Somali language: why is there more dialect diversity in the north than the south?

[Revolutionarry]

And could that mean ancestral Somali homeland would be the north?

Dialects from, Djibouti, Somaliland, Khatumo, Western Somalia, would all be considered northern dialects. I would add mudug dialect too, but that's just my opinion. There's a lot of diversity in these dialects, and many times even among the same qabiil. For example Burco dialect is not quite the same as Berbera dialect or lasanaod dialect.
Djibouti dialect is not quite the same as Sitti dialect.
Imey and Babile dialects are different from Jjigjiga dialect.
Jigjiga dialect is different from Hargaysa dialect. You get my point. Here's the interesting part, all these people speak ONLY somali, no other language. You might say what the f*ck are you talking about? well keep reading.


When we look at southern Somalia, we don't observe the same thing. The Somali dialects spoken in the south is a lot less, maybe 2 max. Mogadisho has a unique dialect, everyone else speaks the same. But here's the interesting part, there are a lot of completely different languages spoken there. For example, af may, af tuni, af ajuuraan and a bunch more that your average af maxaa tiri speaker wouldn't understand. I am not even including banaadiri or bantu languages as these two aren't even ethnically Somali. I am talking about ethnic Somalis speaking in a completely different language. How do we explain this? Why is the south more influenced by these people than the north?
Would this point to the north as being the ancestral homeland for geeljires? If not and the south is our ancestral homeland, wassup with these people speaking all these languages, where the hell are they from?

@Aurelian
@Himmler
@MarcusAbdul
@Reformed J
@The alchemist

 

[Thegoodshepherd]

The assumption in linguistics is always that the region where a language family has the greatest diversity is likely the place of origin. Standard Somali very likely originated in the far south of Somalia, between the Juba and Tana rivers. That is probably where the various Somali languages had their homeland.

These people, the Jiddu, Tunni, Dabarre, Rahanweyn, Garre, Aweer, Rendille are relatives of Maxa Tiri speaking Somalis. These languages may not be mutually intelligible anymore, but the linguistic relation is very strong. Somali peoples as whole probably originated within the Juba river watershed. This also helps explain the absence of much Omotic ancestry among Somalis.

Here is an old paper that helped me understand all of this better. The author was very prescient.
https://sci-hub.ru/https://www.jstor.org/stable/41299528

 

[Riftvalley]

There was probably some other dialects in the ancient fiefdoms of Tirri etc, perhaps around the North.

The Dabarre and others also wiped the Madanle group, a dominant group who built advanced irrigation systems around Northern Kenya.

I think more Somali dialects and languages were lost in time.

I believe the Madhibaan maybe a remnant of the soldiers/ doctor of those of old dominant Somali kingdoms. They even claim to have had their own Kingdom.The Yibir might be the magicians and priests of those kingdoms.

Aji means non-Madhibaan according to a Madhibaan expert on Twitter. Aji and Ajuuran equals Somalis who rose to dominant just before or beginning of Islam?


Ps. Most Southerners are unable to tell the accent difference between a person from Hargeysa or Dhulbahante.

 

[Banadiri Warrior]

There was probably some other dialects in the ancient fiefdoms of Tirri etc, perhaps around the North.

The Dabarre and others also wiped the Madanle group, a dominant group who built advanced irrigation systems around Northern Kenya.

Never heard of Dabarre's interacting with Maadanle, did you hear that from a dabarre elder or from any book? Also Maadanle's weren't wiped out. During Eelay migration into Dooy they fought against Maadanle who lived in Baidoa, Manaas and Demir at the time . The Maadanle's either died in the wars between them, or fled or became apart of Eelay clans . An example of the ones that fled would be the Maadanle of Tunni Toore confederacy and an example of the ones amongst Eelay would be the Reer Doodle sub sub clan of Bohooraad.

This shows the path that Eelay clans took to Dooy .

Maadanle are just one of the 15+ gaal madow clans which all resided in the lands now occupied by maay and maxatiri speakers .

