Demonstrating how easily the Arabic script can be repurposed for Soomaali

[Shimbiris]

@Apollo

This is what I mean when I say you don't need to respect the conventional rules of the Arabic script (like being an abjad) for Af Soomaali and that it can work perfectly. Here is a Soomaali version made by a rando laymen like myself:

B - ﺏ
T - ﺕ
J - ﺝ
X - ﺡ
Kh - ﺥ
D - د
Dh - ذ
R - ر
S - س
Sh - ش
C - ﻉ
F - ف
Q - ﻕ
K - ﻙ
G - كَ
L - ﻝ
M - ﻡ
N - ن
W - و
H - ه
Y - ﻱ
E - ى
EE - ىَ
I - إ
II - إِ
O - ؤ
OO - ؤَ
U - وُ
UU - وَُ
A - ا
AA - آ

Then you just write phonetically like with the Latin variant of Somali using the above letters and basically insert vowels in a manner you otherwise wouldn't with the Arabic script. Below are examples using news article titles:

Doorashada Soomaaliya: Maxay ka dhigan tahay in askar badan ay noqdaan xubno baarlamaan?

دؤَرؤشادا سؤَمآلإيا: ماحاي كا ذإكَان تاهاي إن اسكار اي نؤقدآن حوُبنؤ بآرلامآن؟


"Wiilkeyga iyo mid aan adeer u ahay ayaa dagaalka lagu dilay haddana nabaddaan ka shaqeynayaa"

وإِكىكَا إيؤ مإد آن ادىَر وُ اياي ايآ داكَآلكا لاكَوُ دإلاي هادانا نابادآن كا شاقىينايآ

Ruushka: Muxuu damacsan yahay Putin, waa kan ciidammadiisa heeganka geliyee?

روَُشكا: موُحوَُ داماعسان ياهاي بوُتإن، وآ كان عإِدامادإِسا هىَكَانكا كَالإيىَ؟

And here are some Somali names:

Male names
Rooble رؤَبلى
Warsame وارسامى
Samatar ساماتار
Faroole فارؤلى
Liibaan لإِبآن

Female names
Asili اسإلإ
Ladan لادان
Hodan هؤدان
Ayaan ايآن
Sagal ساكَال

You telling me you prefer Latin goofery to this? And look at the calligraphy waiting for us, niyahow:

​

Not to mention that this is the writing script our ancestors used both for its original Arabic and for Af-Soomaali for about a millennia at least:

Wadaad writing - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

When Ibn Battuta came to our peninsula in 1331 he describes how the people from Saylac (سايلاع) down to just south of Xamar (حامار) are dark-skinned Shafi'i Muslims who herd camels and sheep (obviously Somalis) and that the Sultan of Xamar at the time who is one of these people speaks "Mogadishan" (Somali) and "Arabic" and clearly recounts an instance where the Sultan writes things down in Arabic:

The sultan of Mogadishu was Abu Bakr ibn Shaikh Umar. He was Barbara amd spoke the local language of Mogadishu, but he also knew Arabic. Battuta was introduced to the Sultan by the “qadi” Ibn al-Burhãn, an Egyptian. After sending a message via a student to the Sultan, the student returned with a plate containing betel leaves and areca nuts, and a sprinkler that contained Damascas rose water.

...

A meal is served and it is a sign of honor when people were invited to join the meal. Afterwards, the court session began. The Sultan retired to his house while the “qadi” heard cases involving the “shari’a” (religious law) and the council of ministers (“waziers” and “amirs”) heard civil cases. When the Sultan’s opinion was required, the court sent a written request and he replied by writing on the back of the note and returning it.

Ibn Battuta Travels to Mogadishu City In 1331. | Visit Mogadishu

The long journey of Ibnu Battuta travelling to Mogadishu City In 1331. History of Mogadishu "The long journey IBN Battuta to Mogadishu" In the spring of 1331, Ibn Battuta traveled south along the East African coast from Aden to Mogadishu, Mombasa and Kilwa. He left Aden by ship in mid-late...

www.visitmogadishu.com

Alongside the extremely early evidence of masjids along the Somali coast:

Mapping the Archaeology of Somaliland: Religion, Art, Script, Time, Urbanism, Trade and Empire - African Archaeological Review

This paper presents the results of some of the surveys conducted to map archaeological sites of Somaliland and includes almost 100 new and previously unpublished sites. The survey work was conducted by several of Somaliland’s Department of Archaeology staff, including Mohamed Ali Abdi, a...

link.springer.com

And the fact that to this day, like in the 1800s and 1900s below- :





-even many rural Somalis know how to read the script despite being illiterate in the Latin script and their own language as they get taught how to read the Qur'an using those wooden boards you see. There's so much history and culture between us and this script, niyahow. Not to mention how beautiful it is and now that you can see it can easily be repurposed for Soomaali I hope you will cease this Latin coonery. Allah bless!

