The Music of the Somali people is music following the musical styles, techniques and sounds of the Somali people.
Said Sheikh Samatar was a prominent Somali scholar and writer.
Mengistu Lemma (1924–1988) was an Ethiopian playwright and poet.
Atete is a fertility goddess worshipped at Kafa (Ethiopia).
Sheikh Bashir Sheikh Cali Sheikh Hassan was a Somali religious leader famed for leading the 1945 Sheikh Bashir Rebellion against the British colonial authority in Somaliland.
Balwo is a style of music and poetry practiced in Somalia as well as Djibouti. Its lyrical contents often deal with love and passion. The Balwo genre was founded by Abdi Sinimo.
A number of writing systems have been used to transcribe the Somali language. Of these, the Somali Latin alphabet is the most widely used. It has been the official writing script in Somalia since the Supreme Revolutionary Council formally introduced it in October 1972, and was disseminated through a nationwide rural literacy campaign. Prior to the twentieth century, the Arabic script was used for writing Somali. An extensive literary and administrative corpus exists in Arabic script. It was the main script historically used by the various Somali sultans to keep records. Writing systems developed locally in the twentieth century include the Osmanya, Borama and Kaddare scripts.
Hassan Sheikh Mumin was a Somali poet, playwright, broadcaster, actor and composer.
Mohamed Hashi Dhamac better known as Gaarriye, was a Somali poet and political activist. He belonged to the Sa'ad Musa sub-division of the Habr Awal Isaaq clan.
The Revd Professor Peter Tshobisa Mtuze is a poet, priest and academic. He worked as an interpreter in the law courts of the old South Africa, a radio announcer, a salesperson for a publishing company, a civil servant in the homeland government structures, a lecturer at Unisa, an Editor in Chief of the Greater Dictionary of isiXhosa at Fort Hare, before joining Rhodes University as Professor and Head of the isiXhosa Department.
Godfrey Isaac Malunga Mzamane was a novelist, literary historian, academic and intellectual pioneer of African studies in South Africa.
Yamyam or Yam Yam was a Somali poet and playwright. Yamyam was one of the main contributors for the Somali National Academy of Culture (SNAC), also known as the Somali National Academy of Arts, Sciences and Literature. He was active as a poet from the 1960s.
Ny Avana Ramanantoanina (1891–1940) is among the most celebrated literary artists of Madagascar. He is principally renowned for his poetry, but also wrote stories and plays. He wrote during the colonial period and is considered to have been the first Malagasy writer to weave political messages into his work. He wrote primarily in the Malagasy language. A contemporary of Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo, who is commonly cited as the first African poet to write according to Western conventions, Ramanantoanina was highly critical of the French colonial authority. He was a member of the secret nationalist organization Vy Vato Sakelika, and was exiled to Mayotte in the Comoros when the organization was banned by the French colonial authority in 1917. His writings were consequently banned and were not reprinted until the 1980s in Madagascar. As a result, his writings are relatively less well known in international literary circles than those of Rabearivelo.
Wāfir is a meter used in classical Arabic poetry. It is among the five most popular metres of classical Arabic poetry, accounting for 80-90% of lines and poems in the ancient and classical Arabic corpus.
Bogumił Witalis "Goosh" Andrzejewski (1922–1994) was a Polish-born, British-naturalised linguist whose research focused on the Somali language.
James Stuart (1868–1942) was a civil servant of the Colony of Natal and Zulu linguist; also a collector of Zulu oral tradition. He compiled five school readers containing Zulu poetry and narrative.
Sesotho poetry is a form of artistic expression using the written and spoken word practiced by the Basotho people in Southern Africa. Written poetry in the Sesotho language has existed for over 150 years however, the oral poetry has been practiced throughout Basotho history.
The Habr Je'lo (Somali: Habar Jeclo, Arabic: هبر جعلو, Full Name: Mūsa ibn ash-Shaykh Isḥāq ibn Aḥmad, historically known as the Habr Toljaala is a major sub-tribe of the wider Isaaq family. Its members confederation along with the Ibran, Sanbuur and Tolje’lo.
Josiah Sobowale Sowande also known as Sobo Arobiodu was a Yoruba poet from Abeokuta, Ogun State who was a pioneer writer of Ewi, a Yoruba language style of poetry.
Abdillahi Diiriye Guled also known as Arale/Caraale is a Somali literary scholar, Prosodist and is credited with the discovery of the Somali Scansion system.