 

[Revolutionarry]

The assumption in linguistics is always that the region where a language family has the greatest diversity is likely the place of origin. Standard Somali very likely originated in the far south of Somalia, between the Juba and Tana rivers. That is probably where the various Somali languages had their homeland.

These people, the Jiddu, Tunni, Dabarre, Rahanweyn, Garre, Aweer, Rendille are relatives of Maxa Tiri speaking Somalis. These languages may not be mutually intelligible anymore, but the linguistic relation is very strong. Somali peoples as whole probably originated within the Juba river watershed. This also helps explain the absence of much Omotic ancestry among Somalis.

Here is an old paper that helped me understand all of this better. The author was very prescient.
https://sci-hub.ru/https://www.jstor.org/stable/41299528

Thanks for the link.
I thought it was the opposite, aka seeing less lingusitic diversity in an area meant that area would be the origin of the speakers of said language. I knew I wasn't tripping because I knew I read somewhere that the origins of the Somali people would have been in the south, somewhere slightly southwest of mogadisho, in the interior, and that the migration to the north didn't happen until about until the camel was domesticated but that was just a theory and not proven.

 

[NidarNidar]

The assumption in linguistics is always that the region where a language family has the greatest diversity is likely the place of origin. Standard Somali very likely originated in the far south of Somalia, between the Juba and Tana rivers. That is probably where the various Somali languages had their homeland.

These people, the Jiddu, Tunni, Dabarre, Rahanweyn, Garre, Aweer, Rendille are relatives of Maxa Tiri speaking Somalis. These languages may not be mutually intelligible anymore, but the linguistic relation is very strong. Somali peoples as whole probably originated within the Juba river watershed. This also helps explain the absence of much Omotic ancestry among Somalis.

Here is an old paper that helped me understand all of this better. The author was very prescient.
https://sci-hub.ru/https://www.jstor.org/stable/41299528

Will enjoy reading this.

Thanks for the link.
I thought it was the opposite, aka seeing less lingusitic diversity in an area meant that area would be the origin of the speakers of said language. I knew I wasn't tripping because I knew I read somewhere that the origins of the Somali people would have been in the south, somewhere slightly southwest of mogadisho, in the interior, and that the migration to the north didn't happen until about until the camel was domesticated but that was just a theory and not proven.

Cushites domesticated the Donkey on our way to the horn, just from oral tradition, linguistics and genetics, the domestication of the camel most likely happened across the Red Sea, probably with the arrival of the T Somalis, probably a family of related males, travelling the red sea coast and eventually arriving modern day north Somalia within the last 3,000 years.

 

[Thegoodshepherd]

Will enjoy reading this.


Cushites domesticated the Donkey on our way to the horn, just from oral tradition, linguistics and genetics, the domestication of the camel most likely happened across the Red Sea, probably with the arrival of the T Somalis, probably a family of related males, travelling the red sea coast and eventually arriving modern day north Somalia within the last 3,000 years.

I am fairly certain that the link between haplogroup T and camel domestication will be proved out.

You may find the analysis in this book interesting. Start at the bottom half of page 38.
https://books.google.com/books?id=Vnf74PlZ7Z8C&lpg=PA28&pg=PA38#v=onepage&q&f=true

 

[NidarNidar]

I am fairly certain that the link between haplogroup T and camel domestication will be proved out.

You may find the analysis in this book interesting. Start at the bottom half of page 38.
https://books.google.com/books?id=Vnf74PlZ7Z8C&lpg=PA28&pg=PA38#v=onepage&q&f=true

Why do you say that?

The camel and the wheel : Bulliet, Richard W : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

xiv, 327 p. : 24 cm

archive.org

found it online for those who want to read.

 

[NidarNidar]

Why do you say that?

The camel and the wheel : Bulliet, Richard W : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

xiv, 327 p. : 24 cm

archive.org

found it online for those who want to read.

I can tell this is older book, it mentions Galla in the North lol confusing Somali words.

This still points to camel culture coming across the red sea.

