What is it that you love about being Somali?

[Angelina]

For me? I’d say our sense of freedom. I don’t know how to articulate this, but Somalis aren’t a group of people that cower or can be forced to do stuff against their will on an individual level. Also, our love of bravery. It is a huge virtue for us and being seen as ‘fuuley’ is shameful. Funnily enough, it doesn’t just extend to men. I think our ancestors worked out earlier on that strong mothers produce strong sons as well.

 

[Khal Mah Oma]

Somalis are probably the only Cushitic people that are more bigger in groups that have expanded their names into the whole of the horn region. I think we’re the only groups in the horn that have a name before us. Which is a huge deal.

 

[novanova]

Our sense of community, random somalis do feel like apart of my family and they do care for me irl

 

[Shimbiris]

Somali women. The opinionatedness, the loudness, the tendency to excel, the tough work ethic, the matriarchal energy and the fact that our culture encourages it.

Sure, some of the ways this is fostered isn’t great like the gabbaro of the house basically being used as free maids in some families but yeah… love y’all libaaxaddo.

 

[Midas]

Without a doubt the language and the literary tradition that surrounds it. Its taken me several years as somebody from the diaspora to really appreciate how strange amd unqiue the language/poetry is.

Somali strikes me as an almost artificially engineered language with how allitertaive everything is. This poem below is what alliterverativ verse looks like but in somali instead of using 2 or three letters we can only use 1 for the entire poem.

Also the other langauge which had alliterattive verse to the point it was almost a part of the structure of the language like somali were old english/germanic lanaguges and Finnish. Which what Tolkien based elvish on . So in some ways somali is sort of like elvish .

 

[Shimbiris]

Without a doubt the language and the literary tradition that surrounds it. Its taken me several years as somebody from the diaspora to really appreciate how strange amd unqiue the language/poetry is.

Somali strikes me as an almost artificially engineered language with how allitertaive everything is. This poem below is what alliterverativ verse looks like but in somali instead of using 2 or three letters we can only use 1 for the entire poem.

View attachment 370306


Also the other langauge which had alliterattive verse to the point it was almost a part of the structure of the language like somali were old english/germanic lanaguges and Finnish. Which what Tolkien based elvish on . So in some ways somali is sort of like elvish .

I always found Somali poetry so strange as someone who's main exposure to poetry was through English. English poetry is still very much the same day-to-day spoken language just with some extra pith and wit and maybe a tendency to rhyme depending on the poetry's format but the Soomaali poems my mother would share with me or I'd see or read around legitimately felt like a distinct language from the normal spoken language.

I honestly would frequently require my mother translate a poem for me as though I was listening to or reading something from a distinct but similar language. I found this so strange; almost like there was a form of diglossia at play which was so weird for a language the supposedly didn't have a long literary tradition.

Began to make more sense when we all dug up that stuff on Somalis clearly using Ajami scripts going back to the Middle-Ages and then many even desert-dwelling pastoralists being literate and able to read and write Arabic which they learned by often translating Arabic words into Somali. Just didn't add up that our ancestors simply "loved poetry" and developed such mature poetic styles.

 

[Angelina]

I always found Somali poetry so strange as someone who's main exposure to poetry was through English. English poetry is still very much the same day-to-day spoken language just with some extra pith and wit and maybe a tendency to rhyme depending on the poetry's format but the Soomaali poems my mother would share with me or I'd see or read around legitimately felt like a distinct language from the normal spoken language.

I honestly would frequently require my mother translate a poem for me as though I was listening to or reading something from a distinct but similar language. I found this so strange; almost like there was a form of diglossia at play which was so weird for a language the supposedly didn't have a long literary tradition.

Began to make more sense when we all dug up that stuff on Somalis clearly using Ajami scripts going back to the Middle-Ages and then many even desert-dwelling pastoralists being literate and able to read and write Arabic which they learned by often translating Arabic words into Somali. Just didn't add up that our ancestors simply "loved poetry" and developed such mature poetic styles.