 

[Aurelian]

The letters for the G E EE OO O are horrible selection. Somali use Harakat as well

 

[Shimbiris]

The letters for the G E EE OO O are horrible selection. Somali use Harakat as well

What would you use? I made this up literally in minutes as a show of how easy it would be to repurpose the script. A final version would obviously require more thought.

 

[Aurelian]

What would you use? I made this up literally in minutes as a show of how easy it would be to repurpose the script. A final version would obviously require more thought.

Just put three dots on ق
And use the Urdu گ
Three dots on و
Etc

 

[Shimbiris]

Just put three dots on ق
And use the Urdu گ
Three dots on و
Etc

I did with the Urdu گ. But hmm, somehow I prefer my selections for the others. But do you think of abandoning Latin for the Arabic script? You see my point, saaxiib?

 

[TekNiKo]

No more Arabization, Latin system is good enough stop begging Arabs and actually appreciate your language fucking coon!

 

[Mujahid Nur Marehan]

Wallahi the Arabic script also helps Somalis learn how to spell Arabic, if the Arabic script was adopted. I think it would be great idea.

 

[Shimbiris]

No more Arabization, Latin system is good enough stop begging Arabs and actually appreciate your language fucking coon!

War isku xaar, coonyahow for the gaal scriblings! This is part of our culture! Nothing ana Carab about it. I am a proud lamagoodle which is precisely why I want to stick to a writing system my awoowoyaal were using for centuries.

 

[Bundasliga]

No more Arabization, Latin system is good enough stop begging Arabs and actually appreciate your language fucking coon!

it's the oldest & first writing system of our people lol
Latin system is westernization

 

[TekNiKo]

War isku xaar, coonyahow for the gaal scriblings! This is part of our culture! Nothing ana Carab about it. I am a proud lamagoodle which is precisely why I want to stick to a writing system my awoowoyaal were using for centuries.

I think the cigaal on your head is wrapped a bit too tight as @Apollo said Arabization has already diluted our language enough and we dont need more Arabization to destroy our nation. Latin is a neutral and imperically superior system because it is universal and makes writing/reading so much easier. It was the right choice but I wouldnt expect a coon to understand.

 

[Aurelian]

I did with the Urdu گ. But hmm, somehow I prefer my selections for the others. But do you think of abandoning Latin for the Arabic script? You see my point, saaxiib?

No, the Arabic script is beautiful, but Latin is more easier and practical

 

[Shimbiris]

it's the oldest & first writing system of our people lol
Latin system is westernization

I doubt it was truly the first. They've found old inscriptions across the Somali peninsula, especially in the north that either seem unique or are variants of Musnad which I find more likely. But it's the spread of the inscriptions that's interesting. From what I gather, they're found everywhere from under cave paintings to on random boulders to in towns and even carved onto animal bones. This wouldn't remotely make sense as something left behind by a few southern Arabian merchants who, like in the Middle-Ages, probably wouldn't be allowed to freely wander the country and would be limited to the coastal towns where even there they'd have a local guide. I'm also reminded of the situation in Arabia:



Arabia is actually unique in the ancient world in that, contrary to the popular narrative we're told about the age of jahiliya, there was seemingly a high literacy rate with even random nomads knowing how to read and write in the various Semitic scripts present. You find inscriptions everywhere in ancient Arabia. In caves, on random rocks and boulders... everywhere. And the contents of the inscriptions can be so mundane as to be clearly left by normal people. Love letters, random poems, personal names, sort of calling cards and so on. The situation in northern Somalia oddly seems like it could very well be a little similar and I wouldn't shocked if before the Islamic period a lot of Somalis, or whatever other Cushitic people in the area our Somali speaking ancestors may have absorbed, knew how to read variants of Musnad and are the reason why there's such a wide spread of inscriptions:

Mapping the Archaeology of Somaliland: Religion, Art, Script, Time, Urbanism, Trade and Empire - African Archaeological Review

This paper presents the results of some of the surveys conducted to map archaeological sites of Somaliland and includes almost 100 new and previously unpublished sites. The survey work was conducted by several of Somaliland’s Department of Archaeology staff, including Mohamed Ali Abdi, a...

link.springer.com

Plus we also know that the Somali coast was home to several market/port-towns that traded with the ancient Greeks, Romans and Arabs:

The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea : travel and trade in the Indian Ocean : Schoff, Wilfred Harvey, 1874-1932 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Bibliography of the Periplus: p. 17-21

archive.org

Even the boats our ancestors used historically date back to the 1st century CE at least to even perhaps 200-300 BCE based on some accounts I remember. These towns were clearly inhabited by some form of ancestral Somalis/coastal Cushitic people as the Romans and Greeks lumped them together culturally with the people of southeastern Egypt, northeastern Sudan and the Eritrean coast whom they all referred to as eastern Barbaroi. This is where the Arabs got their medieval name for the Somali coast ("Bilad al-Barbar" -> "Country of the Barbar/Barbara") and is where the name of Berbera and probably also the town of Berber in Sudan came from given that Berber is where Bejas (North Cushites) seem to have once been predominant like they always were along Lower-Nubia and the eastern coasts from what is now southeastern Egypt down to northern Eritrea where they have mostly been Ethiosemitized.

It would be unlikely for people who traded so extensively with the rest of the ancient world to not be familiar with some form of writing, at the very least among the ruling elites and some of the tradesmen of these towns.

 

[Bundasliga]

I doubt it was truly the first. They've found old inscriptions across the Somali peninsula, especially in the north that either seem unique or are variants of Musnad which I find more likely. But it's the spread of the inscriptions that's interesting. From what I gather, they're found everywhere from under cave paintings to on random boulders to in towns and even carved onto animal bones. This wouldn't remotely make sense as something left behind by a few southern Arabian merchants who, like in the Middle-Ages, probably wouldn't be allowed to freely wander the country and would be limited to the coastal towns where even there they'd have a local guide. I'm also reminded of the situation in Arabia:



Arabia is actually unique in the ancient world in that, contrary to the popular narrative we're told about the age of jahiliya, there was seemingly a high literacy rate with even random nomads knowing how to read and write in the various Semitic scripts present. You find inscriptions everywhere in ancient Arabia. In caves, on random rocks and boulders... everywhere. And the contents of the inscriptions can be so mundane as to be clearly left by normal people. Love letters, random poems, personal names, sort of calling cards and so on. The situation in northern Somalia oddly seems like it could very well be a little similar and I wouldn't shocked if before the Islamic period a lot of Somalis, or whatever other Cushitic people in the area our Somali speaking ancestors may have absorbed, knew how to read variants of Musnad and are the reason why there's such a wide spread of inscriptions:

Mapping the Archaeology of Somaliland: Religion, Art, Script, Time, Urbanism, Trade and Empire - African Archaeological Review

This paper presents the results of some of the surveys conducted to map archaeological sites of Somaliland and includes almost 100 new and previously unpublished sites. The survey work was conducted by several of Somaliland’s Department of Archaeology staff, including Mohamed Ali Abdi, a...

link.springer.com

Plus we also know that the Somali coast was home to several market/port-towns that traded with the ancient Greeks, Romans and Arabs:

The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea : travel and trade in the Indian Ocean : Schoff, Wilfred Harvey, 1874-1932 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Bibliography of the Periplus: p. 17-21

archive.org

Even the boats our ancestors used historically date back to the 1st century CE at least to even perhaps 200-300 BCE based on some accounts I remember. These towns were clearly inhabited by some form of ancestral Somalis/coastal Cushitic people as the Romans and Greeks lumped them together culturally with the people of southeastern Egypt, northeastern Sudan and the Eritrean coast whom they all referred to as eastern Barbaroi. This is where the Arabs got their medieval name for the Somali coast ("Bilad al-Barbar" -> "Country of the Barbar/Barbara") and is where the name of Berbera and probably also the town of Berber in Sudan came from given that Berber is where Bejas (North Cushites) seem to have once been predominant like they always were along Lower-Nubia and the eastern coasts from what is now southeastern Egypt down to northern Eritrea where they have mostly been Ethiosemitized.

