The Somali Language Has Over 300 Loan Words From Arabic ..

[Waachis]

now tell us how many oromo words u guys have.

The same amount as the number of Somali words that oromo has

lol do you honestly think the somali were there before the oromo, as in, the somali being more ancient?

[TheMightyNomad]

Malgaacad========== Fandhaal

and i think Waaqti is Ammin and Now is Imminka.

Suubaax ========== Saaka , This morning translates to Saakay

Qabri ========== Xabaal

Caqli ========== Dhug

Nafs ========== Rubuud/Rubadjar/Bah


There are soo many words, that we have a somali equivalent of in our language.

Heck we don't even use our own calendaric terminologies. We have Somali names for months and week days, yet we don't use it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eHu79XreLc

Horta sxb thank you very much for posting that video! The names of the Days of the week reminded me of games we used to play when I was young child, (HAVE NOT HEARD THEM EVER SINCE TILL NOW!).
From what I can recall, ..... I remember my auntie used to makes play the game where we sit in line our legs stretched out and one kid would walk from one end to the othe while we sing, counting the legs of each child as he touching a leg as each word is sang " KOOBIN, LAABIN, LABATOK, HAKISA, HAKISA-BILA IYO SOOROG" And at the leg where HAKISA is sang at that that kid would fold that leg and when the word HAKISA-BILA is sang and the other leg is folded at that point he would sit up and wait for the word SOOROG and if it falls on him would get up pretend to be protecting the group and then it will all start again for the remaining ones.

But here is the thing I never thought of it this way before this very moment but I believe the whole point of the game was to teach the names and days of the week and because the non Somali days of the week were being taught at school/Dugsi/Malcaamad and used them in daily life's we never came to learn those words as such only thought of them as words in kids games!!!

Ta labaad, Makes me wonder if the purpose of most if not all Somali childhood game and songs were educational , in order for the children to learn all sorts of subjects e.g. language but have been overlooked and neglected!!

Ta kale just to note, I have once posted the names of the months and since then have seen several different versions that differ slightly perhaps the difference is due to regional differences but almost all Somalis would fully have made sense of them, I believe.

Yeah thats the thing Somali poetry ,games,songs,proverbs are didactic(intending to teach) , they are not done for measly entertainment or fun but rather to teach, instruct, to convey ethics to facilitate to people memorization of information.

What i find interesting is that a timekeeping unit based on a week also indicates the antiquity of our calendar. The idea was introduced to different cultures in the world at different times. However, this concept was not common among the ancient or even pre-European-colonies of the world. The focus of the calendar of many of them was the lunar month, not the week. That was not the case for ancient Somalis. Ancient Somalis gave special importance to the usage of the week in daily life.

Some traditional games retain what seem to be abandoned names, such as biito, hellelebi, laaqshow, tuux and taax, for the pre-Islamic weekdays. Besides these week-day names, other seven names were assigned to the timing of days in the week such as manta (today), berry (tomorrow), saakuun (after tomorrow), saandanbe (after after-tomorrow), shaley (yesterday), dorraad (before yesterday) and dorraad-horteed (before before-yesterday).

That's why we say Af-soomaaliga waa mergi. Because words can't take on new and different shapes all the time, allowing for rich metaphors and poetic allusions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMXxWwMXRs8