Somali language

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Not to be confused with Somali languages.

Somali
Af Soomaali,[1] Soomaali[2]
𐒖𐒍 𐒈𐒝𐒑𐒛𐒐𐒘, 𐒈𐒝𐒑𐒛𐒐𐒘
اف صومالِ, صومالِ,
Pronunciation[af soːmaːli]
RegionHorn of Africa
EthnicitySomalis
Native speakers
24 million (2019–2023)[3]
Dialects
Somali Latin alphabet (Latin script; official)
Wadaad's writing (Arabic script)
Osmanya alphabet
Borama alphabet
Kaddare alphabet
Official status
Official language in
 Somalia
 Somaliland
 Djibouti
 Ethiopia
Recognised minority
language in
Regulated byRegional Somali Language Academy
Language codes
ISO 639-1so
ISO 639-2som
ISO 639-3som
Glottologsoma1255
Linguasphere14-GAG-a
Primary Somali Sprachraum
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Somali (/səˈmɑːli, soʊ-/ sə-MAH-lee, soh-;[4][5] Latin script: Af Soomaali; Wadaad: اف صومالِ‎; Osmanya: 𐒖𐒍 𐒈𐒝𐒑𐒛𐒐𐒘 [af soːmaːli])[6] is an Afroasiatic language belonging to the Cushitic branch. It is spoken primarily in Greater Somalia, and by the Somali diaspora as a mother tongue. Somali is an official language in both Somalia and Ethiopia,[7] and serves as a national language in Djibouti, it is also a recognised minority language in Kenya. The Somali language is officially written with the Latin alphabet although the Arabic script and several Somali scripts like Osmanya, Kaddare and the Borama script are informally used.[8][9]

Classification

Main articles: Afroasiatic languages and Cushitic languages

Somali is classified within the Cushitic branch of the Afroasiatic family, specifically, Lowland East Cushitic in addition to Afar and Saho.[10] Somali is the best-documented of the Cushitic languages,[11] with academic studies of the language dating back to the late 19th century.[12]

Geographic distribution of Somali

The Somali language is spoken in Somali inhabited areas of Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Yemen and by members of the Somali diaspora. It is also spoken as an adoptive language by a few ethnic minority groups and individuals in Somali majority regions.

Somali is the most widely spoken Cushitic language in the region followed by Oromo and Afar.[13]

As of 2021, there are approximately 24 million speakers of Somali, spread in Greater Somalia of which around 17 million reside in Somalia.[14][15] The language is spoken by an estimated 95% of the country's inhabitants,[12] and also by a majority of the population in Djibouti.[11]

Following the start of the Somali Civil War in the early 1990s, the Somali-speaking diaspora increased in size, with newer Somali speech communities forming in parts of the Middle East, North America and Europe.[3]

Official status

Part of a series on the
Culture of Somalia
Culture
People
Religion
Language
Politics

Constitutionally, Somali and Arabic are the two official languages of Somalia.[16] Somali has been an official national language since January 1973, when the Supreme Revolutionary Council (SRC) declared it the Somali Democratic Republic's primary language of administration and education. Somali was thereafter established as the main language of academic instruction in forms 1 through 4, following preparatory work by the government-appointed Somali Language Committee. It later expanded to include all 12 forms in 1979. In 1972, the SRC adopted a Latin orthography as the official national alphabet over several other writing scripts that were then in use. Concurrently, the Italian-language daily newspaper Stella d'Ottobre ("The October Star") was nationalized, renamed to Xiddigta Oktoobar, and began publishing in Somali.[17] The state-run Radio Mogadishu has also broadcast in Somali since 1951.[18][19] Additionally, other state-run public networks like Somaliland National TV, regional public networks such as Puntland TV and Radio and, as well as Eastern Television Network and Horn Cable Television, among other private broadcasters, air programs in Somali.[20]

Somali is recognized as an official working language in the Somali Region of Ethiopia.[21] Although it is not an official language of Djibouti, it constitutes a major national language there. Somali is used in television and radio broadcasts,[12][22] with the government-operated Radio Djibouti transmitting programs in the language from 1943 onwards.[23]

