Somali language (Af Soomaali)

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Re: Somali language (Af Soomaali)

Postby Leezu » 2011-09-20, 10:28

BezierCurve wrote:Thanks, yes, it could've been a question "Is it busy", that makes perfect sense.

I wonder what would be the difference bewteen "magacayga" and "magaceygu"? (The first one found on the University Of Qaran website).

Also, what does the suffix "-u" do in personal pronouns (aniga/u, adiga/u etc.)?


As I see it there is no difference in ending with -a or -u, I think it has to do more with dialects that maybe the Northern Somalis might use the -u instead of -a. But still the same word with the same meaning.
My dad is Somali but I've never heard him use the aniga with an -u and he was born in the capital Mogadishu but also admits that the capital region as their own dialect (does include reshaped words) and calls the other dialects even if the standard is from the north, "qaldan" which means "wrong" or "reer baadiye" which means "redneck".

I will investigate more in that when I visit my dad or any of my Somali relatives and come back to answering that question.
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Re: Somali language (Af Soomaali)

Postby Vortex » 2012-03-13, 1:56

I'm bumping this thread, since I'm interested in learning Somali. I'm a linguistics student (almost done with the course require for my degree) and the language families I'm interested in doing research in contains Somali. I'm currently learning Arabic and I'm also interested in learning Amharic.
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Re: Somali language (Af Soomaali)

Postby Meera » 2012-12-29, 19:31

Can anyone tell me if this song is in Somali?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LW3bFnMcSAk

I know Black Hawk Down takes place in Somalia, but I was wondering if the song in the beggining of it, if its actaully in Somali? Also has anyon seen the movie and know that the extras are speaking Somali? I know they aren't Somali's but I was just wondering about the language used. I have been getting different answears online and I was just curious. Mahadsanid :)
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Re: Somali language (Af Soomaali)

Postby Leezu » 2013-02-16, 13:17

Meera wrote:Can anyone tell me if this song is in Somali?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LW3bFnMcSAk

I know Black Hawk Down takes place in Somalia, but I was wondering if the song in the beggining of it, if its actaully in Somali? Also has anyon seen the movie and know that the extras are speaking Somali? I know they aren't Somali's but I was just wondering about the language used. I have been getting different answears online and I was just curious. Mahadsanid :)


It's not a Somali song, I'd guess it is a Arabic or Farsi (Persian) song. It doesn't sound like Somali at all or anything near. Maybe even Swahili since its related to Arabic and the melody sounds more like a African/Swahili type of thing.

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Re: Somali language (Af Soomaali)

Postby Leezu » 2013-02-16, 13:18

Meera wrote:Can anyone tell me if this song is in Somali?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LW3bFnMcSAk

I know Black Hawk Down takes place in Somalia, but I was wondering if the song in the beggining of it, if its actaully in Somali? Also has anyon seen the movie and know that the extras are speaking Somali? I know they aren't Somali's but I was just wondering about the language used. I have been getting different answears online and I was just curious. Mahadsanid :)


It's not a Somali song, I'd guess it is a Arabic or Farsi (Persian) song. It doesn't sound like Somali at all or anything near. Maybe even Swahili since its related to Arabic and the melody sounds more like a African/Swahili type of thing.

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Re: Somali language (Af Soomaali)

Postby Meera » 2013-02-19, 21:26

Leezu wrote:
It's not a Somali song, I'd guess it is a Arabic or Farsi (Persian) song. It doesn't sound like Somali at all or anything near. Maybe even Swahili since its related to Arabic and the melody sounds more like a African/Swahili type of thing.


Thanks so much Leezu! I really wanted to know if it was Somali or not. It doesn't sound like Swahili. I know its definitely not Persian or Arabic. Unless it's a weird dialect of Arabic I never heard. Sorry Leezu for another question, but have you seen the movie? Were the extras actually speaking Somali? I'm just curious because I really wanted to hear a song/dialogues in Somali.
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Re: Somali language (Af Soomaali)

Postby vijayjohn » 2013-02-19, 21:59

I just listened to the song. I couldn't figure it out simply by listening, either, but it's sung by Baaba Maal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baaba_Maal), who is Senegalese. Based on this, I'm guessing that it's in Pulaar, which I'm sure is completely irrelevant to (and inappropriate for) the movie!

