| Somali af Soomaali |
||
|---|---|---|
| Spoken in: | Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Yemen, Kenya and the Somali community in the Middle East, Europe and North America. Somalia ( Soomaaliya; الصومال) officially the Somali Republic ( Jamhuuriyadda Soomaaliya, جمهورية الصومال) and formerly known Djibouti ( جيبوتي Jībūtī, Somali: Jabuuti) officially the Republic of Djibouti, is a country in the NOTE This intro is the result of careful NPOV work Please do not make potentially controversial edits to it without first discussing on the talk page Yemen ( Arabic: اليَمَن al-Yaman officially the Republic of Yemen ( Arabic: الجمهورية اليمنية al-Jumhuuriyya The Republic of Kenya is a country in East Africa. It is bordered by Ethiopia to the north Somalia to the northeast Tanzania to the south The Middle East is a Subcontinent with no clear boundaries often used as a synonym to Near East, in opposition to Far East. | |
| Total speakers: | 12-20 million native speakers and at least 500,000 second language speakers. | |
| Language family: | Afro-Asiatic Cushitic East Somali Somali |
|
| Official status | ||
| Official language in: | Somalia | |
| Regulated by: | no official regulation | |
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | so | |
| ISO 639-2: | som | |
| ISO 639-3: | som | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. List of language familiesA language family is a group of Languages related by descent from a common ancestor called the Proto-language of that family The Afro-Asiatic languages constitute a Language family with about 375 languages ( SIL estimate and more than 300 million speakers spread throughout North Africa The Cushitic languages are a branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family spoken in the Horn of Africa. The Somali languages belong to the Afro-Asiatic family and are mainly spoken in Somalia. Somalia ( Soomaaliya; الصومال) officially the Somali Republic ( Jamhuuriyadda Soomaaliya, جمهورية الصومال) and formerly known This is a list of bodies that regulate Standard languages Natural languages Auxiliary languages Interlingua The auxiliary language ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages ISO 639 -3 (ISO 639-32007 is an international standard for Language codes The standard describes three‐letter codes for identifying languages In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's | ||
Somali (Somali: Af Soomaali) is a member of the East Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family spoken by ethnic Somalis in Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Yemen and Kenya, as well as by the Somali Diaspora around the world -- an estimated total population of between 10 and 16 million speakers. The Afro-Asiatic languages constitute a Language family with about 375 languages ( SIL estimate and more than 300 million speakers spread throughout North Africa Somalis ( Soomaaliyeed, الصوماليون are an ethnic group located in the Horn of Africa, also known as the Somali Peninsula. Somalia ( Soomaaliya; الصومال) officially the Somali Republic ( Jamhuuriyadda Soomaaliya, جمهورية الصومال) and formerly known Djibouti ( جيبوتي Jībūtī, Somali: Jabuuti) officially the Republic of Djibouti, is a country in the NOTE This intro is the result of careful NPOV work Please do not make potentially controversial edits to it without first discussing on the talk page Yemen ( Arabic: اليَمَن al-Yaman officially the Republic of Yemen ( Arabic: الجمهورية اليمنية al-Jumhuuriyya The Republic of Kenya is a country in East Africa. It is bordered by Ethiopia to the north Somalia to the northeast Tanzania to the south The term Diaspora (in Greek, διασπορά &ndash " a scattering or sowing of seeds " refers any population sharing common ethnic
In 1972, Somali was declared the official language of Somalia and is used in education, administration and the media.
Contents |
Classification
Somali is an Afro-Asiatic language, of the East Cushitic branch. The Afro-Asiatic languages constitute a Language family with about 375 languages ( SIL estimate and more than 300 million speakers spread throughout North Africa It is most closely related to Oromo and Afar. Oromo, also known as Afaan borana Oromoo, Oromiffa(a ( Ethiopic: ኦሮሚኛ and sometimes in other languages by variant spellings of these names Afar (aa ''Qafár af'' is a Lowland East Cushitic language spoken in Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti. Compared with other Cushitic languages, Somali is relatively well-documented, with academic studies of the language dating from around 1900. The Cushitic languages are a branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family spoken in the Horn of Africa.
Geographic Distribution
The exact number of speakers of Somali is unknown. However, it is estimated to be anywhere between 10 to 16 million worldwide. One source estimates that there are 7. 78 million speakers of Somali in Somalia itself and 12. 65 million speakers globally. [1] A population estimate made by the Dutch Universiteitsbibliotheek Utrecht puts the Somali population somewhere between 10 and 15 million. [2] Combined with a large international expatriate community, it is difficult to get a specific number of Somali speakers, but somewhere between 10 and 16 million worldwide seems a reasonable estimate.
