Languages of Somalia
Encyclopedia
The languages of Somalia refers to the various spoken forms of communication in Somalia
. It includes the nation's official languages, as well as its minority and foreign languages. The term also encompasses the writing systems traditionally used to transcribe those languages.
is the official language of Somalia and the mother tongue of the Somali people
, the nation's most populous ethnic group. It is a member of the Cushitic
branch of the Afro-Asiatic
language family, and its nearest relatives are the Afar
and Saho
languages. Somali is the best documented of the Cushitic languages, with academic studies of it dating from before 1900.
The exact number of speakers of Somali is unknown. One source estimates that there are 7.78 million speakers of Somali in Somalia itself and 12.65 million speakers globally.
The Somali language is spoken by ethnic Somalis in Somalia
, Djibouti
, Ethiopia
, Yemen
and Kenya
, and in the Somali diaspora
. It is also spoken as an adoptive language by a few ethnic minority groups in these regions.
Somali dialect
s are divided into three main groups: Northern, Benaadir and Maay. Northern Somali (or Northern-Central Somali) forms the basis for Standard Somali. Benaadir (also known as Coastal Somali) is spoken on the Benadir
coast from Cadaley
to south of Merca
, including Mogadishu
, as well as in the immediate hinterland. The coastal dialects have additional phoneme
s which do not exist in Standard Somali. Maay is principally spoken by the Digil and Mirifle (Rahanweyn
) clans in the southern areas of Somalia.
, which is also an Afro-Asiatic tongue, is an official national language in Somalia. Many Somalis speak it due to centuries-old ties with the Arab World
, the far-reaching influence of the Arabic media, and religious education; particularly the Yemeni dialect
.
is also widely used and taught. Italian
used to be a major language, but its influence significantly diminished following independence. It is now most frequently heard among older generations. Other minority languages include Bravanese
(also known as Chimwiini or Chimbalazi), a variant of the Bantu
Swahili language
that is spoken along the coast by the Bravanese people
, as well as Kibajuni
, another Swahili dialect that is the mother tongue of the Bajuni
minority ethnic group.
An ancient script seems to have been used to write Somali. Since then, a number of writing system
s have been used for transcribing the language. Of these, the Somali Latin alphabet
is the most widely-used, and has been the official writing script in Somalia since the government of former President of Somalia Mohamed Siad Barre formally introduced it in October 1972. The script was developed by the Somali linguist Shire Jama Ahmed
specifically for the Somali language, and uses all letters of the English Latin alphabet except p, v and z. This alphabet has 21 consonants and 5 vowels. There are no diacritics
or other special characters except the use of the apostrophe for the glottal stop
, which is not word-initial. There are three consonant digraphs
: DH, KH and SH. Tone is not marked; front and back vowels are not distinguished. Capital letters are used at the beginning of a sentence and for proper names.
Starting from 1960, debate about which writing system to use for transcribing the Somali language dragged on for nine years. No fewer than a dozen linguists were tasked with developing a workable script. Eventually, Shire Jama Ahmed's refined Somali Latin script was adopted, an alphabet which he used to publish pamphlets and small Af Soomaali drillbooks in his own printing press
. Ahmed argued that even though most people were in favor of using the Arabic script, it was more practical to use Latin primarily due to its simplicity, the fact that it lent itself well to writing Somali since it could cope with all of the sounds in the language, and the already widespread existence of machines and typewriters designed for its use.
Besides Ahmed's Latin script, other orthographies that have been used for centuries for writing Somali include the long-established Arabic script
and Wadaad's writing
. Indigenous writing systems developed in the twentieth century include the Osmanya, Borama
and Kaddare
scripts, which were invented by Osman Yusuf Kenadid
, Sheikh Abdurahman Sheikh Nuur
and Hussein Sheikh Ahmed Kaddare
, respectively.
