AfSomali has 10 vowels and they are all messed up by far latin

[cunug3aad]

I just found out this now why afsomali has such many homographs. Bastar latin script hiding my god given vowels

So what is meant by front and back vowels take the word dugsi and the word macalin they both have i in it. But the i in dugsi and the i in macalin are pronounced differently and you can see if you try to swap the sounds you end up with dugsueh and macaliyn which do not work. Its similar to what happens in english for example "jog" and "both" have different sounds for o because english has much more vowels than 5 but that isnt suprising given english stopped being phonetic many qarni ago. But my far latiin is supposed to be a phonetic language

For ease of understanding i have provide reference for the sounds because ipa alphabet is unintelligible chicken scratch:

XARAF​	HORE​	GADAAL​
A​	NAAG (woman)​	BUURAN (fat adj.)​
E​	EEG (look)​	FEEDH (fist/punch)​
I​	DIID (refuse)​	MIIR (strain liquid)​
O​	JOOG (stay)​	ROOB (rain)​
U​	NUUG (suckle)​	BARUUR (fat noun)​

They talking in the comments about how this shows vowel harmonisation in afsomali but i have no idea what that means because i havent gone too deep in the lingistics tunnel so any explanation is helped. Also haddi aan qaldamay qoritaanka codka erayada also fadal ii sax

In future if the somali orthography improves haddu ilaahi yidhaahdo there should be a way to implement these vowels and make it properly phonetic to account for these homographs that have arisen mainly for literary purposes. u/mahmud_ is probably still crying at night thinking about this

 

[reer]

arabic is much better for somali. because it shows all the consonants easier than latin.

 

[cunug3aad]

arabic is much better for somali. because it shows all the consonants easier than latin.

I dont think arabic script would help much in this case given we are talking about representing vowels rather than consonants. Also the guy mentions a good point about how the somali phonetic inventory and its equivalents in arabic dont match one to one
To me this makes me think that if somalia switched to using arabic script with the idea of better literacy from Quraan reading there is a very very real chance that it can affect how we pronounce vowels either in afsomali or more likely in afcarabi quran recitation will be affected, it will be shifted even further towards somali phonetics and we will have more people reciting like reer baadiyo from 50 years ago

 

[Burqad]

arabic is much better for somali. because it shows all the consonants easier than latin.

Reformed Arabic would be better. I curse Mao Zedong.

 

[Ultra Opinionated]

Arabic would 100% be better. Latin screws up so many things.

 

[NidarNidar]

Nothing wrong with using a modified Arabic script

#bringbackWadaadScript

 

[reer]

I dont think arabic script would help much in this case given we are talking about representing vowels rather than consonants. Also the guy mentions a good point about how the somali phonetic inventory and its equivalents in arabic dont match one to one

Reformed Arabic would be better. I curse Mao Zedong.

there is no need for adding more vowels in writing. we dont need to differentiate between jilib (knee) and jilib (a city), or daaacad and daacad in writing. context is enough.

 

[Som]

arabic is much better for somali. because it shows all the consonants easier than latin.

arabic script can be problematic for Somali. For example the O or OO sound would always be written as و , the lack of short vowels would be a nightmare

 

[reer]

arabic script can be problematic for Somali. For example the O or OO sound would always be written as و , the lack of short vowels would be a nightmare

keep up sxb. multiple languages use it as a full blown alphabet. arabic has plenty of modified characters used by those languages.

 

[Som]

keep up sxb. multiple languages use it as a full blown alphabet. arabic has plenty of modified characters used by those languages.

The arabic script Is unpractical especially for Urdu and Persian, I will admit it is more useful for as our language has many similar sounds to Arabic but the latin alphabet is widespread and as good if not better to write somali. At this point changing the alphabet is pure madness

 

[JustSomeGuy]

The arabic script Is unpractical especially for Urdu and Persian, I will admit it is more useful for as our language has many similar sounds to Arabic but the latin alphabet is widespread and as good if not better to write somali. At this point changing the alphabet is pure madness

A reformed Latin alphabet would be easier. One that fixes these apparent vowel issues. You're right that the Latin script is better.
But still I would have preferred a different, native writing system. One that makes it difficult to write foreign words.

 

[reer]

The arabic script Is unpractical especially for Urdu and Persian, I will admit it is more useful for as our language has many similar sounds to Arabic but the latin alphabet is widespread and as good if not better to write somali. At this point changing the alphabet is pure madness

the ten vowels we have are enough.we dont need more. if your af somali is good enough you will know the context and be able to differentiate.

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