The Kenya Broadcasting Corporation also broadcasts in the Somali language in its Iftin FM Programmes. The language is spoken in the Somali territories within North Eastern Kenya, namely Wajir County, Garissa County and Mandera County.[24][25]

The Somali language is regulated by the Regional Somali Language Academy, an intergovernmental institution established in June 2013 in Djibouti City by the governments of Djibouti, Somalia and Ethiopia. It is officially mandated with preserving the Somali language.[26]

As of October 2022, Somali and Oromo are the only Cushitic languages available on Google Translate.[27]

Varieties

Main articles: Somali languages, Northern Somali, and Benadiri Somali
Distribution of Somali dialectal groups in the Horn of Africa

The Somali languages are broadly divided into three main groups: Northern Somali, Benadir and Maay.[28] Northern Somali forms the basis for Standard Somali.[28] It is spoken by the majority of the Somali population[29] with its speech area stretching from Djibouti, and the Somali Region of Ethiopia to the Northern Frontier District.[30] This widespread modern distribution is a result of a long series of southward population movements over the past ten centuries from the Gulf of Aden littoral.[31] Lamberti subdivides Northern Somali into three dialects: Northern Somali proper (spoken in the northwest; he describes this dialect as Northern Somali in the proper sense), the Darod group (spoken in the northeast and along the eastern Ethiopia frontier; greatest number of speakers overall), and the Lower Juba group (spoken by northern Somali settlers in the southern riverine areas).[32]

Speech sample in Standard Somali (an Islamic discourse containing many Arabic loanwords)

Benadir (also known as Coastal Somali) is spoken on the central Indian Ocean seaboard, including Mogadishu. It forms a relatively smaller group. The dialect is fairly mutually intelligible with Northern Somali.[33]

Northern Somali (Nsom) dialect subgroups

Phonology

Main article: Somali phonology

Vowels

The language has five basic vowels.

Vowels[34]
Front Central Back
High i[a] ⟨i⟩ iː ⟨ii⟩ u[b] ⟨u⟩ uː ⟨uu⟩
Mid e ⟨e⟩ eː ⟨ee⟩ o ⟨o⟩ oː ⟨oo⟩
Low a ⟨a⟩ aː ⟨aa⟩

Consonants

Somali has 22 consonant phonemes.[35]

Somali consonant phonemes[36][37][38]
Bilabial Coronal Post-
alveolar 		Velar Uvular Pharyn-
geal 		Glottal
Nasal m ⟨m⟩ n ⟨n⟩
Plosive voiceless t̪ ⟨t⟩ k ⟨k⟩ q ⟨q⟩ ʔ ⟨'⟩
voiced b † ⟨b⟩ d̪ † ⟨d⟩ ɖ ⟨dh⟩ ɡ †⟨g⟩
Affricate d͡ʒ ⟨j⟩
Fricative voiceless f ⟨f⟩ s ⟨s⟩ ʃ ⟨sh⟩ x ⟨kh⟩ (χ)[c] ħ ⟨x⟩ h ⟨h⟩
voiced ʕ ⟨c⟩
Trill r ⟨r⟩ (ɽ)[d]
Approximant l ⟨l⟩ j ⟨y⟩ w ⟨w⟩
^† The consonants /b d̪ ɡ/ often weaken lenitionally to [β̞ ð ɣ] intervocalically.[40]

The retroflex plosive /ɖ/ may have an implosive quality for some Somali Bantu speakers, and intervocalically it can be realized as the flap [ɽ]. Some speakers produce /ħ/ with epiglottal trilling as /ʜ/ in retrospect.[41] /q/ is often epiglottalized.[42]

The letter ⟨dh⟩ is a retroflex flap when it is pronounced intervocalically, hence becoming the phoneme (ɽ): for example, Quraanjo (Ant) from Qudhaanjo; But however, more often than not is the pronunciation of ɽ to the unretained-retroflex ɾ.

The letter ⟨kh⟩ is rarely pronounced as a velar fricative, Partially the reason why is that it is mostly found in Arabic loanwords. It is pronounced as the phoneme χ when it is an allophone for the letter ⟨q⟩ in syllabic codas. As in Akhri from Aqri meaning (read).