I don't know whether any of this helps, but while I haven't found any Somali dialogues on my own yet, I'm sure you can find one easily enough on YouTube. There's also a BBC Somali service that you can listen to online. Finally, here's the only Somali song I have heard thus far ("Samo ku waar," the national anthem of Somaliland):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpg-HWlAcVA

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Re: Somali language (Af Soomaali)

Postby Meera » 2013-02-20, 7:15

Wow, I know finding a native Somali singer would be hard but still having a Senegalese singer and language is just very dumb. I love the movie but an Arabic song would have been even more accurate than a Senegalese singer :roll:

I just saw the BBC website for Somali, I never thought it had audio but I'm glad it does because I always wanted to really hear it. And nice song :P
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Re: Somali language (Af Soomaali)

Postby vijayjohn » 2013-02-21, 1:32

Thanks!

You think it's stupid that they got a Senegalese singer? I think they knew that most people in the audience would be too stupid to know or care (they're not on UniLang, after all...!). Hollywood often does silly things like this. I think it's more interesting that Americans generally seem to not get how dumb this is.

The ignorance of American people in these things can really be something. I remember one of my teachers in high school claiming that all of the languages of Africa were simply dialects of one language. She was a very friendly teacher who otherwise seemed pretty smart, so I was astonished that she actually believed this. (So I guess that would mean Moroccan Arabic isn't a dialect of Arabic, but rather of Swahili? Or is Afrikaans a dialect of Arabic? Or what? :lol:)

Two jokes (or maybe even actual facts! I'm going to get the percentages wrong here, but you get the idea): One "joke" is that 90% of Americans could not locate the US on a map. The other is that 75% of Americans could not locate Earth...on a map of Earth! :rotfl:

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Re: Somali language (Af Soomaali)

Postby Meera » 2013-02-21, 16:55

vijayjohn wrote:Thanks!

You think it's stupid that they got a Senegalese singer? I think they knew that most people in the audience would be too stupid to know or care (they're not on UniLang, after all...!). Hollywood often does silly things like this. I think it's more interesting that Americans generally seem to not get how dumb this is.



Yeah, I mean the movie was highly praised for accuracy and won many high prestigious awards. But I do kind of understand, it would be hard to get a Somali singer for that type of movie and that Senegalese singer is pretty popular in West Africa so I can see why they did it. I can also understand everyday Americans not knowing the difference but the awards shows and critics should know. For example, I loved the movie Zero Dark Thirty, but there is two scenes in Pakistan where they are speaking Arabic! It's more realistic than Senegalese in Somalia but still. I saw Argo and loved it, mainly for the fact that through the whole movie they speak the right language! I know their accents may sound like Iranian Americans but still it isn't Arabic in Pakistan. :P There was one movie I watched called, "Dear John" and all the Afghans speak Turkish. I was so shocked by that, how could they miss something like that? You could do a quick search on the internet knowing Afghans don't speak Turkish.
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Re: Somali language (Af Soomaali)

Postby vijayjohn » 2013-02-22, 4:16

Ah. I haven't actually seen the movie yet. (Or heard that much about it, or any of the others you mentioned for that matter). I didn't realize it was considered so accurate :-P But all this nonsense reminds me of how Disney insists that Mulan is based on a true story, when in fact everything that has ever been said about Mulan is based on the Ballad of Mulan.

I guess the relevant language for Argo would be Persian. If they didn't get that right, I bet there would have been huge protests in L.A., home to the world's largest expatriate Iranian community!

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Re: Somali language (Af Soomaali)

Postby benjamino59 » 2013-05-06, 20:10

I'm thinking about learning Somali, mostly because it is the native language of three people in my class, and I miss being able to practise my languages. Also, Somali sounds interesting, and is one of the most common nondanish languages in Denmark.

Are there any good, free ressouces out there for learning Somali?

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Re: Somali language (Af Soomaali)

Postby księżycowy » 2013-05-06, 23:32

Good? Yes. Free? Not so much.

I was able to find this:
http://redesigninc.files.wordpress.com/ ... e-book.pdf


More interestingly, I've also found this:
http://www.indiana.edu/~libsalc/african ... gibks.html
It's a collection of materials on and in Somali that have been digitized online.

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Re: Somali language (Af Soomaali)

Postby Trebor » 2013-05-11, 8:55

benjamino59 wrote:I'm thinking about learning Somali,


Excellent idea. :)

mostly because it is the native language of three people in my class, and I miss being able to practise my languages.


Be aware that Somali has a lot of dialectal variation--north/central, coastal, and/or southern could be/are considered separate languages. Your classmates might not speak standard Somali if they've been educated only in Denmark, so you might have a hard time communicating with them based on what you've learnt from a textbook. Aside from that difficulty, have fun :)

Are there any good, free ressouces out there for learning Somali?