 

[Thegoodshepherd]

Why do you say that?

The camel and the wheel : Bulliet, Richard W : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

xiv, 327 p. : 24 cm

archive.org

found it online for those who want to read.

It is a prediction based on a few pieces of evidence:

• Slightly higher Eurasian autosomal ancestry among Somalis living along the Gulf of Aden
• Saudis that are in the Somali haplogroup T cluster (T-Y45591) are from the Tihama (Makkah and Asir provinces)
• The TMRCA of Somali haplogroup T-L208 with Saudis is 2,200-2,800 years, or roughly back to 200-800 BC. This makes sense given that the introduction of the camel is though to have happened fairly late in Africa
• Camels in East Africa are most closely related to those of South Eastern Arabia, especially to camels in Al Bahah province, also in the Tihama region
• This also overlaps wit the introduction of zebu cattle into the horn also around 2000 years ago.

ps. While I think Bulliet's analysis is good, I think he greatly overestimates how long the camel has been in the Horn of Africa. I think the camel was introduced to the Horn ~400 BC, nowhere near 1500 bc or 2500 bc.

 

[NidarNidar]

It is a prediction based on a few pieces of evidence:

• Slightly higher Eurasian autosomal ancestry among Somalis living along the Gulf of Aden
• Saudis that are in the Somali haplogroup T cluster (T-Y45591) are from the Tihama (Makkah and Asir provinces)
• The TMRCA of Somali haplogroup T-L208 with Saudis is 2,200-2,800 years, or roughly back to 200-800 BC. This makes sense given that the introduction of the camel is though to have happened fairly late in Africa
• Camels in East Africa are most closely related to those of South Eastern Arabia, especially to camels in Al Bahah province, also in the Tihama region
• This also overlaps wit the introduction of zebu cattle into the horn also around 2000 years ago.

ps. While I think Bulliet's analysis is good, I think he greatly overestimates how long the camel has been in the Horn of Africa. I think the camel was introduced to the Horn ~400 BC, nowhere near 1500 bc or 2500 bc.

View attachment 310376View attachment 310375

I'm doing the big Y soon, and it should be arriving this week, the more of us that get tested the better.

 

[Garaad Awal]

Somali (Af-Maxaa) originated in SL

 

[Deejay]

There is just as much diversity of accents in the south, it's not like they all speak like ciyaalka xaafada south of mudug. Have a 2 minute conversation with a xaayow north of Xamar and you'll realise how different it sounds compared to someone who grew up in the city.

You're better at telling apart the different accents in the north because of your familiarity with its speakers, while to a southerner they more or less sound the same and vice versa. To understand the south is to realize that its history is basically successive waves of proto-somalis (af tunni, jiddu, maay and garre speakers) and later somalis (af maxaa speakers) moving southwards.

 

[The alchemist]

Somali (Af-Maxaa) originated in SL

There are several issues with the diversity means centralization of linguistic source argument. First, it's the lack of understanding of how different environments cause separate speeds at which dialects form and diverge. Second, it is the different environmental changes that have happened over time. And last but not least, how high mobile pastoralism subsistence in desertic environments not only maintains a slower innovation rate but also homogenizes language across a wide space in a very standardized way. There is a reason why Beja is the only Cushitic language left in Sudan when in fact it used to be one of several. It has homogenized because of pastoralism and desertic conditions that force high mobility, and economic connectedness that has defined the regions. There are more Cushitic languages in Ethiopia but it does not mean Ethiopia is the source of Cushitic. This goes contrary to everything else we know in terms of genetics, archeology, anthropology, etc.

So, then the Jubaland area functions as a secondary spread point for the Soomaali languages than the actual first spread point, while af-maxaa has been the only game in town for a very long while in the north because of drying environment and higher inter-connectedness. In the south of Somalia, people probably took up farming practices and this meant less contact since isolation is integral for linguistic divergence.