Tone

Pitch is phonemic in Somali, but it is debated whether Somali is a pitch accent, or it is a tonal language.[43] Andrzejewski (1954) posits that Somali is a tonal language,[44] whereas Banti (1988) suggests that it is a pitch system.

Phonotactics

The syllable structure of Somali is (C)V(C).

Root morphemes usually have a mono- or di-syllabic structure.

Clusters of two consonants do not occur word-initially or word-finally, i.e., they only occur at syllable boundaries. The following consonants can be geminate: /b/, /d/, /ɖ/, /ɡ/, /ɢ/, /m/, /n/, /r/ and /l/. The following cannot be geminate: /t/, /k/ and the fricatives.

Two vowels cannot occur together at syllable boundaries. Epenthetic consonants, e.g. [j] and [ʔ], are therefore inserted.

Grammar

Main article: Somali grammar
Somali personal pronouns
Person Emphatic Clitic (short)
Subject Object
1 singular aniga aan i
plural inclusive innaga aynu ina
exclusive annaga aannu na
2 singular adiga aad ku
plural idinka aydin idin
3 singular masculine isaga uu --
feminine iyada ay --
plural iyaga ay --

Morphology

Somali is an agglutinative language, and also shows properties of inflection. Affixes mark many grammatical meanings, including aspect, tense and case.[45]

Somali has an old prefixal verbal inflection restricted to four common verbs, with all other verbs undergoing inflection by more obvious suffixation. This general pattern is similar to the stem alternation that typifies Cairene Arabic.[46]

Somali has two sets of pronouns: independent (substantive, emphatic) pronouns and clitic (verbal) pronouns.[47] The independent pronouns behave grammatically as nouns, and normally occur with the suffixed article -ka/-ta (e.g. adiga, "you").[47] This article may be omitted after a conjunction or focus word. For example, adna meaning "and you..." (from adi-na).[47] Clitic pronouns are attached to the verb and do not take nominal morphology.[48] Somali marks clusivity in the first person plural pronouns; this is also found in a number of other East Cushitic languages, such as Rendille and Dhaasanac.[49]

As in various other Afro-Asiatic languages, Somali is characterized by polarity of gender, whereby plural nouns usually take the opposite gender agreement of their singular forms.[50][51] For example, the plural of the masculine noun dibi ("bull") is formed by converting it into feminine dibi.[50] Somali is unusual among the world's languages in that the object is unmarked for case while the subject is marked, though this feature is found in other Cushitic languages such as Oromo.[52]

Syntax

Somali is a subject–object–verb (SOV) language.[3] It is largely head final, with postpositions and with obliques preceding verbs.[53] These are common features of the Cushitic and Semitic Afroasiatic languages spoken in the Horn region (e.g. Amharic).[54] However, Somali noun phrases are head-initial, whereby the noun precedes its modifying adjective.[53][55] This pattern of general head-finality with head-initial noun phrases is also found in other Cushitic languages (e.g. Oromo), but not generally in Ethiopian Semitic languages.[53][56]

Somali uses three focus markers: baa, ayaa and waxa(a), which generally mark new information or contrastive emphasis.[57] Baa and ayaa require the focused element to occur preverbally, while waxa(a) may be used following the verb.[58]

Vocabulary

Somali language books on display.

Somali loanwords can be divided into those derived from other Afroasiatic languages (mainly Arabic), and those of Indo-European extraction (mainly Italian).[59]

Somali's main lexical borrowings come from Arabic, and are estimated to constitute about 20% of the language's vocabulary.[60] This is a legacy of the Somali people's extensive social, cultural, commercial and religious links and contacts with nearby populations in the Arabian peninsula. Arabic loanwords are most commonly used in religious, administrative and education-related speech (e.g. aamiin for "faith in God"), though they are also present in other areas (e.g. kubbad-da, "ball").[59] Soravia (1994) noted a total of 1,436 Arabic loanwords in Agostini a.o. 1985,[61] a prominent 40,000-entry Somali dictionary.[62] Most of the terms consisted of commonly used nouns. These lexical borrowings may have been more extensive in the past since a few words that Zaborski (1967:122) observed in the older literature were absent in Agostini's later work.[61] In addition, the majority of personal names are derived from Arabic.[63]

