So i was reading an old thread talking about how terrible arabic script was for representing somali. Since you dont represent vowels so you wouldn't be able to easily distinguish between works like saar( put) sar (cut) and siir (secret) . Which made me wonder how many somali manuscript must be out their that simply aren't recognizable as afsomali and also maybe they aren't as common as thought since it seems extremely annoying to write somali in Arabic script.
How recognizable are somali manuscript
- Thread starter Midas
- Start date
From reading the sources like that Kenyan one where they were apparently making manuscripts en masse, I wouldn't be shocked if a lot of undeciphered or "realized" stuff is just out there. Inshallah, as Somali scholarship picks up in the coming decades and we scrounge together funds to buy out family and private collections, we'll see more manuscripts.
My ultimate dream would be for us to also discover some pre-islamic manuscripts as well. So that we would then be able to be able to construct a history of somali literature going back millenia.
Were honestly incredible lucky in that considering how theres one language on the Somali peninsula since antiquity the chances of it being written are so much higher than in places like north africa
I
Honestly considering the existence of somali interpreters who could speak Greek and interpretd for other somalis. It wouldn't surprise me if we even had Greek philosophy translated into somali or even histories modeled after the Greek ones.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Receipt of a Somali interpreter<br><br>He received his payment from an Ancient Egyptian official named Diogenes<br><br>Thebes, Ancient Egypt<br><br>A Greek papyrus mentions a Somali named Apollonius employed by The Ptolemaic State to translate between Somalis and Ancient Greeks<br><br>Such a Somali job <a href="https://t.co/NKoUFty66Q">pic.twitter.com/NKoUFty66Q</a></p>— Light 𐘾
OVO (@CrashoutSomali) <a href="">July 16, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Receipt of a Somali interpreter<br><br>He received his payment from an Ancient Egyptian official named Diogenes<br><br>Thebes, Ancient Egypt<br><br>A Greek papyrus mentions a Somali named Apollonius employed by The Ptolemaic State to translate between Somalis and Ancient Greeks<br><br>Such a Somali job <a href="https://t.co/NKoUFty66Q">pic.twitter.com/NKoUFty66Q</a></p>— Light 𐘾
OVO (@CrashoutSomali) <a href="">July 16, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