To get started, check out

http://somaliaholland.free.fr/somali_language.htm

and

http://www.ling.upenn.edu/courses/Sprin ... /nouns.htm

There are some good learning materials in print out there, but they aren't cheap, unfortunately. If you can, get these books on interlibrary loan:

- "Colloquial Somali" by Martin Orwin;

- "Somali Textbook" by R. David Zorc and Abdullahi A. Issa;

- "Essential English-Somali Dictionary" by Awil Ali Hashi and Abdirahman A. Hashi;

- "Somali-English Dictionary/With English Index" by R. David Zorc, Madina M. Osman, and Virginia Luling;

- "Fiqi's Somali-English Dictionary" by Abdirahman Hashi and Awil Hashi; and

- "Somali Reference Grammar" by John Saeed.
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Re: Somali language (Af Soomaali)

Postby księżycowy » 2014-06-21, 13:48

I've just found this pdf textbook for Somali:
http://redesigninc.wordpress.com/2011/0 ... rn-somali/

Enjoy!

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Re: Somali language (Af Soomaali)

Postby Trebor » 2014-06-27, 2:37

Vortex wrote:I'm bumping this thread, since I'm interested in learning Somali. I'm a linguistics student (almost done with the course require for my degree) and the language families I'm interested in doing research in contains Somali. I'm currently learning Arabic and I'm also interested in learning Amharic.


Did you ever end up tackling Somali? It's a great language.
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Re: Somali language (Af Soomaali)

Postby Trebor » 2014-06-27, 2:48

Leezu wrote:If you see an Habesha and a snake, kill the Habesha first because the snake might not be poisonous.


This is your current signature. By "Habesha" I take you to mean "person from Ethiopia". There is no reason to lump all inhabitants of that country into an undifferentiated whole, worthy of distrust or even death. Your statement could be interpreted as incitement and thus troubles me.

Edit: And if you intend something else by your signature, I would like to know what it is and ask that you amend this statement to clarify it.
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Re: Somali language (Af Soomaali)

Postby Leezu » 2014-08-24, 14:19

It's a Somali and Oromo saying (maahmaah/proverb). Because of the skirmishes between our ethnics, but in recent times, in Mogadishu for example it is used as a joke when talking about the Amhars and Tigrays.

Anyways, I was in Somalia this summer, I spent my days mostly in Mogadishu near the beach and actually went to my families clan settlements and origins in Qallimo. And took a trip to my uncles farm, a little bit outside Afgoye.

I picked up more Somali, but still have a long way to go for those who are wanna learn Somali, I'd suggest getting a friend to speak the language to or visit radio/news websites extensively.

The weekdays for Somali language are:

Sunday - Koobin
Monday - Labiin
Tuesday - Labta
Wednesday - Koodaar
Thursday - Hakisa
Friday - Hakistira
Saturday - Soroog

Dont believe the Arabic weekdays that most urban Somalis have adopted, these are the true ancient Somali words.
The Somali language kind off needs the same thing that they've made here in Sweden called "Swedish Academy" which regulates the language. It removes loanwords and tries to use as much native words as is possible.

And if you got questions, I'll try and explain and translate as much as possible.
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Re: Somali language (Af Soomaali)

Postby הענט » 2017-02-05, 11:14

vijayjohn wrote:Thanks!

You think it's stupid that they got a Senegalese singer? I think they knew that most people in the audience would be too stupid to know or care (they're not on UniLang, after all...!). Hollywood often does silly things like this. I think it's more interesting that Americans generally seem to not get how dumb this is.

The ignorance of American people in these things can really be something. I remember one of my teachers in high school claiming that all of the languages of Africa were simply dialects of one language. She was a very friendly teacher who otherwise seemed pretty smart, so I was astonished that she actually believed this. (So I guess that would mean Moroccan Arabic isn't a dialect of Arabic, but rather of Swahili? Or is Afrikaans a dialect of Arabic? Or what? :lol:)

Two jokes (or maybe even actual facts! I'm going to get the percentages wrong here, but you get the idea): One "joke" is that 90% of Americans could not locate the US on a map. The other is that 75% of Americans could not locate Earth...on a map of Earth! :rotfl:

The movie In Hell starring Jean-Claude Van Damme took place in Russia, but it was shot in Bulgaria. The song at the beginning however is in Czech. It's from Dvorak's Rusalka. Funny thing is I couldn't understand most of it. Not sure if it's because it was sung by a foreigner or because it's opera and therefore unintelligible to me. ;)


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