. Most of the renowned Somali rebel leader Sayyid Mohammed Abdullah Hassan
's missives, including a letter he wrote to a scholar who betrayed him to the colonial powers, were in Arabic. Qur'an
ic schools (madrassas) were ubiquitous throughout Somalia, so children were exposed to the Arabic alphabet from a very young age. Material first discovered in 1940, mainly ancient letters and tomb inscriptions, demonstrates that the Somali language, like the Urdu and Persian
languages, had long been written with the Arabic alphabet. However, this was likely not codified, and questions remain about the extent of its use.
A number of attempts had been made from the 1920s onwards to standardize the language using a number of different alphabets.
Pamphlets explaining the new standardization were released to the public in a soccer stadium in Mogadishu
on October 10, 1972.
The first comprehensive dictionaries were produced in 1976, the Qaamuus kooban ee af Soomaali ah and Qaamuuska Af-Soomaaliga. On the orders of the Barre regime, civil servants were required to pass language proficiency exams, and a vast literacy campaign was launched wherein students were sent to rural areas to teach others the new script. By 1978, the majority of Somalis were reportedly literate. This would go down historically as one the fastest developments of mass literacy anywhere in the world.
Somalia
Somalia , officially the Somali Republic and formerly known as the Somali Democratic Republic under Socialist rule, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. Since the outbreak of the Somali Civil War in 1991 there has been no central government control over most of the country's territory...
. It includes the nation's official languages, as well as its minority and foreign languages. The term also encompasses the writing systems traditionally used to transcribe those languages.
Somali
The Somali languageSomali language
The Somali language is a member of the East Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Its nearest relatives are Afar and Oromo. Somali is the best documented of the Cushitic languages, with academic studies beginning before 1900....
is the official language of Somalia and the mother tongue of the Somali people
Somali people
Somalis are an ethnic group located in the Horn of Africa, also known as the Somali Peninsula. The overwhelming majority of Somalis speak the Somali language, which is part of the Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family...
, the nation's most populous ethnic group. It is a member of the Cushitic
Cushitic languages
The Cushitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family spoken in the Horn of Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, Sudan and Egypt. They are named after the Biblical character Cush, who was identified as an ancestor of the speakers of these specific languages as early as AD 947...
branch of the Afro-Asiatic
Afro-Asiatic languages
The Afroasiatic languages , also known as Hamito-Semitic, constitute one of the world's largest language families, with about 375 living languages...
language family, and its nearest relatives are the Afar
Afar language
Afar is a Lowland East Cushitic language spoken in Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti. It is believed to have 1.5 million speakers, the Afar. The basic word order in Afar, like in other East Cushitic languages, is subject–object–verb. Its speakers have a literacy rate of between one and three per cent...
and Saho
Saho language
The Saho language is a Cushitic language of Eritrea and Ethiopia.-Overview:It is spoken natively by the Saho people who traditionally inhabit territory in Eritrea bounded by the bay of Arafali in the east, the Laasi Ghedé valleys in the south, and the Eritrea highlands to the west .This speech area...
languages. Somali is the best documented of the Cushitic languages, with academic studies of it dating from before 1900.
The exact number of speakers of Somali is unknown. One source estimates that there are 7.78 million speakers of Somali in Somalia itself and 12.65 million speakers globally.
The Somali language is spoken by ethnic Somalis in Somalia
Somalia
Somalia , officially the Somali Republic and formerly known as the Somali Democratic Republic under Socialist rule, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. Since the outbreak of the Somali Civil War in 1991 there has been no central government control over most of the country's territory...
, Djibouti
Djibouti
Djibouti , officially the Republic of Djibouti , is a country in the Horn of Africa. It is bordered by Eritrea in the north, Ethiopia in the west and south, and Somalia in the southeast. The remainder of the border is formed by the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden at the east...
, Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
, Yemen
Yemen
The Republic of Yemen , commonly known as Yemen , is a country located in the Middle East, occupying the southwestern to southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, and Oman to the east....
and Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
, and in the Somali diaspora
Somali diaspora
The Somali diaspora refers to expatriate Somalis who reside in areas of the world that have traditionally not been inhabited by their ethnic group...
. It is also spoken as an adoptive language by a few ethnic minority groups in these regions.
Somali dialect
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
s are divided into three main groups: Northern, Benaadir and Maay. Northern Somali (or Northern-Central Somali) forms the basis for Standard Somali. Benaadir (also known as Coastal Somali) is spoken on the Benadir
Benadir
Benadir is a coastal region of Somalia. It covers most of the Indian Ocean coast of the country, from the Gulf of Aden to the Juba River, containing the capital of Mogadishu. The name comes from Persian bandar, which means port , a fact that reflects the region's importance to Persian and Arab...
coast from Cadaley
Cadaley
Adale is a city in the southern Shabeellaha Hoose administrative region of Somalia. It sits at a latitude of 2° 45' 0N and a longitude of 46° 19' 0E. The town is the center of the Adale District.-References:*...
to south of Merca
Merca
Merca is a port city on the coast of southern Somalia, facing the Indian Ocean. It is the main town in the Shabeellaha Hoose region, and is located approximately southwest of the nation's capital, Mogadishu.-History:...
, including Mogadishu
Mogadishu
Mogadishu , popularly known as Xamar, is the largest city in Somalia and the nation's capital. Located in the coastal Benadir region on the Indian Ocean, the city has served as an important port for centuries....
, as well as in the immediate hinterland. The coastal dialects have additional phoneme
Phoneme
In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
s which do not exist in Standard Somali. Maay is principally spoken by the Digil and Mirifle (Rahanweyn
Rahanweyn
The Rahanweyn is a Somali clan, composed of two major sub-clans, the Digil and the Mirifle. It makes up about 17% of the population of Somalia, and is one of the five major Somali clans residing in the Horn of Africa.-Overview:The Digil sub-clan mainly consists of farmers and coastal people, while...
) clans in the southern areas of Somalia.
Arabic
In addition to Somali, ArabicArabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
, which is also an Afro-Asiatic tongue, is an official national language in Somalia. Many Somalis speak it due to centuries-old ties with the Arab World
Arab world
The Arab world refers to Arabic-speaking states, territories and populations in North Africa, Western Asia and elsewhere.The standard definition of the Arab world comprises the 22 states and territories of the Arab League stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Arabian Sea in the...
, the far-reaching influence of the Arabic media, and religious education; particularly the Yemeni dialect
Yemeni Arabic
Yemeni Arabic is a cluster of Arabic varieties spoken in Yemen, southwestern Saudi Arabia, and northern Somalia...
.
Foreign & minority languages
EnglishEnglish language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
is also widely used and taught. Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
used to be a major language, but its influence significantly diminished following independence. It is now most frequently heard among older generations. Other minority languages include Bravanese
Bravanese language
The Bravanese language is a dialect of the Bantu Swahili language. It is spoken by the Bravanese people, who are the predominant inhabitants of Barawa, or Brava, in Somalia. Many Bravanese also speak Somali, which is an Afro-Asiatic language....
(also known as Chimwiini or Chimbalazi), a variant of the Bantu
Bantu languages
The Bantu languages constitute a traditional sub-branch of the Niger–Congo languages. There are about 250 Bantu languages by the criterion of mutual intelligibility, though the distinction between language and dialect is often unclear, and Ethnologue counts 535 languages...
Swahili language
Swahili language
Swahili or Kiswahili is a Bantu language spoken by various ethnic groups that inhabit several large stretches of the Mozambique Channel coastline from northern Kenya to northern Mozambique, including the Comoro Islands. It is also spoken by ethnic minority groups in Somalia...
that is spoken along the coast by the Bravanese people
Bravanese people
The Bravanese people, also known as the Barawani, are a minority ethnic group in Somalia.-Overview:As their name suggests, the Bravanese hail from Brava , a port town on the southeastern coast of Somalia, where they were the primary inhabitants until the 1970s.The population's members trace their...