It would be unlikely for people who traded so extensively with the rest of the ancient world to not be familiar with some form of writing, at the very least among the ruling elites and some of the tradesmen of these towns.

As always a very informative & helpful response from you

How you write that fast?
Do you have notes saved up?

 

[Al Muslim]

The latin alphabet is a remnant of gumeysi and should be wiped out in Somalia. Reintroducing arabic as the script for Somalia would be easy as everyone can already read and write it. There is absolutely no reason we should keep using this ugly and unsuitable script brought from europe.

 

[Shimbiris]

The latin alphabet is a remnant of gumeysi and should be wiped out in Somalia. Reintroducing arabic as the script for Somalia would be easy as everyone can already read and write it. There is absolutely no reason we should keep using this ugly and unsuitable script brought from europe.

Wallahi, I can't even stand how Somalis use it. All the double letters instead of just employing diacritics looks so archaic and silly somehow. News articles should not look like this:

Doorashada Soomaaliya: Maxay ka dhigan tahay in askar badan ay noqdaan xubno baarlamaan?

 

[TekNiKo]

The latin alphabet is a remnant of gumeysi and should be wiped out in Somalia. Reintroducing arabic as the script for Somalia would be easy as everyone can already read and write it. There is absolutely no reason we should keep using this ugly and unsuitable script brought from europe.

 

[Shimbiris]

View attachment 214788

Waryaa, you're not even making sense. Who said anything about wanting to be Arab. We are just admiring and respecting a writing system OUR SOMALI ANCESTORS used and that is far better and less history la'an for our people than some crap like Latin. Besides, this is the script the Qur'an is written in. You are bordering on murtad behavior by ridiculing its use.

As always a very informative & helpful response from you

How you write that fast?
Do you have notes saved up?

I type at like 70-80 words per minute. Quite fast, I'm told. Though I don't feel like I'm all that fast but I have noticed that when I chat with folks on whatsapp or other instant message services I'm generally a fair amount faster than most people I chat with.

 

[TekNiKo]

Waryaa, you're not even making sense. Who said anything about wanting to be Arab. We are just admiring and respecting a writing system OUR SOMALI ANCESTORS used and that is far better and less history la'an for our people than some crap like Latin. Besides, this is the script the Qur'an is written in. You are bordering on murtad behavior by ridiculing its use.


I type at like 70-80 words per minute. Quite fast, I'm told. Though I don't feel like I'm all that fast but I have noticed that when I chat with folks on whatsapp or other instant message services I'm generally a far amount faster than most people I chat with.

You idiot I love the Quran more than you that is God word wallahi I love Allah and his messenger but it was my uncle who wrote the Latin Script Shire Jamaac. You are disrespecting his legacy by suggesting Arabic as an alternative, I value Arabic for religious Islam but Somalis have already learned the Latin script and implented it. Far wadaad is too crude.

 

[Shimbiris]

You idiot I love the Quran more than you that is God word wallahi I love Allah and his messenger but it was my uncle who wrote the Latin Script Shire Jamaac. You are disrespecting his legacy by suggesting Arabic as an alternative, I value Arabic for religious Islam but Somalis have already learned the Latin script and implented it. Far wadaad is too crude.

War niyahow, I ain't out here to disrespect your adeer. Just showing why Arabic is better and your criticism about Far Wadaad makes no sense as I demonstrated above that you can use the Arabic script however you like and basically use it how you would use the Latin script. Also, mashallah regarding your piety.

 

[TekNiKo]

@Shimbiris Your from Dubai right? Wallahi I went there and went to Suuqa Dahab and I was less than impressed. It still had that third worldish vibe about Suuqs like I was in Bakaarha, to many Indians seling Rooti and paneer. They made the majority and I was shocked bal ya keenya Bengali iyo Hindi meesha! The only Arabs I seen were the workers at the airport LOL! This was long ago in 2015 as I boycotted visiting UAE after their hostile acts toward Somalia. How do you balance the fact that the nation you were borned and raised in are funding destablization efforts in your homeland?