SomaliNet Forums

glaseerkaan?

"ma tukaankaan cashada kasoo buy gareeya" i always say something like that.

^ i sometimes call glacier talaagad

french kuna wayiska ba'een, waa engriis lafool xumeeyey, and then they stick their nose up in the air claiming they dont want to speak in English.

somali language waa useless.. too many things bila magac

YES I WHOLE HEARTILY AGREE OUR LANGUAGE IS DYING AND NEEDS TO BE PRESERVED

FAH1223 wrote: Beydh = Egg

Calamka = world

xukumud = gov't

albaabka = door

its

Beyd

Caalamka

Xukumad

Teedda kale..... Bal waxaad Cinwaanka hoose ka fiirisaa Quruxda iyo Hodannimada Afkeena Hooyo:

http://af-haaneed.blogspot.com

Ismahan123 wrote:Surrender

Can you write that entire paragraph or so in Somali now. It a good practice.

My written somali is actually way beTTer than my spoken[*]

goood one

The somali language must be protected, but i think our language is not in threat, alxamdulilaah.

The problem lays on our writing which has been changed.
Firts we use to have the arabic writing, the so called wadaad's writing, the wadaads used these writing alot for their trade with the arabic world and the somaali's adopted it. It is basicaly the somali language written in arabic.



Then it was changed to the osmanyaa script, created by Boqor yusuf cusmaan keenadiid, but it couldn't compete with the long established arabic litature and the fast emerging (by the goverment endorsed) Somali aphabet based on the Latin script
It looked like this and it was wide spread amongst the somaali's. The linguistic Xirsi Magan AUN ( the father of Ayaan Xir Illaah haa soo hanuniyo)was a fierce supporterof this Scripture. It is written from left to rght





Then the Borama scripture was invented by Sheekh c/raxmaan sheekh nuur ( gababuri), this scripture wasn't widely known as the osmanya, it was mainly used by the native inhabitants of Borama, it is also known als the gadabursi scripture
It looks like this.



For those who didn't understand it: Here is the translation:
Translation

My beloved brother Huseen, Peace.
I am well, the reer is at Đoobo.
The big burden camel has been eaten by a lion. 'Ali has come.
The goods have been received by us. Send us (some) ghee.
Out mother has come. Your brother Guuleed has gone to Hargeisa.

Nuur Bile,
Borama.

Then the kaddare scrpit was invented by sheekh Axmed Kadarre (abgaal)

The last Scripture for the Somali's was created by Shire Jamac axmed (mareexaan) and that is the scripture that we use today: Arabic alphabet written in Latin.

surrender wrote:Even here in the UK the disappointed factor is they teach Hindu, Punjabi, Urdu etc etc at school but not Somali. We should teach young children mother tongue because it would help them to develop confidence, self-esteem and their unique identity within a multicultural society that we live in.

Actually they have been offering Somali courses at the University of MN for the past 3 years or so. This will be the first year that you get REAL language credits for it, as they have supposedly beefed up the curriculum and its tests. Many non-Somalis seem very interested in taking it too, so I guess its a Good thing.

Anyway, Globalization is a bitch. With the loss of the language goes the history. Somalis in past put waay too much trust in the coming generations to carry forward their culture, practises and sheekooyin. The only thing that remained somehow were the lineages by way of Qabiil divisions, because just like the Qur'an they are recited constanty and not ever written down. The day Somali parents start taking the responsibility to teach their children all the things they learned while young, in a peaceful Somalia, then the language will be saved. Having been a weak language that was mixed to begin with, Its now deteriorating by the second.

To be honest Somali is quite a poor language the vocabulary is so tiny we don't even have words for simple terms. Sometimes it takes 5 or 6 Somali words to describe an English term.

For example you cannot write an academic level Somali book without overusing English and Arabic terms.

surrender wrote:^How does learning Arabic improve Somali? (im not being negative but i really wona know)

Somalis who speak Arabic are the worst abusers of the Somali language. They use so many Arabic words in their Somali sometimes it gets incomprehensible if you don't speak Arabic. They don't even feel ashamed of it and most Somalis (who don't speak Arabic) just adore it / look up to it, lol.