# How Somali came to be written: from Osmanya to the 1972 Latin alphabet > The history of written Somali: Arabic-script writing, Osmanya, Borama and Kaddare scripts, the 1972 Latin alphabet, and the 1974 literacy campaign. Source page: https://calankii.com/en/history/somali-language-written-1972/ Last checked: 2026-11-12 Publisher: Calankii (https://calankii.com) ## Before 1972: many scripts, none official For centuries, Somali scholars wrote Somali in Arabic letters, mostly for religious verse. In the early 1920s Osman Yusuf Kenadid, of the Hobyo ruling family, created his own alphabet, Osmanya ([Osmanya script, Wikipedia, backup](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osmanya_script)). It was used for letters and bookkeeping. Italian authorities saw it as a sign of nationalism. Osmanya was added to the Unicode standard in 2003, version 4.0 ([Unicode Osmanya chart](https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U10480.pdf)). Two other home-grown scripts followed. In 1933 in Borama, the Qur'an teacher Sheikh Abdurahman Sheikh Nuur created the Borama (Gadabuursi) script, used mainly for religious poems ([Gadabuursi Somali Script, Wikipedia, backup](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gadabuursi_Somali_Script)). The Kaddare script followed in 1952 ([Osmanya script, Wikipedia, backup](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osmanya_script)). A few months after independence, a Somali Language Committee was set up to find the best way to write Somali. It considered nine scripts, Arabic, Latin and several Somali-made ones. Its report of 1962 favoured Latin, but disagreement was so strong that no government acted on it ([Library of Congress, *Somalia: A Country Study*](https://countrystudies.us/somalia/25.htm)). Until 1972, Italian and English were the languages of government and schools, and some key posts were held by two officials, one for each language (same source). ## 21 October 1972: the Latin alphabet The government chose a Latin alphabet devised by Shire Jama Ahmed ([Shire Jama Ahmed, Wikipedia, backup](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shire_Jama_Ahmed)). It drops p, v and z. It uses c for the Arabic Ężayn sound, x for the deep h, and q for the deep k. It adds the pairs dh, kh and sh. Long vowels are written double, as in *Soomaali*. The decision was announced on 21 October 1972, the third anniversary of the 1969 coup, for use across Somalia from 1 January 1973 ([Library of Congress](https://countrystudies.us/somalia/25.htm); [Goobjoog News](https://en.goobjoog.com/key-milestones-in-the-history-of-somali-language)). Every government official was given three months, later six, to learn the new script. Somali textbooks reached primary schools in 1973 and secondary schools and higher education by 1975 ([Library of Congress](https://countrystudies.us/somalia/25.htm)). ## The literacy campaign: "bar ama baro" The Library of Congress puts literacy at only about 5 percent in 1972. The first round of the campaign ran in three-month sessions in towns and settled areas, taught by up to 8,000 teachers, mostly civil servants and soldiers. It reportedly taught several hundred thousand people to read and write ([Library of Congress](https://countrystudies.us/somalia/25.htm)). The rural campaign began in August 1974, with more than 20,000 teachers, half of them secondary students whose school year was suspended (same source). From 1974, schools closed. Secondary students went out to villages and nomadic camps to teach ([Hoben, "Literacy Campaigns in Ethiopia and Somalia", Northeast African Studies, 1988](https://www.jstor.org/stable/43661187)). The slogan was *bar ama baro*: "teach or learn". Hassan M. Abukar was a 14-year-old teacher posted to Jamaame, 362 km from Mogadishu. He was given chalk, a blackboard case, a blanket and a canteen. "What can a 14-year-old teach?" he imagined his mother asking ([Abukar, "Ololihii (The Campaign)", WardheerNews, 2015](https://wardheernews.com/ololihii-the-campaign/)). The Ministry of Education received a UNESCO literacy prize in 1975 ([Literacy in Somalia, Wikipedia, backup](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_Somalia)). Claims of the literacy rate afterwards range widely, from about 55 to 80 percent, and none has a clear primary source. We show them as claims, not as fact. The campaign ran into the severe drought of 1974 to 1975, and a UN estimate put literacy at 24 percent in 1990 ([Library of Congress](https://countrystudies.us/somalia/25.htm)). ## Literacy today Wikipedia, citing USAID, gives adult literacy of about 41 percent in 2022: 54 percent for men and 22 percent for women ([Literacy in Somalia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_Somalia)). The war after 1991 closed most public schools for years. ## Writing Somali now The Hargeisa International Book Fair, founded by Jama Musse Jama in 2008, set out to grow reading and writing in Somali. One report counted more than a hundred new Somali-language books in a single year ([NPR, 2016](https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/08/16/490174033/a-land-in-limbo-hopes-that-books-will-keep-it-going)). Somali is now typed on every phone and read on every news site. ## Why it matters In 1972 a whole nation chose one way to write its own language, and teenagers carried it to the countryside. That is proof that Somalis can agree on a national standard and spread it fast. --- I want to help with this: email hello@calankii.com. Fix this page: email hello@calankii.com with the page link and your source.