The Somali language also contains a few Indo-European loanwords that were retained from the colonial period.[17] Most of these lexical borrowings come from English and Italian and are used to describe modern concepts (e.g. telefishen-ka, "the television"; raadia-ha, "the radio").[64] There are 300 loan words from Italian, such as garawati for "tie" (from Italian cravatta), dimuqraadi from democratico (democratic), mikroskoob from microscopio, and so on.

Additionally, Somali contains lexical terms from Persian, Urdu and Hindi that were acquired through historical trade with communities in the Near East and South Asia (e.g. khiyaar "cucumber" from Persian: خيار khiyār ).[64] Other loan words have also displaced their native synonyms in some dialects (e.g. jabaati "a type of flat bread" from Hindi: चपाती chapāti displacing sabaayad). Some of these words were also borrowed indirectly via Arabic.[64][65]

As part of a broader governmental effort of linguistic purism in the Somali language, the past few decades have seen a push in Somalia toward replacement of loanwords in general with their Somali equivalents or neologisms. To this end, the Supreme Revolutionary Council during its tenure officially prohibited the borrowing and use of English and Italian terms.[17]

Writing system

Main article: Somali alphabets
The Osmanya writing script for Somali.
Shaláw Sabaean writing, Sanaag (Photo: by Sada Mire, 2007). Inscription dates between 900 BCE and 300 CE.

Archaeological excavations and research in Somalia uncovered ancient inscriptions in a distinct writing system.[66] In an 1878 report to the Royal Geographical Society of Great Britain, scientist Johann Maria Hildebrandt noted upon visiting the area that "we know from ancient authors that these districts, at present so desert, were formerly populous and civilised[...] I also discovered ancient ruins and rock-inscriptions both in pictures and characters[...] These have hitherto not been deciphered."[67] According to the 1974 report for Ministry of Information and National Guidance, this script represents the earliest written attestation of Somali.[66]

Much more recently, Somali archaeologist Sada Mire has published ancient inscriptions found throughout Somaliland. As much for much of Somali linguistic history the language was not widely used for literature, Dr. Mire's publications however prove that writing as a technology was not foreign nor scarce in the region.[68] These piece of writing are from the Semitic Himyarite and Sabaean languages that were largely spoken in what is modern day Yemen —"there is an extensive and ancient relationship between the people and cultures of both sides of the Red Sea coast" Mire posits. Yet, while many more such ancient inscriptions are yet to be found or analyzed, many have been "bulldozed by developers, as the Ministry of Tourism could not buy the land or stop the destruction".[68]

Besides Ahmed's Latin script, other orthographies that have been used for centuries for writing the Somali language include the long-established Arabic script and Wadaad's writing.[69] According to Bogumił Andrzejewski, this usage was limited to Somali clerics and their associates, as sheikhs preferred to write in the liturgical Arabic language. Various such historical manuscripts in Somali nonetheless exist, which mainly consist of Islamic poems (qasidas), recitations and chants.[70] Among these texts are the Somali poems by Sheikh Uways and Sheikh Ismaaciil Faarah. The rest of the existing historical literature in Somali principally consists of translations of documents from Arabic.[71]

Since then a number of writing systems have been used for transcribing the Somali language. Of these, the Somali Latin alphabet, officially adopted in 1972, is the most widely used and recognised as official orthography of the state.[72] The script was developed by a number of leading scholars of Somali, including Musa Haji Ismail Galal, B. W. Andrzejewski and Shire Jama Ahmed specifically for transcribing the Somali language, and uses all letters of the English Latin alphabet except p, v and z.[73][74] There are no diacritics or other special characters except the use of the apostrophe for the glottal stop, which does not occur word-initially. There are three consonant digraphs: DH, KH and SH. Tone is not marked, and front and back vowels are not distinguished.