I don’t know much about Somali poetry but I always assumed that the reason why it is hard for us to understand Somali poetry is because it is based on an older form of Somali? The same way non native speakers will definitely struggle with Shakespeare poetry due to use of older forms of English?

 

[Angelina]

Also @Shimbiris, the resident historian and anthropologist, what is your take on this? I’m a novice. I only started to become Interested in this when a book I was reading mentioned that the early Egyptian kings all hailed from upper Egypt. But yes, I’d love to get your input if you have time and are interested. Thanks.

I’m not Afrocentric, but first kings of the old Kingdom were clearly more SSA

I don’t believe that Somalis descend from these people, but I believe that our ancient ancestors and the founders of the Old kingdom had the same origins but we split off. To be clear its not like the people who established these kingdoms came to back to somalia and that we descended from those...

www.somalispot.com

 

[Shimbiris]

Also @Shimbiris, the resident historian and anthropologist, what is your take on this? I’m a novice. I only started to become Interested in this when a book I was reading mentioned that the early Egyptian kings all hailed from upper Egypt. But yes, I’d love to get your input if you have time and are interested. Thanks.

I’m not Afrocentric, but first kings of the old Kingdom were clearly more SSA

I don’t believe that Somalis descend from these people, but I believe that our ancient ancestors and the founders of the Old kingdom had the same origins but we split off. To be clear its not like the people who established these kingdoms came to back to somalia and that we descended from those...

www.somalispot.com

I am working on a post regarding something related. Still has some work to do but once it's done I'll link you. Would like your take on it and in relation to your own findings. But in the meantime, I'll just say we're moving in similar although not exactly the same directions.

 

[Ghengis Kaarhis]

Our resilience and the fact that we are muslims.

 

[Midas]

I always found Somali poetry so strange as someone who's main exposure to poetry was through English. English poetry is still very much the same day-to-day spoken language just with some extra pith and wit and maybe a tendency to rhyme depending on the poetry's format but the Soomaali poems my mother would share with me or I'd see or read around legitimately felt like a distinct language from the normal spoken language.

I honestly would frequently require my mother translate a poem for me as though I was listening to or reading something from a distinct but similar language. I found this so strange; almost like there was a form of diglossia at play which was so weird for a language the supposedly didn't have a long literary tradition.

Began to make more sense when we all dug up that stuff on Somalis clearly using Ajami scripts going back to the Middle-Ages and then many even desert-dwelling pastoralists being literate and able to read and write Arabic which they learned by often translating Arabic words into Somali. Just didn't add up that our ancestors simply "loved poetry" and developed such mature poetic styles.

Yes and according to b.w andrezjewski somali unlike the other Muslim languages seems to have not adopted any Arabic poetic meter or conventions at all. He speculates this is likely due to somalis already having a well developed poetic tradition before the arrival of islam.

You can still sort of see this preislamic root of somali poetry in that a lot of the old folksongs and proverbs seem to be talking about animals and plants as if they can understand speech and giving them commands.
Here these somali linguists describe this phenomenon and to me it seems like these are a sort of hint into our past beliefs

 

[Angelina]

I am working on a post regarding something related. Still has some work to do but once it's done I'll link you. Would like your take on it and in relation to your own findings. But in the meantime, I'll just say we're moving in similar although not exactly the same directions.

I’m a complete novice honestly and what I posted was an inkling rather than cold hard facts. That isn’t my forte unfortunately and wanted the opinions of those who clearly know more than me. I’ve never been one of those people who thought ‘we wuz….’ But I deffo see a connection between proto Somalis or ancient Cushites and early Old Kingdom Egyptians. There is clearly a connection but I don’t believe like the other poster that it was us..I think it was a group of people who shared the same origins like a brother group and we went our separate ways whilst they achieved greatness: Egyptian civilization.

 

[The Oponian Guild]

the language in its eloquence, it’s expressiveness, the oral retelling of ancestors deeds, what they did and the sometimes spooky aspects of their lives. The honour codes, the can do attitude, the pride shown etc etc