14th century source on the Somali Language

[Step a side]

Arabic is often called "the language of ḍād", referring to the letter ض , difficult for non-Arabs to pronounce. Somalis, when borrowing words from the Arabic language, change the ض Dād sound to Lām ل

Raali راضي (Pleased)
Lid ضد (Opposite)
Arlo ارض (Earth)

The famous scholar Ibn Al Jazari (d. 1429) wrote about this 600 years ago, he said in his book التمهيد في علن التجويد:"ومنهم من يخرجها لاماً مفخمة ، وهم الزيالع ومن ضاهاهم."Among them are those who pronounce it as a velarized Lām, They are the Zaylaci (Somalis) and those like them. "

@Idilinaa @Zak12

 

[Riftvalley]

I get that premise but are we a hundred certain those words came from Arabic.

We have Ali and Arlo. We also have Ardaa.

I am also not sure about Raali.

 

[Xareen]

how are people still questioning whether zayla'is are Somali even still.

 

[Abu Hesi]

Arabic is often called "the language of ḍād", referring to the letter ض , difficult for non-Arabs to pronounce. Somalis, when borrowing words from the Arabic language, change the ض Dād sound to Lām ل

Raali راضي (Pleased)
Lid ضد (Opposite)
Arlo ارض (Earth)

The famous scholar Ibn Al Jazari (d. 1429) wrote about this 600 years ago, he said in his book التمهيد في علن التجويد:"ومنهم من يخرجها لاماً مفخمة ، وهم الزيالع ومن ضاهاهم."Among them are those who pronounce it as a velarized Lām, They are the Zaylaci (Somalis) and those like them. "

View attachment 365173@Idilinaa @Zak12

You can read and write Arabic?

 

[Idilinaa]

I get that premise but are we a hundred certain those words came from Arabic.

We have Ali and Arlo. We also have Ardaa.

I am also not sure about Raali.

It is explaining how they pronounce Arabic letters phonetically in their language. The pronunciation of the Arabic letter "ض" (Ḍād) and that ''Zayla'i (Somalis) pronounce it incorrectly as an emphatic "L" (Lām) sound instead.

Because the Somali language lacks the Arabic letter "ض" (Ḍād), to put it simply it does not have an exact equivalent sound for ض in its native phonology. As they often substitute it with sounds that exist in Somali, especially "D", "Dh", or "L",

 

[Step a side]

You can read and write Arabic?

Yeah but not super fluent.