Somali
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Archaeological evidence indicates that the people who live in present day Somalia
had occupied the Horn of Africa by 100 AD - possibly earlier. These early nomads
showed signs of a highly developed pastoral culture.1 Before the start
of the British/Italian/French colonial period (the late 1800s), educated Somalis
and religious fraternities either wrote in Arabic or used an ad hoc transliteration
of Somali into Arabic script. Material discovered in 1940, mainly ancient letters
and tomb inscriptions, demonstrates that the Somali language was written with the
Arabic alphabet, like the Urdu and Persian languages, among others.
Facility with language is highly valued in Somali society; the capability of a suitor,
a warrior, or a political or religious leader is judged in part by his verbal adroitness.
In such a society, oral poetry becomes an art, and one's ability to compose verse
in one or more of its several forms enhances one's status. Speakers in political
or religious assemblies and litigants in courts traditionally were expected to use
poetry or poetic proverbs. Even everyday talk tended to have a terse, vivid, poetic
style, characterized by carefully chosen words, condensed meaning, and alliteration.2
Somali has been the national language of Somalia since 1972, gaining official status
with standardization and the adoption of the Latin alphabet. Somali is also spoken
in Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya. Prior to 1972, English and Italian were the two
languages of government in Somalia.
A number of scripts have been used for writing Somali in the past, including one
called Osmanya.( ), which served as the official writing script from 1961 to 1972.
The modern Somali Latin alphabet was developed specifically for the Somali language
using all letters of the English Latin alphabet except P, V and Z. The first comprehensive
dictionaries were produced in 1976.
The exact number of speakers of Somali is unknown, particularly because of a large
expatriate community; estimates range from 10 to 16 million worldwide. A Dutch university
estimates the Somali population to be somewhere between 10 and 15 million.3
The National African Language Resource Center puts the number at about 20 million.4
Approximately 35,000 individuals in the United States speak Somali.5
Somali is not currently classified by the Defense Language Institute (DLI) on its
four-point difficulty scale6, nor by the Foreign Service Institute (FSI)
on its three-point language difficulty scale.7 However, linguists have
identified Somali as essentially a “category three” language on the DLI scale and
a “category two” language on the FSI scale.
Somali is one of the ten NLSC Pilot Program languages.
Somali is designated as one of the ten pilot languages that the NLSC is recruiting
during its pilot year. The languages chosen were selected based upon the following:
- They meet short- and long-term requirements with emphasis on high-level expertise in languages critical to our national security.
- These languages generally meet the requirements for a pilot such as this based on the number of persons residing in the United States who are proficient in these languages.
- The list of languages includes some whose populations are difficult to locate and recruit.
- Each of these languages has multiple proficiency tests available.
Interesting Resources on Somali
- National African Language Resource Center (Somali brochure)
- Helen Chapin Metz, ed. Somalia: A Country Study. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1992, as used on http://countrystudies.us/somalia/.
- SOMALIA historical demographic data of the whole country Universiteitsbibliotheek Utrecht
- National African Language Resource Center (Somali brochure)
- http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/languages/map.html