Official status
| Somalia |
 This article is part of the series: |
| Other countries - Culture Portal |
Somali was the national language of Somalia from 1972, gaining official status with standardization (Standard Somali) and the adoption of the Latin alphabet, developed under orders of then president Siad Barre. Somalia ( Soomaaliya; الصومال) officially the Somali Republic ( Jamhuuriyadda Soomaaliya, جمهورية الصومال) and formerly known Islam and poetry have been described as the twin pillars of Somali culture Nearly all Somalis are Sunni Muslims Practicing Islam reinforces distinctions that further set Somalis apart from their immediate African neighbors many of whom are either Christians Somalia ( Soomaaliya; الصومال) officially the Somali Republic ( Jamhuuriyadda Soomaaliya, جمهورية الصومال) and formerly known as the Storytelling is an ancient custom in Somali culture. Love of cinema in Somalia is but a modern visual incarnation and continuation of this well-established oral tradition Somalia has the distinction of being one of only a handful of countries in Africa that are composed almost entirely of one ethnic group the Somalis Somalia produced a large amount of literature through Islamic Poetry and Hadith from Somali scholars of the last centuries to modern Fiction The Cuisine of Somalia varies from region to region and consists of an exotic mixture of native Somali, Ethiopian Yemeni Persian Somalia has a free market economy Somalia has meager natural resources (or untapped resources such as Oil) and recent economic reverses has left its people increasingly dependent History Historically Somali society accorded prestige to the warrior (waranle and rewarded military prowess Shax (known as Jar or Mororova in some areas is a Board game played in the Horn of Africa (especially in Somalia) " Somalia Wake Up " or " Soomaaliyeey toosoo " is the National anthem of Somalia and was adopted by the Transitional Federal Government The shilling ( English) shilin ( Somali, also شلن or scellino ( Italian) has been the Currency of Somalia The Holidays in Somalia:Somalia uses two calendar systems the Gregorian calendar primarily but the Islamic calendar for religious holidays Somalia ( Soomaaliya; الصومال) officially the Somali Republic ( Jamhuuriyadda Soomaaliya, جمهورية الصومال) and formerly known Mohamed Siad Barre (Maxamed Siyaad Barre محمّد سياد بري) (b After the collapse of the central Somali government in the Somali civil war in the 1990s, Somali has remained an official language or de facto national language of the various regional governments such as Somaliland and Puntland. The Somali Civil War is an armed conflict in Somalia that started in 1988 Puntland is a region in northeastern Somalia, centered on Garowe ( Nugaal region whose leaders declared it to be an autonomous state in 1998
Dialects
Somali dialects 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 Cadale to south of Marka, including Mogadishu, and in the immediate hinterland. Benadir ( Somali: Banaadir; بنادر Banādir, the Arabic broken plural of the Persian term bandar "moorage" "port" Mogadishu ( Somali: Muqdisho, popularly Xamar, Hamar; مقديشو Maqadīshū The coastal dialects have additional phonemes which do not exist in Standard Somali.
The Digil and Mirifle clans (sometimes called Rahanweyn) live in the southern areas of Somalia. See also Somali clan The Rahanweyn ( Somali Maay: Reewing; traditional Raxanweyn, الراحانوين is a Somali clan, composed See also Somali clan The Rahanweyn ( Somali Maay: Reewing; traditional Raxanweyn, الراحانوين is a Somali clan, composed See also Somali clan The Rahanweyn ( Somali Maay: Reewing; traditional Raxanweyn, الراحانوين is a Somali clan, composed Recent research (Diriye Abdullahi, 2000) has shown that, although previously classified with Somali, their languages and dialects are incomprehensible to many Somali speakers. The most important language of the Digil and Mirifle is Maay. Maay (also known as Af Maay Afmaay Af-Maay Tiri Af-May Af-Maymay Rahanween Rahanweyn is a member of the East Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic family 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 /ɖ/ is also replaced by /r/ in some positions.
Sounds/Phonology
Somali has 22 consonant phonemes, with at least one in every place of articulation described on the IPA chart, except epiglottal. This article describes the Phonology (ie the sound system of the Somali language. The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA is a system of phonetic notation based on the Latin alphabet, devised by the International Phonetic An epiglottal consonant is a Consonant that is articulated with the Aryepiglottic folds (see Larynx) against the Epiglottis. It has five basic vowel sounds, each having a front and back variation, as well as long or short versions, giving distinct 20 pure vowel sounds. It also exhibits three tones, high, low and falling.
Grammar
Somali is an agglutinative language, using a number of markers for case, gender and number. Somali is an Agglutinative language, using a large number of affixes and particles to determine and alter the meaning of words In Linguistics, agglutination is the morphological process ofadding Affixes to the base of a Word. Characteristic differences between Somali and most Indo-European languages include multiple forms of most personal pronouns, the use of particles to signify the focus of a sentence, extensive use of tone to denote differences in case and number and gender polarity, a phenomenon where the plural form of a word is the opposite gender of the singular.
Vocabulary
Somali contains a number of loan words from Arabic and Persian, as well as from the former colonial languages English and Italian. A loanword (or loan word) is a word directly taken into one Language from another with little or no translation Arabic (ar الْعَرَبيّة (informally ar عَرَبيْ) in terms of the number of speakers is the largest living member of the Semitic language English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States Italian ( or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 63 million people as a First language, primarily in Italy. As the Somalis are almost exclusively Sunni muslims, Somali has borrowed much religious terminology from Arabic, although there are also Persian or Arabic loan words for everyday objects (e. Sunni Islam is the largest denomination of Islam. Sunni Islam is also referred to as Ahl as-Sunnah wa’l-Jamā‘h (Arabic g. Somali albab-ka (the door), from the Arabic الباب al baab).