Writing systems developed in the twentieth century include the Osmanya, Borama and Kaddare alphabets, which were invented by Osman Yusuf Kenadid, Abdurahman Sheikh Nuur and Hussein Sheikh Ahmed Kaddare, respectively.[75]

Resources

Several digital collections of texts in the Somali language have been developed in recent decades. These corpora include Kaydka Af Soomaaliga (KAF), Bangiga Af Soomaaliga, the Somali Web Corpus (soWaC),[76] a Somali read-speech corpus, Asaas (Beginning in Somali) and a Web-Based Somali Language Model and text Corpus called Wargeys (Newspaper in Somali). [77]

Numbers and calendrical terms

Numbers

English Somali
Latin Osmanya #
Zero Eber 𐒗𐒁𐒗𐒇 𐒠
One kow 𐒏𐒙𐒓 𐒡
Two laba 𐒐𐒖𐒁𐒖 𐒢
Three saddex 𐒈𐒖𐒆𐒆𐒗𐒄 𐒣
Four afar 𐒖𐒍𐒖𐒇 𐒤
Five shan 𐒉𐒖𐒒 𐒥
Six lix 𐒐𐒘𐒄 𐒦
Seven toddoba 𐒂𐒙𐒆𐒆𐒙𐒁𐒖 𐒧
Eight siddeed 𐒈𐒘𐒆𐒆𐒜𐒆 𐒨
Nine sagaal 𐒈𐒖𐒌𐒛𐒐 𐒩
Ten toban 𐒂𐒙𐒁𐒖𐒒 𐒡𐒠
English Somali
Latin Osmanya #
Eleven kow iyo toban 𐒏𐒙𐒓 𐒘𐒕𐒙 𐒂𐒙𐒁𐒖𐒒 𐒡𐒡
Twelve laba iyo toban 𐒐𐒖𐒁𐒖 𐒘𐒕𐒙 𐒂𐒙𐒁𐒖𐒒 𐒡𐒢
Thirteen saddex iyo toban 𐒈𐒖𐒆𐒆𐒗𐒄 𐒘𐒕𐒙 𐒂𐒙𐒁𐒖𐒒 𐒡𐒣
Fourteen afar iyo toban 𐒖𐒍𐒖𐒇 𐒘𐒕𐒙 𐒂𐒙𐒁𐒖𐒒 𐒡𐒤
Fifteen shan iyo toban 𐒉𐒖𐒒 𐒘𐒕𐒙 𐒂𐒙𐒁𐒖𐒒 𐒡𐒥
Sixteen lix iyo toban 𐒐𐒘𐒄 𐒘𐒕𐒙 𐒂𐒙𐒁𐒖𐒒 𐒡𐒦
Seventeen toddoba iyo toban 𐒂𐒙𐒆𐒆𐒙𐒁𐒖 𐒘𐒕𐒙 𐒂𐒙𐒁𐒖𐒒 𐒡𐒧
Eighteen sideed iyo toban 𐒈𐒘𐒆𐒜𐒆 𐒘𐒕𐒙 𐒂𐒙𐒁𐒖𐒒 𐒡𐒨
Nineteen sagaal iyo toban 𐒈𐒖𐒌𐒛𐒐 𐒘𐒕𐒙 𐒂𐒙𐒁𐒖𐒒 𐒡𐒩
Twenty labaatan 𐒐𐒖𐒁𐒛𐒂𐒖𐒒 𐒢𐒠

For all numbers between 11 kow iyo toban and 99 sagaashal iyo sagaal, it is equally correct to switch the placement of the numbers, although larger numbers is some dialects prefer to place the 10s numeral first. For example 25 may both be written as labaatan iyo shan and shan iyo labaatan (lit. Twenty and Five & Five and Twenty).

Although neither the Latin nor Osmanya scripts accommodate this numerical switching.