, as well as Kibajuni
Swahili language
Swahili or Kiswahili is a Bantu language spoken by various ethnic groups that inhabit several large stretches of the Mozambique Channel coastline from northern Kenya to northern Mozambique, including the Comoro Islands. It is also spoken by ethnic minority groups in Somalia...
, another Swahili dialect that is the mother tongue of the Bajuni
Bajuni people
The Bajuni people are a minority ethnic group that live in East Africa.-Overview:The Bajuni principally inhabit the tiny Bajuni Islands in the Indian Ocean. Many also traditionally reside in Kenya, mainly in Mombasa and other towns in that country's Coast Province...
minority ethnic group.
Writing system
Overview
Writing system
A writing system is a symbolic system used to represent elements or statements expressible in language.-General properties:Writing systems are distinguished from other possible symbolic communication systems in that the reader must usually understand something of the associated spoken language to...
s have been used for transcribing the language. Of these, the Somali Latin alphabet
Somali alphabet
The Somali Latin alphabet has been the official writing script in Somalia since 1972. It was developed by the Somali linguist Shire Jama Ahmed specifically for transcribing the Somali language, and is based on the Latin script. The Somali Latin alphabet uses all letters of the English Latin...
is the most widely-used, and has been the official writing script in Somalia since the government of former President of Somalia Mohamed Siad Barre formally introduced it in October 1972. The script was developed by the Somali linguist Shire Jama Ahmed
Shire Jama Ahmed
Shire Jama Ahmed was a Somali linguist who is credited with having devised a unique Latin script for transcribing the Somali language. Shire Jama's winning Somali Orthoraphy was chosen from eighteen competing new orthographies in 1972 by the Language Committee and the ruling party...
specifically for the Somali language, and uses all letters of the English Latin alphabet except p, v and z. This alphabet has 21 consonants and 5 vowels. There are no diacritics
Diacritics
diacritics is a quarterly academic journal established in 1971 at Cornell University and published by the Johns Hopkins University Press. Articles serve to review recent literature in the field of literary criticism, and have covered topics in gender studies, political theory, psychoanalysis, queer...
or other special characters except the use of the apostrophe for the glottal stop
Glottal stop
The glottal stop, or more fully, the voiceless glottal plosive, is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. In English, the feature is represented, for example, by the hyphen in uh-oh! and by the apostrophe or [[ʻokina]] in Hawaii among those using a preservative pronunciation of...
, which is not word-initial. There are three consonant digraphs
Digraph (orthography)
A digraph or digram is a pair of characters used to write one phoneme or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined...
: DH, KH and SH. Tone is not marked; front and back vowels are not distinguished. Capital letters are used at the beginning of a sentence and for proper names.
Starting from 1960, debate about which writing system to use for transcribing the Somali language dragged on for nine years. No fewer than a dozen linguists were tasked with developing a workable script. Eventually, Shire Jama Ahmed's refined Somali Latin script was adopted, an alphabet which he used to publish pamphlets and small Af Soomaali drillbooks in his own printing press
Printing press
A printing press is a device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium , thereby transferring the ink...
. Ahmed argued that even though most people were in favor of using the Arabic script, it was more practical to use Latin primarily due to its simplicity, the fact that it lent itself well to writing Somali since it could cope with all of the sounds in the language, and the already widespread existence of machines and typewriters designed for its use.