One can also see a picture where the north used to be greener some 2000 years ago, but because Somalis had been in the region just a couple of centuries, at most, one would have one language with a widening language continuum where some edges of that expressed as feint dialect variations went south and further diverged because of the greener more sedentary conditions, whereas there was a secondary expansion from there to further south in modern northern Kenya as well, since we see other ancient Somali groups going down there, most of whom today speak Borana.

This is a rough assessment but it is pretty robust and coincides with what we know with other evidence, such as the continuity of habitation in Somaliland ever since the inception of Somalis in the region all the way deep into the Islamic Era with Cushitic burials.

The formalist linguistic method only tries to be internally consistent but it has several weaknesses and can never be taken as a coherent system for an explanation of migration as I have shown. It's a circular logic. You spot diversity then assume the diversity means origin. Then the guy says, "But look at these statistical associations of the languages there. "Then you say, "Yes. That happens where you find the diversity." Namely, the playing field is not equal between these divergent places so the rules for how languages evolve will be very different. A rigid system that is not sophisticated enough to account for that can never give a picture of reality.

The guy who constructed this linguistic distribution of migration theory wrote this in the beginning already highlighting its limitations:

"The presentation is perhaps too formulaic and too simplistic. Further collection of instances in recorded history should provide the proper testing of the formulae and their correction or, if they prove useful, their further elaboration."

Yes, further testing of other history and other sources proved this wrong.

 

[Garaad Awal]

There are several issues with the diversity means centralization of linguistic source argument. First, it's the lack of understanding of how different environments cause separate speeds at which dialects form and diverge. Second, it is the different environmental changes that have happened over time. And last but not least, how high mobile pastoralism subsistence in desertic environments not only maintains a slower innovation rate but also homogenizes language across a wide space in a very standardized way. There is a reason why Beja is the only Cushitic language left in Sudan when in fact it used to be one of several. It has homogenized because of pastoralism and desertic conditions that force high mobility, and economic connectedness that has defined the regions. There are more Cushitic languages in Ethiopia but it does not mean Ethiopia is the source of Cushitic. This goes contrary to everything else we know in terms of genetics, archeology, anthropology, etc.

So, then the Jubaland area functions as a secondary spread point for the Soomaali languages than the actual first spread point, while af-maxaa has been the only game in town for a very long while in the north because of drying environment and higher inter-connectedness. In the south of Somalia, people probably took up farming practices and this meant less contact since isolation is integral for linguistic divergence.

One can also see a picture where the north used to be greener some 2000 years ago, but because Somalis had been in the region just a couple of centuries, at most, one would have one language with a widening language continuum where some edges of that expressed as feint dialect variations went south and further diverged because of the greener more sedentary conditions, whereas there was a secondary expansion from there to further south in modern northern Kenya as well, since we see other ancient Somali groups going down there, most of whom today speak Borana.

This is a rough assessment but it is pretty robust and coincides with what we know with other evidence, such as the continuity of habitation in Somaliland ever since the inception of Somalis in the region all the way deep into the Islamic Era with Cushitic burials.

The formalist linguistic method only tries to be internally consistent but it has several weaknesses and can never be taken as a coherent system for an explanation of migration as I have shown. It's a circular logic. You spot diversity then assume the diversity means origin. Then the guy says, "But look at these statistical associations of the languages there. "Then you say, "Yes. That happens where you find the diversity." Namely, the playing field is not equal between these divergent places so the rules for how languages evolve will be very different. A rigid system that is not sophisticated enough to account for that can never give a picture of reality.

The guy who constructed this linguistic distribution of migration theory wrote this in the beginning already highlighting its limitations:

"The presentation is perhaps too formulaic and too simplistic. Further collection of instances in recorded history should provide the proper testing of the formulae and their correction or, if they prove useful, their further elaboration."

Yes, further testing of other history and other sources proved this wrong.

