The two languages of Somalia

[Idilinaa]

I see i got tagged into this: There is no point in me reinstating my position or linguists position on the matter that study Somali language and its dialects:

So i will copy my old posts from the Qabil Qashin thread and people are free to read this:

What the evidence shows is that Sab are simply the earliest nucleus Somali speaking community to settle in the South that later confederated with more recent northern AF-Maxaa and Af-Benadiri speaking migrants.

Af-Maaxa and Af-Maay have the same cultural history unlike portuguese and spanish. I think the difference between Af-Maay and Af-Maaxa is kinda like the developmental trajectory between Old English and New English. One wouldn't say they are two distinct languages.

And high proportion of Raxanweyn are adopted immigrants from other Af-Maaxa speaking Somali clans. If you look at Elay Raxanweyn clan who are the largest among them, for example not one of the 22 clan cheifs/leaders were of original Elay descent

As I.M Lewis noted that:

Indeed , so many layers of foreign settlement have been deposited by successive waves of immigrants that in a great many clans the original founding nucleus... has not only been vastly outnumbered but has eventually withered away together.

And also i don't like the misreading of this study you make , what it says is that it shares the same cultural history not that Af-Maay was recently influenced over the centuries by Af-Maxaa and it does not only say if you really get used to them you understand them better. It also says intelligibility in Af-Maay increases the more proficient/Fluent you are in Af-Maxaa.

Actually Af-Maay which is part of the Somali language/s shares like 80-85% of the same lexicon as Af-Maxaa because they are from the same language of origin (some borrowing might have happened), what makes the dialect so differentiated from Af-Maaxa and other dialects are some differences in pronunciations, grammar and has fewer loan words from Arabic etc and retain words that archaic and rarely used in Af-Maaxa or has been supressed due to innovations or borrowings.

Here is lexical comparison on the different dialects:

https://arcadia.sba.uniroma3.it/bitstream/2307/1015/5/03_A.%20O.%20MANSUR%20-%20A%20lexical%20aspect%20of%20somali%20and%20east-cushitic%20languages.pdf

The overhelming identity of lexical elements demonstrated above between Southern Somali dialects and East Cushitic leads us to conclude that Southern Somalis is, in some aspects , more archaic linguistically, and can be considered as a link between the Omo-Tana or East Cushitic languages and Standard Somali, thus confirming the idea that, from a linguistic point of view are older speech community of Somalis----

It is not comparable to Mehri or Modern South Arabian languages because they descend from a different semetic language origin than Arabic. Af-Maay and Af-Maaxa descend from the same language.

And yes it's a pity that more resources and attention haven't given to Af-Maay but it's hardly ever in danger like Mehri, still as rich and spoken daily in large parts of regions of Southern Somalia, they also make content online in the South West state in Af-Maay , even news segments, despite the standardization of the language that better prefers Af-Maxaa.

Not it's perfect analogy. Modern English is divergent of Old English, both are descendants of Anglo-Saxon actually. The development from Old to Modern English is due to the substantial influence in core vocabulary and some grammar from older versions of Danish and Norse, and it has received a large part of its current vocabulary from French. So it has a number of borrowings and innovations within it missing in Old English.

Similar thing happened with Af-Maxa that differentiates it from Af-Maay which has retained a lot of Archaic traits, and has less borrowings but is essentially the same language with regional differences as i have shown under this post:

 

[abz1991]

I see i got tagged into this: There is no point in me reinstating my position or linguists position on the matter that study Somali language and its dialects:

So i will copy my old posts from the Qabil Qashin thread and people are free to read this:

The basis in which people say Maay is a seperate language and not a dialect ( I've heard this from a Maay scholar) is that they are both not mutually intelligible. Dialects are mutually intelligible which is where people saying it is a different language comes from.

An example would be if someone speaking Maay went to hargeisa and spoke Maay to the local population they would probably think he was speaking afaan oromo and probably understand 20% of what he's saying.

I personally hold that Af Maay is a language that comes under the umbrella of Somali languages and not a dialect. But it is a point of debate which hasnt been settled

 

[abz1991]

If af maay is separate language then there is more than two languages in somalia.
Af karre- boni
Af jiddu
Af dabarre

This is true. Actually af karre, jiddu and dabarre are more different to af maxaa. Even I don't understand those languages even though I speak Maay.

 

[Hamzza]

This is true. Actually af karre, jiddu and dabarre are more different to af maxaa. Even I don't understand those languages even though I speak Maay.

Jiduu is not even a somaliod language.

 

[Idilinaa]

The basis in which people say Maay is a seperate language and not a dialect ( I've heard this from a Maay scholar) is that they are both not mutually intelligible. Dialects are mutually intelligible which is where people saying it is a different language comes from.

An example would be if someone speaking Maay went to hargeisa and spoke Maay to the local population they would probably think he was speaking afaan oromo and probably understand 20% of what he's saying.

I personally hold that Af Maay is a language that comes under the umbrella of Somali languages and not a dialect. But it is a point of debate which hasnt been settled

There is no real basis from these forum posters, it's just identity exclusionism, lack of knowledge about language and reductionist thinking about Somalis ,who can be regionally and economically varied. Af-Maay in the academic circles and tradition is just a speech variation of the same Somali language. All the Somali speech variations descend from the same common language ancestor.

In regards to it's mutual intelligibility , there is one study done by Deqa Hassan that tested it more objectively Somali Dialects in the United States: How Intelligible is Af-Maay to Speakers of Af-Maxaa?

That concluded it is partially mutually intelligeable with Af-Maaxa and a Type-5 dialect. That it also has overlapping common cultural history with Af-Maxaa

Wether something is classified as a dialect or a language isn't solely a political umberalla, but there is linguistic and non-linguistic factors that should be considered.

I think this table concretizes an understanding to how language-dialect relationships are concieved. If you look at Danish and Norwegian they are mutually intelligeable but have seperate cultural history and therefore it's that non-linguistic factor that makes up the deciding difference between them.

Af-Maxaa, Af-Maay and the various other speech variations share however the same overlapping common cultural history and have varrying degrees of intelligeability between them. Thats why it makes sense to consider them dialects of the same language as opposed to distinct languages.