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.[1] Prior to the twentieth century, the Arabic script was used for writing Somali.[citation needed] An extensive literary and administrative corpus exists in Arabic script.[2][3] It was the main script historically used by the various Somali sultans to keep records.[3] Writing systems developed locally in the twentieth century include the Osmanya, Borama and Kaddare scripts.[4]
The Somali Latin script, or Somali Latin alphabet, was developed by a number of leading scholars of Somali, including Musa Haji Ismail Galal, Bogumił Andrzejewski and Shire Jama Ahmed specifically for transcribing the Somali language.[5][6] It uses all letters of the English Latin alphabet except p, v and z, and has 21 consonants and five vowels. There are no diacritics or other special characters, except the use of the apostrophe for the glottal stop, which does not occur word-initially. Additionally, there are three consonant digraphs: DH, KH and SH. Tone is not marked, and front and back vowels are not distinguished. Capital letters are used at the beginning of a sentence and for proper names.
A number of attempts had been made from the 1920s onwards to standardize the language using a number of different alphabets. Shortly following independence and the 1960 union, the Somali Language Committee was created, headed by Somali scholar Musa Haji Ismail Galal, the first Somali professionally trained in modern phonetics.[5] The committee recommended the use of a modified Latin script in 1962. The civilian administration at the time was unwilling to make a decision due to the controversial nature of the debate. The Latin script was seen to have been brought to the territory by colonial powers; proponents of other scripts used the phrase "Latin waa laa diin" (Latin is irreligion).[7] Galal continued to lead Somali researchers throughout the 1960s in investigating alternative native systems of inscription suitable for use as official orthography.[8]
In 1966, a UNESCO commission of linguists led by linguist Bogumił Andrzejewski added weight to the choice of the 1962 commission and picked the Latin script. The issue was still divisive, and the Somali government remained hesitant.[7]
The issue was finally resolved by the military upon seizing power in 1969. An informal practice of using Latin by the army and police forces culminated in the official adoption of Latin script as the official orthography of the Somali state.[9]
Before the arrival of the Italians and British, Somalis and religious fraternities either wrote in Arabic or used an ad hoc transliteration of Somali into Arabic script referred to as Wadaad's writing. It contains 32 letters; 10 of them are vowels, the remainder are consonants.[10]
According to Bogumił Andrezewski, 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.[11] 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.[12]
The Osmanya alphabet, also known as Far Soomaali ("Somali writing"), is a writing script created to transcribe the Somali language. A phonetically sophisticated alphabet, it was invented between 1920 and 1922 by Cismaan Yuusuf Keenadiid who hails from the Osman Mohamoud (clan) clan of the larger Majeerteen.[13] Cismaan devised the script at the start of the national campaign to settle on a standard orthography for Somali.[14]
The Borama alphabet (Gadabuursi script) was devised around 1933 by Abdurahman Sheikh Nuur of the Gadabuursi clan.[15] Though not as widely known as Osmanya, it produced a notable body of literature.[2] A quite accurate phonetic writing system,[15] the Borama script was principally used by Nuur and his circle of associates in his native city of Borama.[15][10]
The Kaddare alphabet was invented in 1952 by Hussein Sheikh Ahmed Kaddare of the AbgaalHawiye clan. The technical commissions that appraised the script concurred that it was a very accurate orthography for transcribing Somali.[16] Several of Kaddare's letters are similar to those in the Osmanya alphabet, while others bear a resemblance to Brahmi.[17]
An alphabet is a standard set of letters written to represent particular sounds in a spoken language. Specifically, letters largely correspond to phonemes as the smallest sound segments that can distinguish one word from another in a given language. Not all writing systems represent language in this way: a syllabary assigns symbols to spoken syllables, while logographies assign symbols to words, morphemes, or other semantic units.
Somali 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, 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.
The culture of Somalia is an amalgamation of traditions that were developed independently since the Proto-Somali era. The hypernym of the term Somali from a geopolitical sense is Horner and from an ethnic sense, it is Cushite.
The Osmanya alphabet, also known as Far Soomaali and, in Arabic, as al-kitābah al-ʿuthmānīyah, is an alphabetic script created to transcribe the Somali language. It was invented by Osman Yusuf Kenadid, the son of Sultan Yusuf Ali Kenadid and brother of Sultan Ali Yusuf Kenadid of the Sultanate of Hobyo.
Borama is the largest city of the northwestern Awdal region of Somaliland. The commercial seat of the province, it is situated near the border with Ethiopia.
The endoglossic language of Somalia has always been Somali, although throughout Somalia's history various exoglossic languages have also been used at a national level.
The Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world, the second-most widely used writing system in the world by number of countries using it, and the third-most by number of users.
The writing systems of Africa refer to the current and historical practice of writing systems on the African continent, both indigenous and those introduced. In many African societies, history generally used to be recorded orally despite most societies having developed a writing script, leading to them being termed "oral civilisations" in contrast to "literate civilisations".
Wadaad's writing, also known as Wadaad'sArabic, is the traditional Somali adaptation of written Arabic as well as the Arabic script as historically used to transcribe the Somali language. Originally, it referred to a non-grammatical Arabic featuring some words from the Somali language, with the proportion of Somali vocabulary varying depending on the context. The Somalis were among the first people in Africa to embrace Islam. Alongside standard Arabic, Wadaad's writing was used by Somali religious men (Wadaado) to record xeer petitions and to write qasidas. It was also used by merchants for business purposes and letter writing.
Shire Jama Ahmed was a Somali linguist and a scholar. He is notable for creating and developing of the modern Latin script for transcribing the Somali language.
The Somali Latin alphabet is an official writing system in the Federal Republic of Somalia and its constituent Federal Member States. It 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 is based on the Latin script. The Somali Latin alphabet uses all letters of the English Latin alphabet with the exception of p, v and z. There are no diacritics or other special characters, although it includes three consonant digraphs: DH, KH and SH. Tone is not marked and a word-initial glottal stop is also not shown. Capital letters are used for names and at the beginning of a sentence.
Osman Yusuf Kenadid was a Somali poet, writer, teacher and ruler. Born in Ceel Huur in 1889, he went on to create the Osmanya alphabet for writing Somali. He died on 31 August 1972 in Mogadishu.
Sheikh Nuur was a Somali Sheikh, qādi (judge) of the government at that time and the inventor of the Gadabuursi Script for the Somali language.
The Kaddare alphabet is an alphabetic script created to transcribe Somali, a Cushitic language in the Afroasiatic language family.
Hussein Sheikh Ahmed Kaddare was a Somali inventor, linguist, and researcher in Somali traditions and folklore. Kaddare contributed his linguistic expertise in Somalia's Ministry of information.
Berber orthography is the writing system(s) used to transcribe the Berber languages.
Musa Haji Ismail Galal (1917–1980) was a Somali writer, scholar, linguist, historian and polymath. He is notable for playing a key role in the development of Somali Latin alphabet and the creation of Galaal script, a controversial standardized Somali Arabic script which is the only instance where new letters were introduced to an Arabic script with no relation to any of the existing letters.
The Gadabuursi script, also known as the Borama script, is an alphabetic script for the Somali language. It was devised around 1933 by Sheikh Abdurahman Sheikh Nuur of the Gadabuursi clan.
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