The Semitic camel-related loanwords found in Rendille was the moment I realized SL was likely the area where even Proto-Somaloid originated from. It makes no sense for such camel-related terms to be widespread among the Somaloid family and for it to be introduced to the JL area or Southern Ethiopia/N.Kenya early makes little historical sense

 

[The alchemist]

The Semitic camel-related loanwords found in Rendille was the moment I realized SL was likely the area where even Proto-Somaloid originated from. It makes no sense for such camel-related terms to be widespread among the Somaloid family and for it to be introduced to the JL area or Southern Ethiopia/N.Kenya early makes little historical sense

It's in all the Somaloid languages, and the desert is north not south. You only need a camel in desertic adaptation.

@Step a side

Oh, yes, I kind of did not want to mention this right now but the proto Soomaali language had the word Geel and Tumal (not an Arabian word). Rendille got the word tumal. Meaning iron-working was present since the proto-Somali language stage. And geel as well. Geel is a South Arabian introduction (the word too, I think), and Iron was also imported from South Arabia, most likely and maybe other places due to trade. Still, I think really this debunks this notion that Somalis came from deep somewhere in Ethiopia. It seems based on linguistics, our people since 2700 years ago, since I speculate proto-Somali is at least that old (the proto-stage of a language can go back way further, but that's the minimum for me), was on the northern coast, and not from deep inside Ethiopia (the strange southern Ethiopia hypothesis). The camel is a desert animal and we know the topography in the north had demand for it. A model that says we lived deep into Ethiopia at the time and received the geel is impossible. If you read expeditions from Westerners that form caravans of many camels, you will see how Ethiopian geography is too difficult if you go beyond the lowlands. Many camels died traversing the land. And the notion that we lived in Ethiopia even further than when we received the geel, the proto-Somali stage is not possible because Y-DNA wise, we just came from the Nile Valley a couple of 100 years earlier. We have an upper bound on individuals in Egypt and the Levant upstream of our E-V32. Next, we completely lack the substantial Mota-related ancestry that is highly present among all the people living where we were hypothetically derived from based on that outdated theory.

We have to completely disassociate ourselves from this Ethiopian ethnogenesis thing and the south-north migration. It is the other way around.

 

[Revolutionarry]

It's in all the Somaloid languages, and the desert is north not south. You only need a camel in desertic adaptation.

A southern Ethiopia ethnogenesis of Somalis is impossible with northern/eastern Somalis having practically zero omotic dna. Even Somalis in the Ogaden have no mota related DNA. But here's the confusing part, burjis, yakus, rendilles, garre and other LE cushitic speakers are in southern Ethiopia/Northern Kenya area today. How do you explain this?

I personally think lowland east cushtic groups have their origins in the north, modern day afar, northwest Somalia area upto Eritrea and Sudan then everyone but the afars migrated south. Those who ended up in southern Somalia evolved to be the proto Somaloid groups like Somali, Rendille etc.., and those who went to southern Ethiopia evolved to be the garres, burjis etc..

Then 1 to 2 thousand years later, there was a back migration to the north where the Somali nomadic life style was born, and like you said this caused the af maxaa tiri to homogenous very quickly which is why there's probably more diversity in dialects, but less diversity in actual languages. This is the reverse in the south which strengthens the southern Somalia ethnogenisis.

 

[Riftvalley]

Never heard of Dabarre's interacting with Maadanle, did you hear that from a dabarre elder or from any book? Also Maadanle's weren't wiped out. During Eelay migration into Dooy they fought against Maadanle who lived in Baidoa, Manaas and Demir at the time . The Maadanle's either died in the wars between them, or fled or became apart of Eelay clans . An example of the ones that fled would be the Maadanle of Tunni Toore confederacy and an example of the ones amongst Eelay would be the Reer Doodle sub sub clan of Bohooraad. View attachment 310271
This shows the path that Eelay clans took to Dooy .

Maadanle are just one of the 15+ gaal madow clans which all resided in the lands now occupied by maay and maxatiri speakers .

Yes, it was mentioned by elders and documented in a book. I will reply to this soon.

 

[Banadiri Warrior]

Yes, it was mentioned by elders and documented in a book. I will reply to this soon.

Did they mention any wars with other gaal madow tribes?