- Official language in
- Somalia
- Script
- Latin
Where it's spoken
Article 5 of Somalia's constitution says that the official language of the Federal Republic of Somalia is Somali, specified there as Maay and Maxaa-tiri, and that Arabic is the second language.
Sources
- Somalia's Constitution of 2012 — Comparative Constitutions Project — Article 5, Official Languages
Script & pronunciation
Omniglot describes the Latin alphabet as the current official script for Somali, adopted after a coup in the twentieth century, and credits the spelling system to Shire Jama Ahmed. This app's Somali cards show the Somali text only; none of them carries a separate romanization. The note on the app's card for "Hello (peace be upon you)", Assalaamu calaykum, says that the letter c stands for the pharyngeal sound.
Sources
Grammar essentials
The World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS) gives Somali a basic word order of subject–object–verb, a negative morpheme that precedes the verb, and a definite affix. In this app, the card for "I would like tea", Shaah ayaan rabaa, puts the wanted item first and gives it the focus particle ayaa, according to its note. The card for "I don't know", Ma aqaan, puts ma in front of the verb form aqaan to mean "I do not know". The card for "Do you speak English?", Ingiriisiga ma ku hadashaa?, begins with the language name carrying the article -ga, and uses ma to mark a yes/no question.
Sources
- WALS Online (Dryer, Matthew S. & Haspelmath, Martin, eds.) — Feature 81A, "Order of Subject, Object and Verb," Somali datapoint
- WALS Online (Dryer, Matthew S. & Haspelmath, Martin, eds.) — Feature 143A, "Order of Negative Morpheme and Verb," Somali datapoint
- WALS Online (Dryer, Matthew S. & Haspelmath, Martin, eds.) — Feature 37A, "Definite Articles," Somali datapoint