Multiples of 10

English Somali
Latin Osmanya #
Ten toban 𐒂𐒙𐒁𐒖𐒒 𐒡𐒠
Twenty labaatan 𐒐𐒖𐒁𐒛𐒂𐒖𐒒 𐒢𐒠
Thirty soddon 𐒈𐒙𐒆𐒆𐒙𐒒 𐒣𐒠
Forty afartan 𐒖𐒍𐒖𐒇𐒂𐒖𐒒 𐒤𐒠
Fifty konton 𐒏𐒙𐒒𐒂𐒙𐒒 𐒥𐒠
Sixty lixdan 𐒐𐒘𐒄𐒆𐒖𐒒 𐒦𐒠
Seventy todobaatan 𐒂𐒙𐒆𐒙𐒁𐒛𐒂𐒖𐒒 𐒧𐒠
Eighty sideetan 𐒈𐒘𐒆𐒜𐒂𐒖𐒒 𐒨𐒠
Ninety sagaashan 𐒈𐒖𐒌𐒛𐒉𐒖𐒒 𐒩𐒠

Names of large numbers

English Somali
Latin Osmanya #*
One hundred boqol 𐒁𐒙𐒎𐒙𐒐 𐒡𐒠𐒠
One thousand kun 𐒏𐒚𐒒 𐒡,𐒠𐒠𐒠
One million milyan 𐒑𐒘𐒐𐒕𐒖𐒒 𐒡,𐒠𐒠𐒠,𐒠𐒠𐒠
One billion bilyan 𐒁𐒘𐒐𐒕𐒖𐒒 𐒡,𐒠𐒠𐒠,𐒠𐒠𐒠,𐒠𐒠𐒠

*the commas in the Osmanya number chart are added for clarity

Days of the week

English Somali
Latin Osmanya
Sunday Axad 𐒖𐒄𐒖𐒆
Monday Isniin 𐒘𐒈𐒒𐒕𐒒
Tuesday Salaasa/Talaado 𐒈𐒖𐒐𐒛𐒈𐒖/𐒂𐒖𐒐𐒛𐒆𐒙
Wednesday Arbaca/Arbaco 𐒖𐒇𐒁𐒖𐒋𐒛/𐒖𐒇𐒁𐒖𐒋𐒙
Thursday Khamiis 𐒅𐒖𐒑𐒕𐒈
Friday Jimce/Jimco 𐒃𐒘𐒑𐒋𐒙
Saturday Sabti 𐒈𐒖𐒁𐒂𐒘

Months of the year

English Somali
Latin Osmanya
January Janaayo 𐒃𐒜𐒒𐒚𐒓𐒖𐒇𐒘
February Febraayo 𐒍𐒛𐒁𐒇𐒚𐒓𐒖𐒇𐒘
March Maarso 𐒑𐒛𐒃
April Abriil 𐒖𐒁𐒇𐒕𐒐
May Maajo 𐒑𐒖𐒕
June Juun 𐒃𐒓𐒒
July Luuliyo 𐒃𐒓𐒐𐒛𐒕
August Agoosto 𐒝𐒌𐒖𐒈
September Sebteembar 𐒈𐒘𐒁𐒂𐒖𐒑𐒁𐒖𐒇
October Oktoobar 𐒙𐒏𐒂𐒝𐒁𐒖𐒇
November Nofeembar 𐒒𐒝𐒍𐒖𐒑𐒁𐒖𐒇
December Diseembar 𐒆𐒕𐒈𐒑𐒁𐒖𐒇

See also

Notes

  1. ^ The short vowel i is sometimes raised to a, for example; “Falastiin” Somali pronunciation: [falastiːn], lit. 'Palestine'. Also when we see “Sidee Tahay” Somali pronunciation: [sadĕː tahaj], lit. 'How are you?', it is clear that it is merely dialectical.
  2. ^ The short vowel u is sometimes raised to a, for example; “Jamhuuriyadda” Somali pronunciation: [d͡ʒamhuːriyada], lit. 'Republic' but however, it is clear that it is merely dialectical southerly.
  3. ^ The /χ/ phoneme is pronounced as a syllable coda such as in the word: Akhri from Aqri meaning (read) basically.[39]
  4. ^ The /ɽ/ phoneme is pronounced such intervocally from /ɖ/.

