
Kenya, but speakers are found all over the world because of the
Somali civil war. Somali communities around the world, include, but are not limited to, the
Middle East,
Europe,
North America and
Australia. There are between 15 and 25 million Somali speakers.
Official status
Somali is an official language in
Somalia. While not official, Somali is also important in
Djibouti,
Ethiopia, and
Kenya.
Dialects
Saeed (1999) divides the dialects into three main groups: Northern, Benaadir and Maay. Northern Somali (or Northern-Central Somali) is also known as Common or Standard Somali. Benaadir is also known as Coastal Somalia - it is spoken on the
Benadir Coast (from
Cadale to south of
Barawa, including
Mogadishu), and in the immediate hinterland. The coastal dialects have additional phonemes which do not exist in Common Somali.
The
Digil and
Mirifle clans (sometimes called
Rahanweyn) live in the southern areas of Somalia. Recent research (Diriye Abdullahi, 2000) has shown that, although previously classified with Somali, their languages and dialects are incomprehensible to Somali speakers. The most important language of the Digil and Mirifle is Maay. Other languages in this category are Jiido, Dabare, Garre, and Central Tunni. Of all these, Jiido is the most incomprehensible to Somali speakers. One important aspect in which the languages of the Digil and Mirifle differ from Somali is the lack of pharyngeal sounds. The retroflex is also replaced by in some positions.
Of the Somali dialect groups, the most widely used is Common Somali. Common Somali is spoken in most of Somalia, and in adjacent territories (Ethiopia, Kenya, and Djibouti), and is used by broadcasting stations in Somalia and in Somali-language broadcasts originating outside the country.
Somali has 22
consonant phonemes including at least one at every
place of articulation on the
IPA chart. It has 20 pure
vowel phonemes and 20
diphthongs. They occur in front and back, and long and short pairs.
It uses a system of
tones which is usually classified as a
pitch accent system. It also has front-back
vowel harmony in word roots.
Somali is an agglutinative language. The basic grammatical categories are:
*Noun
*Clitic pronoun
*Verb
*Adjective
*Verbal adposition
*Determiner
*Focus word
*Sentence type marker
*Conjunction
*Adverb
Somali has several strategies to indicate where the intention or the interest or the focus is located in the phrase: a
topic-comment or focus construction. The words
baa,
ayaa, and
waxaa put the focus on nouns and noun phrases.
Example:
#John baa baxay - John
Focus (baa) went out#John ayaa baxay - John
Focus (ayaa) went out#Waxaa baxay John -
Focus (waxaa) went out John
Thus, the words baa, ayaa, and waxaa unconsciously raise the question of who went out? Therefore the noun.
Somali also has the word waa which puts the focus on verbs and verb phrases.
Example:
John waa baxay - John
Focus (waa) went out
Waa is different from other previous one we have just seen, because it raises the question of what did John do? Therefore the verb.
See also: The language and literacy issue for more information about the selection of the script.Three different writing systems have been devised for Somali: an Arabic-based one, a
Latin-based one and a native one,
Osmanya.
Before the colonial period, educated Somalis and religious fraternities used the Arabic script (for example,
Sayyid Mohammed Abdullah Hassan's letter to a scholar, betraying him to the colonial powers, was in Arabic). The
Qur'an was taught throughout Somalia, so children were exposed to the Arabic alphabet from a young age. Material discovered in
1940, mainly ancient letters and tomb inscriptions, demonstrates that the Somali language was written with the Arabic alphabet, like the
Urdu and
Persian languages. But this was not certainly "codified", and questions remain about the extent of its use. Further investigation is required.
The Osmanya alphabet was created in the 1920s by Cismaan Yuusuf Keenadiid. Following long debate, in 1972 the Latin-based script was finally adopted as the official one as part of a larger literacy program.
The Somali Latin
alphabet, which follows an
Arabic-based order, is:
', B, T, J, X, KH, D, R, S, SH, DH, C, G, F, Q, K, L, M, N, W, H, Y, A, E, I, O, U.
The following letters represent sounds which do not correspond with the same letter as the
IPA symbol (eg B represents ):
*' -
*J -
*X -
*KH -
*SH -
*DH -
*C -
*Q -
*W - or the second element in a diphthong
*Y - or the second element in a diphthong
*A - or
*E - or
*I - or
*O - or
*U - or
The alphabet does not use the following letters of the
Latin alphabet: P, V and Z. There are 3 consonant
digraphs: DH, KH and SH. Tone is not marked and a word-initial glottal stop is also not shown.
For consonants there is a one-to-one correspondence between
graphemes and
phonemes. Long vowels are written by doubling the vowel but the distinction between front and back vowels is not represented. Diphthongs are represented using Y or W as the second element (AY, AW, EY, OY and OW) and long diphthongs are shown with the first vowel doubled.
There is no standardized orthography so variations occur. Particularly -ay and -ey are freely interchangeable at the end of a word.
Capital letters are used for names and at the beginning of a sentence.
*Diriye Abdullahi, Mohamed. 2000. Le Somali, dialectes et histoire, PH.D. dissertation, Université de Montréal
*Saeed, John Ibrahim.
Somali Reference Grammar. Springfield, VA: Dunwoody Press, 1993. (ISBN 0931745977)
*Saeed, John Ibrahim.
Somali. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, B.V., 1999.
*
Ethnologue report on Somali*
Comprehensive Somali-English Dictionary*
Somali - English Dictionary*
Omniglot page on Osmanya and the Somali Latin alphabet*
Osmanya considered for the Universal Character Set