Besides Ahmed's Latin script, other orthographies that have been used for centuries for writing Somali include the long-established Arabic script
Arabic alphabet
The Arabic alphabet or Arabic abjad is the Arabic script as it is codified for writing the Arabic language. It is written from right to left, in a cursive style, and includes 28 letters. Because letters usually stand for consonants, it is classified as an abjad.-Consonants:The Arabic alphabet has...
and Wadaad's writing
Wadaad's writing
Wadaad's writing is the Somali language written with the Arabic script. Originally, it referred to "an ungrammatical Arabic containing some Somali words," as used by Somali religious men to write qasidas, and by merchants for business, letter writing, and to draft petitions...
. Indigenous writing systems developed in the twentieth century include the Osmanya, Borama
Borama script
The Borama script is a writing script for the Somali language. It was devised around 1933 by Sheikh Abdurahman Sheikh Nuur of the Gadabuursi clan.-History:...
and Kaddare
Kaddare script
The Kaddare script is a writing script created to transcribe the Somali language.-History:The orthography was invented in 1952 by Hussein Sheikh Ahmed Kaddare of the Abgaal Hawiye clan....
scripts, which were invented by Osman Yusuf Kenadid
Osman Yusuf Kenadid
-Biography:In the early 1920s, in response to a national campaign to settle on a standard orthography for the Somali language , Kenadid, a leader in the Majeerteen Sultanate of Hobyo in Somalia and nephew of Sultan Yusuf Ali Kenadid, devised a phonetically sophisticated alphabet called Osmanya for...
, Sheikh Abdurahman Sheikh Nuur
Sheikh Abdurahman Sheikh Nuur
Sheikh Abdurahman Sheikh Nuur was a Somali religious leader and the inventor of the Borama script for the Somali language.-Biography:Nuur was born in Borama, Somalia to a Gadabuursi Dir family...
and Hussein Sheikh Ahmed Kaddare
Hussein Sheikh Ahmed Kaddare
-Biography:Kaddare was born near Mogadishu in the Banaadir region of Somalia to an Abgaal Hawiye family. In 1953, he created the Kaddare script, an orthography named after him that was used to transcribe the Somali language.-See also:* Osmanya script...
, respectively.
Modern history
Before the arrival of the Italians and British, educated Somalis and religious fraternities either wrote in Arabic or used an ad hoc transliteration of Somali into Arabic script referred to as Wadaad's writingWadaad's writing
Wadaad's writing is the Somali language written with the Arabic script. Originally, it referred to "an ungrammatical Arabic containing some Somali words," as used by Somali religious men to write qasidas, and by merchants for business, letter writing, and to draft petitions...
. Most of the renowned Somali rebel leader Sayyid Mohammed Abdullah Hassan
Mohammed Abdullah Hassan
Sayyīd Muhammad `Abd Allāh al-Hasan was a Somali religious and patriotic leader...
's missives, including a letter he wrote to a scholar who betrayed him to the colonial powers, were in Arabic. Qur'an
Qur'an
The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...
ic schools (madrassas) were ubiquitous throughout Somalia, so children were exposed to the Arabic alphabet from a very young age. Material first discovered in 1940, mainly ancient letters and tomb inscriptions, demonstrates that the Somali language, like the Urdu and Persian
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
languages, had long been written with the Arabic alphabet. However, this was likely not codified, and questions remain about the extent of its use.
A number of attempts had been made from the 1920s onwards to standardize the language using a number of different alphabets.
Pamphlets explaining the new standardization were released to the public in a soccer stadium in Mogadishu
Mogadishu
Mogadishu , popularly known as Xamar, is the largest city in Somalia and the nation's capital. Located in the coastal Benadir region on the Indian Ocean, the city has served as an important port for centuries....
on October 10, 1972.
The first comprehensive dictionaries were produced in 1976, the Qaamuus kooban ee af Soomaali ah and Qaamuuska Af-Soomaaliga. On the orders of the Barre regime, civil servants were required to pass language proficiency exams, and a vast literacy campaign was launched wherein students were sent to rural areas to teach others the new script. By 1978, the majority of Somalis were reportedly literate. This would go down historically as one the fastest developments of mass literacy anywhere in the world.