References

  1. ^ "Somali alphabets, pronunciation and language". Omniglot. Retrieved 16 June 2017.
  2. ^ "cldr/so.xml at master · unicode-org/cldr". Unicode. Retrieved 8 November 2020.
  3. ^ a b c "Somali". SIL International. 2021. Retrieved June 28, 2021.
  4. ^ Jones, Daniel (2003) [1917], Peter Roach; James Hartmann; Jane Setter (eds.), English Pronouncing Dictionary, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 3-12-539683-2
  5. ^ "Somali". Collins Dictionary. Retrieved 21 September 2013.
  6. ^ Saeed (1999:107)
  7. ^ AfricaNews (2020-03-04). "One to five: Ethiopia gets four new federal working languages". Africanews. Archived from the original on 2020-10-28. Retrieved 2021-11-11.
  8. ^ Lewis, I.M. (1999). A Pastoral Democracy: A Study of Pastoralism and Politics Among the Northern Somali of the Horn of Africa. LIT Verlag Münster. p. 175. ISBN 3825830845.
  9. ^ Lewis, I.M. (1958), The Gadabuursi Somali Script, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 21, pp. 134–156.
  10. ^ Lewis, I. (1998). Peoples of the Horn of Africa: Somali, Afar and Saho. Red Sea Press. p. 11. ISBN 9781874209829.
  11. ^ a b Lecarme & Maury (1987:22)
  12. ^ a b c Dubnov (2003:9)
  13. ^ Saeed (1999:3)
  14. ^ "Somalia | Ethnologue Free". Ethnologue (Free All). Retrieved 2024-03-05.
  15. ^ "Somali - Worldwide distribution". Worlddata.info. Retrieved 2024-03-05.
  16. ^ "The Federal Republic of Somalia - Provisional Constitution" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 January 2013. Retrieved 13 March 2013.
  17. ^ a b c Ammon & Hellinger (1992:128–131)
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Sources

Further reading

  • Armstrong, Lilias E. (1969) [orig. pub. 1934, Mitteilungen des Seminars für Orientalische Sprachen zu Berlin, vol. 37]. The phonetic structure of Somali. Gregg International Publishers. hdl:2307/4698. ISBN 0576-11443-X.
  • Bell, C. R. V. (1953). The Somali Language. London: Longmans, Green & Co.
  • Berchem, Jörg (1991). Referenzgrammatik des Somali. Köln: Omimee. ISBN 3921008018.
  • Cana, Frank Richardson (1911). "Somaliland" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 25 (11th ed.). pp. 378–384, see page 379. Inhabitants.—The Somali belong to the Eastern (Abyssinia) Hamitic family.... Their influence has been very slight even on the Somali language, whose structure and vocabulary are essentially Hamitic, with marked affinities to the Galla on the one hand and to the Dankali (Afar) on the other.
  • Cardona, G. R. (1981). "Profilo fonologico del somalo". In Cardona, G. R.; Agostini, F. (eds.). Studi Somali I: Fonologia e Lessico (in Italian). Roma: Ministero degli Affari Esteri, Dipartimento per la Cooperazione allo Sviluppo, Comitato Tecnico Linguistico per l'Universita Nazionale Somala. OCLC 15276449.
  • Diriye Abdullahi, Mohamed (2000). Le Somali, dialectes et histoire (PhD dissertation) (in French). Université de Montréal. hdl:1866/30162.
  • Dobnova, Elena Z. (1990). Sovremennyj somalijskij jazyk. Moskva: Nauka.
  • Lamberti, M. (1986). Die Somali-Dialekte. Hamburg: Buske.
  • Lamberti, M. (1986). Map of the Somali-Dialects in the Somali Democratic Republic. Hamburg: Buske.
  • Puglielli, Annarita (1997). "Somali Phonology". In Kaye, Alan S. (ed.). Phonologies of Asia and Africa. Vol. 1. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. pp. 521–535. ISBN 978-1-57506-019-4.
  • Saeed, John Ibrahim (1987). Somali Reference Grammar. Springfield, VA: Dunwoody Press. ISBN 0931745330. LCCN 87-073464. OCLC 18561242.
Somali edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wikivoyage has a phrasebook for Somali.
Scholia has a topic profile for Somali language.
Wikiquote has quotations related to Somali proverbs.
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