In difficulty, Somali can stand its ground against the hardest languages. Yet the Foreign Service Institute puts Somali in category 2, where 3 is the hardest. Category 2 includes Farsi and 3 includes Arabic. Somali seems to be way harder than Farsi and of at least the same level of difficulty as Arabic. If you drew a Venn diagram of languages and their hardest aspects, Somali would overlap with a lot of them.
While Mandarin and Somali have tones, Mandarin has no case. While German and Somali have case, German has fairly simple sounds. While Arabic and Somali have difficult sounds, Arabic has a consistent writing system. Plus Somali does some odd things with prepositions you’ll have to read about, below.
Somali is a doosy, but the challenge is made lighter by the joy of Somalis hearing their language spoken by a foreigner.
For a bit of background: Somali belongs to the Afro-Asiatic language family, in the Cushitic branch. More famous branches of this family are Semitic, to which Arabic and Hebrew belong, and Egyptian, which includes the language of the ancient Pharaohs. Some overlap with Arabic, then, is natural.
1. Three (four?) writing systems. When Somali was originally written down in the Arabic script in the 13th century (Wadaad script). In 1920, another script was invented that somewhat resembled the Ethiopian writing system (Osmanya script). A more minor script was invented in 1930, called the Borama script. The official script since 1972 has been a Latin-based alphabet (Somali alphabet).
2. All the hard sounds of Arabic: The guttural sounds that foreigners have trouble with in Arabic – they’re all in Somali. The emphatic ha, the ayin, the qaf, the raspy kha – they’re all there. (They’re spelled x, c, q, and kh, respectively.) Additionally, Somali distinguishes between short and long vowels, like in Arabic, and other languages like Japanese and Finnish. So my friends correct me if I say “si” rather than “sii.” Finally, they have a retroflex “d” (spelled dh) like in Indian languages.
3. Some of the tones of Mandarin: Most have heard of the four different tones of Mandarin: high, low, falling, and rising. Somali only has two, high and low, but they can sound different depending on the environment they are found in. They change the meaning of the word, too! “Boy” is ínan, and “girl” is inán; “dog” is éy and “dogs” is eý.
4. Irregular plurals like German or Arabic: A Somali noun forms its plural according to a pattern that is not predictable from its singular, and Somali has 7 or so patterns. This concept may sound familiar to German or Arabic-speakers. Unlike English, which almost always forms its plural with “-(e)s,” Somali has no “regular” plural suffix. So the plural of áf “language,” flattens the tone and repeats the last syllable: afaf. For some nouns, a suffix is used, so hoóyo“mother” goes to hoyoóyin, and áabbe goes to aabayaal (also note the tone shift). Finally, words may shift gender as they go from singular to plural.
5. Prepositions – unlike anything: Somali prepositions don’t resemble any language I know. They’re a challenge, so I’ll explain as well as I can based largely on this academic source and this textbook. They are divided into prepositions and “deictic particles.” They have four prepositions, roughly “to”, “in”, “from”, and “with”. “Deictic particles” indicate activity relative to the speaker; the four Somali deictic particles indicate toward the speaker, away from the speaker, toward each other, or away from each other. One may need to use both a preposition and a deictic particle. Somali tends to place these items in front of the verb, not the noun.
For example, “I pulled the man out of the well with a rope” is nínkíi bàan cèelka xádhig kagá sóo saaray. The last five words literally mean, “well-the rope with-from towards_me I-raised.” Similarly, “they used to give us news about it” is way inoogá warrámi jireen, literally, “They us-to-about news gave.” They could have thrown a soo in there, too, right after inoogá. It seems to me they cluster all the prepositions together. In the first example, “from” goes with “well” and “with” goes with “rope,” but both stick by the verb. In the second, “to” goes with “us” and “about” goes with the unspoken “it.” Unscrambling in real time what preposition goes with what is beyond my level right now.
6. Cases – like Greek or German: Somali has four cases, but not the ones you may know from, say German or Greek. They are absolutive, subject, genitive, and vocative. Absolutive is used when it is by itself, and subject if there is another noun in the sentence. Genitive, like in other languages, indicates possession, and vocative is used in directly addressing someone or something. Like the plural, they are marked with a suffix or tone change, depending on the class of the noun. In addition, like in German and Greek, the absolutive and subject are marked on the article, as well. However, Somali also has different articles depending on whether the noun was mentioned before or not (similar to English “a” and “the”).
7. Poetry: Somalis are known for their love of poetry. Richard Burton noted in the 19th century the widespread recitation and performance of poetry among Somalis. When Somali is spoken it is peppered with poetic allusion, proverbs, and alliteration. The uninitiated cannot understand the depth of the language without a deep knowledge and appreciation of the poetry.
Before you feel discouraged, let me tell you that Somalis love to hear their language spoken by foreigners.
Some non-Somalis have become YouTube sensations by simply interviewing in Somali. When you try to learn the language, you will receive tons of help. Somalis love their language, and their love is infectious. Enjoy taking on this challenge of learning Somali and all the new, friendly people you will recruit to help your efforts and entertain with your enthusiasm.