A large number of neologisms were created after Somali was made the official language in 1972, to cope with concepts used in government and education.
Writing system
The Somali Latin alphabet used since 1972 was developed specifically for the Somali language using all letters of the English Latin alphabet except P, V and Z. The Somali Latin alphabet used since 1972 was developed specifically for the Somali language using all letters of the English Latin alphabet except P V and Z There are no diacritics or other special characters, although it includes 3 consonant digraphs: DH, KH and SH. A diacritic ( also called a diacritic or diacritical mark, point, or sign, is a small sign added to a letter to alter pronunciation A digraph, bigraph, or digram is a pair of characters used to write one Phoneme (distinct sound or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond Tone is not marked, front and back vowels are not distinguished, and a word-initial glottal stop is not shown. Capital letters are used at the beginning of a sentence and for proper names.
A number of other scripts have been used for writing Somali in the past, most notable of which is Osmanya, which served as the official writing script in Somalia for quite a number of years. The Osmanya script (Somali cismaanya; Osmanya ҋҘ҈ґқҒҕҀ also known as far soomaali or Somali writing is a writing script created to write the The Borama script and Wadaad's writing were also used to write down the Somali language. The Borama script is a writing script for the Somali language. Wadaad's writing is Somali written with the Arabic script. Originally it referred to the writing of a kind of ungrammatical Arabic
History
Before the colonial period, educated Somalis and religious fraternities either wrote in Arabic or used an ad hoc transliteration of Somali into Arabic script. Sayyid Mohammed Abdullah Hassan's letter to a scholar, betraying him to the colonial powers, was in Arabic. Sayyīd Muhammad `Abd Allāh al-Hasan ( Sayid Maxamed Cabdille Xasan or Sayyid Mahammad Abdille Hasan, محمّد The Qur'an was taught throughout Somalia, so children were exposed to the Arabic alphabet from a young age. The Qur’an ( القرآن, literally "the recitation" also sometimes transliterated as Qur’ān, Koran, Alcoran 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. Year 1940 ( MCMXL) was a Leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full 1940 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Urdu ( ur '''{{Nastaliq اردو}}''' trans Urdū, historically spelled Ordu) is a Central Indo-Aryan language Urdu is a standardised But this was not certainly "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. Mogadishu ( Somali: Muqdisho, popularly Xamar, Hamar; مقديشو Maqadīshū
The first comprehensive dictionaries were produced in 1976, the Qaamuus kooban ee af Soomaali ah and Qaamuuska Af-Soomaaliga. Civil servants were required to pass language proficiency exams and in the rural literacy campaign students were sent to rural areas to teach others the new script. Reportedly, by 1978 the majority of Somalis were literate, the fastest development of literacy in the history of Africa, although in recent times the civil war and resulting breakup of central control of Somalia has seen a decline in literacy and a stagnation of cultural development in the language.
See Also
References
- Diriye Abdullahi, Mohamed. The Afro-Asiatic languages constitute a Language family with about 375 languages ( SIL estimate and more than 300 million speakers spread throughout North Africa The Osmanya script (Somali cismaanya; Osmanya ҋҘ҈ґқҒҕҀ also known as far soomaali or Somali writing is a writing script created to write the The Borama script is a writing script for the Somali language. Wadaad's writing is Somali written with the Arabic script. Originally it referred to the writing of a kind of ungrammatical Arabic 2000. Le Somali, dialectes et histoire. Ph. D. dissertation, Université de Montréal.
- Saeed, John Ibrahim. 1987. Somali Reference Grammar. Springfield, VA: Dunwoody Press.
- Saeed, John Ibrahim. 1999. Somali. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Further Reading
- L. E. Armstrong. 1964. "The phonetic structure of Somali," Mitteilungen des Seminars für Orientalische Sprachen Berlin 37/3:116-161.
- C. R. V. Bell. 1953. The Somali Language. London: Longmans, Green & Co.
- Jörg Berchem. 1991. Referenzgrammatik des Somali. Köln: Omimee.
- G. R. Cardona. 1981. "Profilo fonologico del somalo," Fonologia e lessico. Ed. G. R. Cardona & F. Agostini. Rome: Dipartimento per la Cooperazione allo Sviluppo; Comitato Tecnico Linguistico per l'Universita Nazionale Somala, Ministero degli Affari Esteri. Volume 1, pages 3-26.
- Elena Z. Dobnova. 1990. Sovremennyj somalijskij jazyk. Moskva: Nauka.
- Annarita Puglielli. 1997. "Somali Phonology," Phonologies of Asia and Africa, Volume 1. Ed. Alan S. Kaye. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. Pages 521-535.
External links
- 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
- PanAfrican L10n page on Somali
- The Somali Language Page: The resources, the links, the information on the Somali language.
Notes
- ^ Ethnologue: Somalia Ethnologue. com
- ^ SOMALIA historical demographic data of the whole country Universiteitsbibliotheek Utrecht
Dapyx Software network: MP3 Explorer | Ebook Manager | Zenithic