SomaliNet Forums

Thuganomics wrote:

She is halfway into the movie with
the rest of the crowd when she
hears aloud voice calling out to her
"Naa Shuundheereey kumee" ?
The room is dark so the loud voice
continues with "Shuundheer,
Shuundheer" until she answers back
"dee maxaad la ciyeysaa".

What's wrong with that.I don't get it

Shuundheer = Pubic hair (long) in Koonfur.

To call a woman Shuundheer is frowned upon in Koonfur.

Antijuli wrote:What do you guys call Ankle in Somali.

My family calls it anqawga.

Jugjugwacwac wrote:Ximanjaale,

The reer waqooyi have no problem pronouncing the letter 'r'. One of the uses of the dh is to to make a morphological distinction between words that are pronounced and spelt the same way in southern Somali, yet have different meanings. Examples: Gadh (beard) vs Gar (right or case), Badh (part) vs Bar (teach), Wadh (lay out) vs War (news), Jiidh (meat) vs Jiir (mouse). Southerners have to rely on context alone to know which meaning of the word is intended, though theres nothing practically wrong with this.

You explained it perfectly.


When Ximaan then said, hilib jiir ah, I was like

Gogal xaar

Clarifications:

1) In the Somali I speak, dh has one and only one use e.g. baradho, dheere, qardho in contrast to words that use only d e.g. dee, diin. I found JugJug's explanation for the alternative waqooyi usage pretty interesting

2) Similarly, kh is perfectly pronounceable in the standard Mudug accent, although the non-standard q can sometimes be found in usage among ciyaalka xaafada.

3) I've found that most of the glaring differences in vocab are usually loanwords e.g. tuwaal/shukumaan, nigis (knickers)/kastuumo.

4) I would argue that there are quite a few accents in Somalia, from the waqooyi, mudug, xaayow, banadiri, elay, and a few others I'm probably forgetting or aren't aware of. I've never understood the ceeb measuring contests of Somalis; if anything, we should be celebrating the diversity and vitality of our language.

Hear hear on #4